BT Broadband - how to get out of a contract?

[cqueen]

As the title says.

I got BT broadband a few weeks ago, got the cheap option but found it was too slow. So I upgraded to the expensive 'unlimited' option which is about double the price. It's not much better at all. Last night I was downloading at 5kb/s thats worse than dial up ffs!

I've been with sky before and never had any problems, we moved house and went with the cheaper BT option, so now that I'm paying an expensive rate anyway I'd much rather be back with Sky.

Is there a way I can cancel my BT broadband on the grounds that the service they're providing is totally inadequate?

Thanks

[Alfanatic]

I don't have a direct answer, but I suspect it might be worth calling Sky, Virgin or whoever, telling them you're on a BT contract, and see what they say. I wouldn't be surprised if they're all experts at cancelling eachothers contracts and I suspect they'll say "don't worry about that, we'll sort it for you. Charge? no, that won't cost you a penny. Can I interest you in 3 years extended warranty on the flylead?"

Or something like that.

[GreenV8S]

How much of that download speed was due to your own internet connection? I suggest checking the nominal up/down speeds at your modem, and do a speed test, if you haven't already. The problem may be that you've been capped (perhaps temporarily) for some reason, or it may be nothing to do with your ISP and caused by the site you were downloading from.

[paddyhasneeds]

Given it's the same copper wire all the way from your house back to the Exchange, my money would be on something at the Exchange or at BT's end that's not been tweaked suitably.

First thing's first, according to your router what speed is it connected to the Exchange at?

Also, and it's been ages since I've gone anywhere near this so I'm not sure how it works these days, but you need to do a BT Speedtest - this will do a test of the line between you and BT and tends (tended) to be the one they'd take notice of when people said "My broadband's slow".

Edited by paddyhasneeds on Monday 4th May 15:28

[miniman]

Slightly O/T but does anyone know how to get BT (Openreach, I presume these days) to do anything about slow broadband due to distance from exchange? The most I can even theoretically get is 0.5Mb and I am no more than 2 miles from the exchange. The engineer who installed the phone line implied that the physical cabling from the main road to the exchange is the problem - surely they could / should do something about it?

[buggalugs]

cqueen said:

As the title says.

I got BT broadband a few weeks ago, got the cheap option but found it was too slow. So I upgraded to the expensive 'unlimited' option which is about double the price. It's not much better at all. Last night I was downloading at 5kb/s thats worse than dial up ffs!

I've been with sky before and never had any problems, we moved house and went with the cheaper BT option, so now that I'm paying an expensive rate anyway I'd much rather be back with Sky.

Is there a way I can cancel my BT broadband on the grounds that the service they're providing is totally inadequate?

Thanks

You need to exhaust their technical support options really, spend some time getting messed about on the phone and then if they can't fix it send them a letter explaining where you're up to and that if it isn't fixed you won't be paying them any more.

They might get someone from second line to call you and try and resolve it, or they might ignore you. If they still don't fix it, then switch suppliers and don't pay them. They will come after you for the money - that's where it gets fun

If you do switch, go to someone with good tech support (Zen?) as you may still havea fault present somewhere even after the switch.

[mattley]

Call BT, the phone side not broadband and tell them you've got call quality issues and can they increase the gain on your line. This has worked for several of my friends.

[anonymous-user]

mattley said:

Call BT, the phone side not broadband and tell them you've got call quality issues and can they increase the gain on your line. This has worked for several of my friends.

I went through similar pain last year when my BT broadband 'upgrade' halved the download speed. Be prepared for hours of frustrating calls to the offshore department. They will blame your PC/Modem & everything else that is not theirs (although it was OK before they touched it).
Sothey suggested that my BT line was at fault. But the BT line department said they would charge me if they couldn't find a fault (although BT Broadband directed me to them!). They are different companies apparantly, which rather negates any benefit of using them.

So they kindly released me from the contract & I'm on Sky £10 a month now. Faster/cheaper/better so far.

[bimsb6]

miniman said:

Slightly O/T but does anyone know how to get BT (Openreach, I presume these days) to do anything about slow broadband due to distance from exchange? The most I can even theoretically get is 0.5Mb and I am no more than 2 miles from the exchange. The engineer who installed the phone line implied that the physical cabling from the main road to the exchange is the problem - surely they could / should do something about it?

report problem to your adsl provider openreach just maintain the circuit ,the provider would need to request openreach adsl engineer to attend

[tinman0]

5k per second? Sounds like a torrent to me

BT have a time controlled profile for torrents. (At least on our connection)

On normal working hours its next to nothing. 5k would be good.

From 8pm it ups to about 10k, 10pm goes to about 20k, at about 11pm it goes to about 50k and at some time just after midnight it unlocks everything. Typically by about 1230am I'm getting around 600k per second on a well seeded torrent.

At the weekend and bank holidays you can add about an hour to that profile.

[Who me ?]

miniman said:

Slightly O/T but does anyone know how to get BT (Openreach, I presume these days) to do anything about slow broadband due to distance from exchange? The most I can even theoretically get is 0.5Mb and I am no more than 2 miles from the exchange. The engineer who installed the phone line implied that the physical cabling from the main road to the exchange is the problem - surely they could / should do something about it?

One tip I got from BT-whether or not it was flannel -I don't know -on the up to service -rebooting modem can make it look for new settings and higher speeds .But if it's the main cable back to the exchange - bit like asking the lease car company for a new tyres with 2.5mm left .
Couple of years since I had ( first of all UK ON line up to 8MEG) then BT again up to 8MEG .(Was about 3-3.5).Just checked the rough mileage from a postcode close to the exchange and it tells me approx 1.8 miles .(used yahoo maps on directions .)
Got rid of BT for two reasons -cost and the aggro of non UK call centres .OK- only got the cost down by moving to Virgin ,but they do speak a better level of English ,and a lot more helpful.

Best thing to do first - get BT to test your line ,and if any problems (and you've got extensions), remove the front of the BT master socket .Then get them to test again - still there -they've got problems,not you -at this stage they usually own up and come out .
Line OK- try the filter in the test socket of the master socket and do a speed test -if the result is still crap -
then call their overseas call centre ( be prepared for heaps of palming off -one reason for line test ).I usually ended up (couple of times I had problems) of asking for a manager.