Change ISP from Virgin Media to BT?

Retired · Post by **Retired** » Fri Oct 13, 2023 7:21 am

Hi,

BT were to install their gear 8am/1pm yesterday; phone call midday saying it will be 1:30pm/2:0pm just after 2pm a very friendly young guy arrived and had it all set up in an hour including running a new wire from the pole; the new service is 100% fibre unlike VM who had fibre to the control box in the street then copper. We're paying £5 per month extra for guaranteed WiFi signal there's now a disc installed supplying this. With VM it was always hassle getting the TV to work which took ages and if I tried to rush it just threw me out; this morning BT was a great deal quicker at starting up the TV.

No problems at all regarding email; I already have gmail so losing NTL won't trouble me; our old landline phone is obsolete but the corded phone in my office is fine; last night I bought a BT digital cordless phone with charger so we can still have two phones.

So far so good.

Kind regards, Colin.

dewaltdisney · Post by **dewaltdisney** » Fri Oct 13, 2023 9:34 am

I am glad it all went well. I have wireless phones but I keep a corded phone for backup. We had a power cut the other week and my mobile was nearly out of charge. I back charged it from my laptop and although slow it kept it running so I could get the text updates from UK Power networks. I plugged the corded phone in and I was able to keep in contact with Mrs D who took our grandaughter back to my son's house. As she was staying over with us, without power, it was a disaster. The shopping list after the power cut was an LED camping light, which is great, and a storage-type battery phone charger.

DWD

Someone-Else · Post by **Someone-Else** » Fri Oct 13, 2023 9:41 am

Retired, what is your connection speed? (if I may) first speed checker on google is this one

dewaltdisney · Post by **dewaltdisney** » Fri Oct 13, 2023 9:44 am

Mine has a wall box and a phone jack? one wire to the router and one to the wireless phone base. I just switched the phones?

DWD

Someone-Else · Post by **Someone-Else** » Fri Oct 13, 2023 9:47 am

Just saying................
If you have VOIP (which is what BT are changing to) no matter what phone you have, if you have a powercut, you will not be able to make or receive any calls no matter what phone you have. (It does say this in the BT blurb) This is because the phone "line" comes from your router, no power, no router. No router no phone line.

Someone-Else · Post by **Someone-Else** » Fri Oct 13, 2023 9:49 am

dewaltdisney, you have broadband, you don't have VOIP (Yet)

Someone-Else · Post by **Someone-Else** » Fri Oct 13, 2023 12:34 pm

Update.
Just spoke to BT, I can get "Full fibre 100" which is a speed of 100mps (funny that) but I will have to pay more for it. But if I was on "Halo 3" I get the upgrade for free.
I seem to think I was on Halo 3, but it was costing close to £60/month (Including landline, not including star services, and I think local calls, less than 1 hour were free, but we always used mobiles, and £60 was too much, so we cancelled it some time ago.) No super duper fast BB for me then. (I only enquired as it was available, I am not a gamer, so no point.)

joinerjohn · Post by **joinerjohn** » Mon Jan 15, 2024 8:34 pm

A bit late to the party, but my missus changed our BB supplier from Virgin to BT after years of being let down with their offers for new customers and us being existing customers unable to get these (Why do they treat existing customers so poorly ?) Was told that her Virgin Media email address would be inaccessible 90 days after we ended the agreement with them. Yet, over 2 months after the 90 days were up, she still receives (and can send) emails on her VM email account.

aeromech3 · Post by **aeromech3** » Tue Jan 16, 2024 3:31 am

I thought the ' Gov' were looking into this and OFcom had threatened the providers for charging to keep addresses on switching out; perhaps they are taking note now?

englishhandyman · Post by **englishhandyman** » Tue Jan 23, 2024 1:53 am

ive found virgin media to be the best provider to be honest

stevei · Post by **stevei** » Tue Jan 23, 2024 8:39 am

I've just received an offer from BT, who I have been with for a long time. The offer is £30.53 per month on a 24 month contract for Full Fibre 500 plus a £75.00 cash card. It's £3.00 a month for Voip, keeping the same phone number and an extra £11.99 delivery charge. Offer ends on 2/2/24. I'm going for it but will phone up to see if I can't get the delivery charge waived. The copper lines are to be cut off late 2025 so everyone will have to be on Full Fibre by then or no broadband or house phone. Timing could be better as the annual price increase comes in at the end of March, which this year I believe is going to be an increase of 7.9%. No charge for the engineer to fit the new cable and they supply the latest Smart Hub 2.

Someone-Else · Post by **Someone-Else** » Tue Jan 23, 2024 11:08 am

stevei wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 8:39 amThe copper lines are to be cut off late 2025 so everyone will have to be on Full Fibre by then or no broadband or house phone.

I think you miss understand.

Copper to the cabinet (Big green box to you and me) is probably going to be terminated, but copper from cabinet to house will carry on.
Do you think that BT would cut off thousands of people who do not want/can not afford full fibre, and in so doing lose £ millions

Fibre is already at the pole over the road from where I live, I watched it being installed (and I went and asked) But for me its too expensive (I did enquire) I am on what they call "fibre to pole"