Ofcom's Valentine present - easier broadband switching

[Bob Crabtree]

From February 14, next year, broadband suppliers will no longer be allowed to put barriers in your way if you want to switch to another operator, thanks to steps put in train by the industry's regulator Ofcom.

If you've ever tried to change to a different broadband supplier - to save money, get faster downloads or just because you were hacked off with the service - you might well think that Ofcom could hardly deliver a more pleasing Valentine's Day gift.

All the details in this HEXUS.lifestyle.headline.

[Funkstar]

Bit early for Valentines but good news anyway

[Kev32]

Would this include me changing from BT Broadband even though I have a 12 month contract with them with 6 months left?

I'm fed up with their moronic download limit and charging me £1 extra for every gig I go over. Not too mention I'm not getting the full connection speeds I am paying for.

[Tobeman]

Would this include me changing from BT Broadband even though I have a 12 month contract with them with 6 months left?

I'm fed up with their moronic download limit and charging me £1 extra for every gig I go over. Not too mention I'm not getting the full connection speeds I am paying for.

No, you probably could cancel but they'd make you pay upfront.

And full connection speeds? As in 8mb? You pay for "upto" 8mb

[Bob Crabtree]

Would this include me changing from BT Broadband even though I have a 12 month contract with them with 6 months left?

I'm fed up with their moronic download limit and charging me £1 extra for every gig I go over. Not too mention I'm not getting the full connection speeds I am paying for.

Legally you can break a contract if you do it in the right way and have good reasons to do so.

But your dissatisfaction with the download limit and the £1 per gig charge is probably not a good reason. You signed up to the terms and conditions and these, doubtless, were there, somewhere.

As for connection speeds - put your telephone number in on this page and see if the speeds you get are in keeping with the speed that BT's own checker says you should get.

If they are way slower than the account for which you're paying says you should get, then it indicates that there is something wrong with the line - somewhere between you and the exchange (or in the exchange itself) and you should hassle BT to sort it out.

If BT can't get the speeds up to the level you are paying for and of which it itself says the line is capable, then you may have grounds to terminate the contact IF you have given BT the opportunity to make good.

Having said all the above - I strongly advise that you check with your local Citizen's Advice Bureau to see what their take is; they are going to know a lot better than I do.

Bottom line - the forthcoming changes are intended to sort out the problems that the article says they address and not sort out out other inadequacies of ISPs - real or perceived.

[Kev32]

I have argued with BT over and over again about the prices I have to pay for my broadband connection. Basically, we should have a 3.5mb connection, yet we pay the same as those who would get 8mb. Great thing (sarcasm) is I have yet to be connected at anything CLOSE to 2.5 let alone 3.5 >_<

EDIT: But yeah, not too bothered to follow the whole thing through. We can leave after October and I'm out of the house to university most likely in Septmember. It's just trying to get my dad to cool down with his constant downloading of torrents which not only make it a nightmare for me to pursue HL2DM at a comfortable latency but also means we end up sometimes paying over &#163;50 MORE for damn excessive bandwidth usage because my dad refuses to believe that capping the upload limit to 10kbps doesn't slow the download speeds!

[Bob Crabtree]

I have argued with BT over and over again about the prices I have to pay for my broadband connection. Basically, we should have a 3.5mb connection, yet we pay the same as those who would get 8mb. Great thing (sarcasm) is I have yet to be connected at anything CLOSE to 2.5 let alone 3.5 >_<

Ah, but is the connection able to handle 8mb? Have you used the checker I pointed to?

What speed does that say your line should be able to deliver.

In terms of changing the contract, though, your only good escape clause, I think, is if you can show that you're paying for something that BT has promised but has failed to provide.

EDIT: But yeah, not too bothered to follow the whole thing through. We can leave after October and I'm out of the house to university most likely in Septmember. It's just trying to get my dad to cool down with his constant downloading of torrents which not only make it a nightmare for me to pursue HL2DM at a comfortable latency but also means we end up sometimes paying over &#163;50 MORE for damn excessive bandwidth usage because my dad refuses to believe that capping the upload limit to 10kbps doesn't slow the download speeds!

Ah, the wilful, disbelieving parent thing.

Er, hang on, that's supposed to be, "wilful, disbelieving kid thing"!

Most important of all - who's paying the 50 squid excess a month - you or your dad?

[chuckskull]

BT.yahoo now offer an uncapped service for &#163;27 a month. I just switched to it. Though I am getting constant drop outs, BT have assured me this will stop next week, once the connection has settled in (oh yes very technical terms from the call centre in India).

[Bob Crabtree]

Yeah, all them electrons and stuff need to bed in and iron out the kinks in the cables.

Be fine, I'm sure.

Cough!

[Deadlight]

Good news. Just a pity I've gnashing my teeth etc., over the Sky-switching debacle.

Sky couldn't even use the MAC I got from my provider - basically this was a 'cease/re-provide' situation. The good bit? My provider was Ukonline, ne. Easynet ne. Sky. Good eh? I even got 2 weeks of no service for my trouble!

[Kev32]

Ah, but is the connection able to handle 8mb? Have you used the checker I pointed to?

What speed does that say your line should be able to deliver.

In terms of changing the contract, though, your only good escape clause, I think, is if you can show that you're paying for something that BT has promised but has failed to provide.



Ah, the wilful, disbelieving parent thing.

Er, hang on, that's supposed to be, "wilful, disbelieving kid thing"!

Most important of all - who's paying the 50 squid excess a month - you or your dad?

3.5mb be what the line is meant to be able to take

Indeed my dad does pay the line, I used to but it kind of surpassed my wages as a gap year student still studying
So I guess he has full rights, heh

[Bob Crabtree]

Well, if the checker says 3.5Mb, then you really should try - unless you're all willpowered out - to hassle them into finding out why you get less.

As for full rights - oh, yes - but that doesn't necessarily make him right!

[Bob Crabtree]

Good news. Just a pity I've gnashing my teeth etc., over the Sky-switching debacle.

Sky couldn't even use the MAC I got from my provider - basically this was a 'cease/re-provide' situation. The good bit? My provider was Ukonline, ne. Easynet ne. Sky. Good eh? I even got 2 weeks of no service for my trouble!

Yup, it's this very kind of stupidity that scares me witless and keeps me paying the same with Pipex for a 1Mb connection that new-signers pay for 8Mb (though, I'd not expect to get much more than 6Mb here).

Grrr!

Oh, and reminded of this debacle, I just visted Pipex's site to see what news there was, if any, about switching to 8Mb.

This is what the relevant page says:

Coming soon...
We shall soon be completing our internal process development, so you too can benefit from the new broadband and voice packages!

Please check this site or mypipex in a few days time for more information.

Trouble is, I'm not so sure that the same message hasn't been up there for weeks!

[Lee H]

I've spotted a potential problem for users in the future.

A few ISP's are stating or are going to state that they want to give the first MAC code free of charge, after this any further request for a MAC code will be charged an 'administration' fee.

Now I know people are going to do this on suppliers like orange to simulate the "churn" process so they get a better offer on their new phone contract and better broadband in some cases.

But... heres the big but - IIRC MAC codes only work for 30 days. What's going to happen to the legions of people queuing for services such as Sky and Talktalk whom have a MAC code and then are told they'll need to wait 3-5 weeks for connection. This then means that the MAC code they orginally supplied is no longer valid.

It's a small step to making the process a lot easier than back in the old days, but theres still going to be a few areas such as the old IP-stream/datastream issues that people are seeing when they try to migrate.

[Blademrk]

As for connection speeds - put your telephone number in on this page and see if the speeds you get are in keeping with the speed that BT's own checker says you should get.

If they are way slower than the account for which you're paying says you should get, then it indicates that there is something wrong with the line - somewhere between you and the exchange (or in the exchange itself) and you should hassle BT to sort it out.

If BT can't get the speeds up to the level you are paying for and of which it itself says the line is capable, then you may have grounds to terminate the contact IF you have given BT the opportunity to make good.

I've got a similar thing with Pipex Homecall. My speed can vary between 6mb/sec and 130kb/sec within half an hour. It's seems quicker in the morning (before the U.S. wakes up), but by the time I get home from work it's usually almost useless for any sort of gaming. never had any problem on 2mb Freeserve/Wanado/Orange.

I've been using Nuria to measure my speed since I switched in August.

[Deadlight]

ISP's might be trying that on Lee, but I'm sure that Ofcom will stamp that out my Febrauray 14th.

At the moment the wait between switching ISP's has a lot to do with LLU or not, BT exchanges or not, etc. so the whole of these altogether with the MAC's issues is to mske swtching?!