Bloody BT

[Kitten]

I think BT do a pretty good job when you consider just how many people they serve. I've had problems with them yeah, I've had the obligatory bottle of wine sent out to apologise but generally, as the UKs prefferred supplier of phone lines, they're bound to have a percentage of people who are affected by problems - and as most of these will occur when people move or want a new service installing, this will happen to most people at some point.

It is frustrating, but when i was little, a house phone was a luxury, never mind broadband, internet connection, all that malarky. We only had one because the hospital paid for it because my mum worked on-call and we were the only people in our street that had one. Now just because it's an everyday right people expect to have it installed, connected ,switched on, for free. Back then, if you didn't pay the connection fee, you didn't have one, simple as that.

[petemc]

I think in part its because its so behind the scenes. Paying £100+ for a Sky+ box is fine. £100 for a nice new 1tb hd or something is fine. But this just seems like you're paying £125 for a switch to be flicked. Oh and I'm not using the phone line... to make phone calls. Which again feels odd. Happy to pay for ADSL but I guess it just feels like I'm paying for something so trivial that I won't use, even though I'll be using it like 24/7. Its all that perception milarky coupled with "Aw what? But I just spent loads on..."

[Davey_Pitch]

I dislike BT with a passion currently. When we moved into our new place we had the connection fee added to our monthly bill so we didn't have to pay it all in one go. However, instead of reverting us back to just our line rental after 3 months, they "forgot" to do so causing us to be overcharged for 3 months. When I noticed, I rang them up and they said sorry, we'll refund you the difference right away, which they did. A couple of months later and our bill goes up inexplicably. I ring them up again to find out the problem. Apparently they refunded us too much and instead of contacting us and telling us their mistake, they simply decided to increase our bill without telling us. When they tried to explain it initially, they couldn't explain why our bill had gone up. In the end I had to sit down with a pad and pen and work out exactly what we should have paid, what we had paid, and what we were refunded. Only then did it actually make sense because the people on the phone couldn't explain it to me.

One more screw up from them and we're off somewhere else I think. It's a phone line we only pay rental on (we pay Sky for our phone calls), it's not hard to get our billing right surely?!

[petemc]

Erp. That's what I chose to do too. I'll be watching them closely.

[Streeteh]

Originally Posted by Davey_Pitch

One more screw up from them and we're off somewhere else I think.

I was under the impression that most/all ADSL providers required a BT landline?

[Burble]

Originally Posted by Streeteh

I was under the impression that most/all ADSL providers required a BT landline?

I think with the exception of Karoo/Kingston in Hull that's the case. The copper tail itself is BT owned but the DSLAM in the exchange that the ADSL goes through could be owned by another company.

[Davey_Pitch]

Originally Posted by Streeteh

I was under the impression that most/all ADSL providers required a BT landline?

They do, but Sky have offered to take over the whole thing (line rental) so we'd only have to deal with them, not BT. The service provided isn't an issue at all, merely the customer service.

[petemc]

Talktalk do an install for £65 but I think you're then stuck with them for broadband.

[Streeteh]

Originally Posted by petemc

Talktalk do an install for £65 but I think you're then stuck with them for broadband.

You are indeed, that's how they recoup the cost (as they're basically just paying BT for you)

[Haly]

Never ever go near TalkTalk. Ever.