Switching to BT broadband?

Sringo

So I'm currently on Digiweb which is absolutely terrible so I've decided to switch ISP.

I was looking through BT Irelands site when I saw Bundle No. 3 here:
http://www.btireland.ie/AtHome_bb_totaltalk.shtml

It seems to be too good to be true. The price of it is just a bit more that our phone bill at the moment. It's also 7 times faster than what we're getting now and it has unlimited downloads.

So I'm just wondering if there's any catch? It kinda seems too good to be true. I'm looking at that ''Subject to fair usage***'' line in particular. Do they actually enforce that in relation to downloading TV shows etc?

Thanks in advance.

jor el

It's not unlimited, it's actually extremely limited. You won't get 24M from it, ever, and that's only available in a very limited number of exchanges anyway. BT's billing system is a nightmare if you fall foul of it, and their customer service is nothing short of a sick joke.

Go with anyone other than BT.

I'd recommend Smart Telecom.

Triangle

On the other hand.....

They're one of the providers that actually issue warning letters if you start abusing the fair usage policy unlike some (berlico, that fined me straight away for breaching a 10gb limit by 3 gb :mad:)

Most telecoms customer service is terrible, i haven't found any tech support that actually know what they're talking about.

And the number of BT billing foul ups must be limited (in my experience...been with them in three different houses....they have never screwed up the bill)

I find them good - never had a problem with them and would reccomend them in an instant.

edit: I'm also never been higher than 3Mb with them as well.......the higher speeds prob have more issues.

jor el

Triangle wrote: »

And the number of BT billing foul ups must be limited (in my experience...been with them in three different houses....they have never screwed up the bill)

I had them at two separate addresses, and they did the same thing twice. It's not an easy job to get them to correct their mistakes either, and you'd be well advised just to avoid them.

dub45

Triangle wrote: »

On the other hand.....

They're one of the providers that actually issue warning letters if you start abusing the fair usage policy unlike some (berlico, that fined me straight away for breaching a 10gb limit by 3 gb :mad:)

Most telecoms customer service is terrible, i haven't found any tech support that actually know what they're talking about.

And the number of BT billing foul ups must be limited (in my experience...been with them in three different houses....they have never screwed up the bill)

I find them good - never had a problem with them and would reccomend them in an instant.

edit: I'm also never been higher than 3Mb with them as well.......the higher speeds prob have more issues.

If only:rolleyes: do a search!

charlie_says

I have been with them for several years now and it has been a mixed bag.

We had problems with bills in the past and it was very difficult to sort out with BT.

In fairness to them we should have done all our complaints via post and we certainly got results from them after we started (mind there was many a frustrating call to the billing department) especially when comreg were brought in.

Since then it has been fine. The phone is probably slightly more expensive than other providers but we use it so little that it hardly matters. The DSL service (2mbit/256kbit) is pretty rock solid. Decent enough router for P2P and the service has only failed probably for a few hours over the course of 3+ years. My only complaint with it is that we were supposed to be upgraded to 3mbit some time ago for free but it has been pushed back time and time again. Also my pings are pretty high at around 120ms but tbh it doesnt bother me even though I game a good bit (I grew up with 28.8 modems and learned to play with lagg).

One awesome thing about BT for me at least is, they don't seem to enforce the cap on my account at all, I have the P2P almost constantly chugging away 24/7 and have never been throttled. I suspect my account may have been flagged because of the billing issue we had in the past.

So apart from the ball ache in the past, I'm pretty happy with it.

Saying that though, if you can get either NTL or Smart jump on the chance, I would if I could.

littleredspot

Had BT for over a year, advertised 24mb, normally get about 15mb so no complaints on the speed side, no complaints about billing either and I find there tech people can always clearly sort out any problems.

That said, the no limit is bull, 100Gb/month is the unwritten rule but you don't actually have to go over it to be throttled, they just have to think you're going to break it. Also I've never got a warning I'm about to be throttled:mad:

Just looking around a few other threads and it seems that 80Gb might be the new "unlimited" cap

radiofoot

If you change to BT, just pray that you don't need any technical support that they have to go to Eircom for. I am heading into my 5th weekend without broadband. It took BT 2 and a half weeks to send an engineer to investigate; he confirmed a line fault and BT cannot get Eircom to address it. BT's latest suggest for resolving the issue - "we might have to close your account"! This is the most frustrating experience I have ever had with a service provider. :mad: