BT Business Broadband - Need urgent change

[ikonia]

Today I have made the decision after learning some terrible truths about BT business broadband that have now changed my personal situation.

Some have been mentioned on these boards before - so I won't go into too much detail.

bottom line is BT have a premium business broadband service that is a approx £70 per month. It is for high demand business use.

For 4 years I have had this service with no real issues but a few minor outages. Last month I experences a major outage where my speed dropped from 6 meg to 128k.

This went on for approx 1.5 months to which I was told the fault at the exchange had been fixed.

I have had a recent problem with dropped packets effecting some work I was doing.

Today I found out that this was due to traffic shaping and throttling put on my connection. The 128k "issue" was actually them playing with traffic shaping and getting it wrong. So I was lied to !

I was not informed about any application of traffic shaping being applied. The most annoying thing is that the reason for this that after 4 years of use with BT (normal) I informated them that I had to do a reasonably large data sync with the USA (approx 140GB) and they said this would not be a problem as they had never had a problem with me and that 140GB wasn't actually that much.

Turns out it was an issue. So bottom line is I've been lied to about fair usage policy and cappingo on this high use premium service, I've been lied to about whats going on with my account and now I have issues running business connections.

I need to leave this provider ASAP.

My requirements.

Premium Business broadband provider - high usage, good support/customer care/communication ability to purchase static IP ranges from them

Advice and opinions welcome.

[Steve B]

have you spoken to your solicitor?
is there some way you could claim back the cost of the 1.5 months?

[Splash]

I can't really comment on their Business packages but I use Aquiss 30/300 at home. That allows 30Gb peak/300Gb offpeak and they offer much higher packages than I personally could justify...

Customer service is excellent, their webpage isn't really all that but it's soooooooo nice to be able to talk to tech support that you can talk techy to. Drop them an email and you should get a response fairly sharpish. Static ips aren't a problem - I got 8 for home just by asking, and I'm sure they will offer more if you need it.

[dangel]

I'm with BT Business too - hey, it was a good deal at one point.. The new traffic shaping has transformed my service - it's terrible in the evenings now. I actually rarely use it much at this time of day but when you're reinstalling XP and facing 100mb of download at a capped 30k/sec it's not fun. At all. Upload speed is unaffected.

BT did actually inform it's users about the shaping - you should of got an email sent to your primary BT email account telling you how your 'unlikely' to be affected etc. Absolute crap. You'll probably also find your contract with BT allows them to change the terms of service fairly easily without any real obligation to you - this is pretty common thesedays.

Of course we all expect slowdowns at peak times and as a heavy user i've alway scheduled my downloading (where possible) for the early hours of the day - it's not often i need something huge *now* and i'm fairly concious of being social about my use.

My contract ends in September and i'll be shifting provider then - i've no problem paying for a premium service and there are a number of providers who don't shape but simply state how much you can use and when (so peak times have reduced allowances). I'm not even going to bother trying to talk to BT about this - their support is next to useless (it took them 2 months to sort out a stuck BRAS profile - it was only that I knew what was wrong and persisted with it that got it sorted). The service has been good for maybe 8 months, and now the shaping has made it effectively useless in the evenings (even browsing is slow - they shape *everything*). I predict people will migrate in droves..

I'm looking at these people BTW: http://www.adsl24.co.uk/broadband_office.php 1 month contracts, can switch package monthly (no charge) and they employ support personnel in the UK (which will be refreshing). Office 180 for me probably.

[ikonia]

very interesting comments and some things to research. Thank you.

As I say - no problems paying for a premium servier, but expect to be able to use a premium service.

This has now started to effect my business so its time to move.

[dangel]

You're welcome - yeah same here - I simply can't afford for something to take 2 hours that should of taken maybe 15 mins. If you do go with them please let me know how it goes - i'm stuck for a couple of months (unless I decide to cut n' run by paying my way out). I've heard very good things about them and their support.

I logged a complaint with BT this morning - i'm sure that sometime next year they'll get back to me (when i've long gone elsewhere)

[Skinleech]

Be offer some premium services, no caps with fast upload/download. Static IPs too, and I walys get an email & text when they are about to take payment, or there is some exchange work being carried out.

http://www.bethere.co.uk

[water]

we have just moved our office broadband over to TitanADSL and their service is fab, 1 month minimum contract and their network is is run on the Enta network so you will pretty much recieve a good connection all the time. www.titan-adsl.co.uk they provide upto 8 free static ip address + additional ip address can be purchased.
Also i have just put in an order to migrate my line at home to them.

[Moby-Dick]

<stuck record> ZEN </stuck record>

[peterb]

I'd agree with Moby-Dick - Zen business (a similar price, outstanding customer support, and uncapped downloads. I use a Zen home product, but the general comments on the Zen forums indicate that the office products are just as good.

[ikonia]

zen was already on my list, and the wheels are now rolling.

[water]

we are on TitanADSL unlimited home max 8mbs service at work which is £67 per month. I know a home product at the office, it just works great as we dont need the 832k upload 448 is fine for us lot at work. no trafic shaping or throttling and 1 month contract just another good enta reseller.

[ikonia]

as mentioned, I was looking for information on business products as this is for a business.

[water]

in that case TitanADSL does offer a business package like all enta resellers look here http://www.titan-adsl.co.uk/index-2.html
dont worry about the connection charge as it does not apply to migrations.

hope that helps

[ikonia]

yup, you mentioned that a few posts up.

[ikonia]

zen was already on my list, and the wheels are now rolling.

its already been done