advice on switching phone/broadband provider - procedure, timescale etc

[Ponders]

we currently have home phone (almost unused) with BT at nearly £20 pm & internet (ropey) with AOL at £13 pm. I'm looking at switching both (we make most calls on mobiles these days but I think it's still worth having a landline for the 08 numbers) to either:

O2 (£37.50pm, which seems to have gone up a lot since last Nov, going by Which's report which said it would be £12.50 for previous O2 customers)

or

plusnet, which does seem cheaper, although there is a 60GB limit (but that is quite a lot???)

anyway what I want to know,please, if anyone can tell me just like that, is how we go about it. The BT website seems to indicate that our phone deal is on contract until end Nov - can we get out of it before then? (we haven't signed anything, it gets renewed automatically or by phone or something.) I'm not sure what the status of our aol deal is, ie if there's a time limit on it. What do we have to do, & when, in terms of notifying old suppliers?

help!

How long have you had the BT phone line ? I believe they do now have a "rolling" 12 month contract with a limited window for cancellation. Worse, if someone wants to get a discount on the high line rental, is that they allow you to pay a fixed sum for 12 months line rental but there is no partial refund if you wanted to switch some way through.

I would ring them to double check when you can cancel. Ask them to send you a reminder letter a month before the new 12 month is "assumed" to be accepted by you. Make a note anyway on your phone, and if you don't get a reminder it is perhaps something for Ofcom to take on as a complaint. (However, most firms these days tie in a 12/18/24 month contract too.)

If you cancel before, they would probably charge you for the remaining months. However, Ofcom did make a decision that they could only charge legitimately for their costs, so it should reduce costs. (Easier would be to cancel any services / anytime add-on costs, if you can. Network services can cost 1.50 or so each, or a few for 4 quid, or whatever BT gets away with now.)

The PlusNet 60GB allowance is only counted from 0800-0000 (so if you use iPlayer to download 100 GB a month then leave the computer on and iPlayer allows you to schedule series downloads for 00:00-07:00

If others in the family download / upload a lot via peer-to-peer file sharing, ensure they do that overnight too.

You can switch the phone line rental separately from the broadband, so if you are stuck for some months with AOL (owned by TalkTalk, so watch they do stop billing you - there have been complaints about the billing systems of most ISPs TT has bought out), it won't stop you switching the phone line rental.

I use PlusNet as my ISP (and have done since about 2004, off and on [2 house moves, one had no phone line for a while, but I use Three mobile as well]) and Primus for the phone line rental.

If I make calls from the landline to UK 01/02/03 numbers, or international, I use 1899.com which charges low fees (eg 5p per call, 0p/min to 01/02/03, 1p to 4p per minute to N America, and landlines in Western Europe, and low fees (under 10p/min to landlines) for some other popular ex-Empire destinations [Oz/NZ], parts of S America and the Far East too)

MoneySavingExpert site mentions 18185 (owned by same firm as 1899.com) for cheap call rates, and it was via MSE that I went to Primus with line rental below 8 quid a month (think it may be 6.49/month now, for line rental only, no included calls, no caller ID or other services, basically just the copper wire for broadband, with any voice calls on top)

PlusNet line rental is about 12 quid a month now (and the only time I'd consider it is if I switched to their Fibre service as it is a requirement [now - don't think it was all the time]).

How much you pay PlusNet depends a little on your exchange (if there are competitors such as AOL [TalkTalk], TalkTalk, Tiscali [TalkTalk], Orange, or Be Unlimited/O2 then Openreach charges the ISP less, and PlusNet passes on that discount to customers).

Whether you can get Fibre (or want it) also depends on location a great deal. If you think you might want it, then PN is worth considering as it's one of the cheaper Fibre deals.

Hi Networkguy - thanks for your very detailed answers

in summary you'd recommend Plusnet for ISP then, & separate phone with Primus, rather than a package? we have been with BT forever (moved in here 1983, so since then). I suppose I'll have to ring them to find out about reducing bill before Nov, if I can't cancel it before then I'll contact AOL/TalkTalk as well to see when we last renewed with them.

We never use landline for landline calls (or only if someone forgets) - all those are from our mobiles. I have a 18185 account, which we only use for overseas calls, & there haven't been any of those for a while. (I did have a 1899 account too, but the card I paid it with expired, & I haven't bothered renewing as we never use it. I think 18185 charges the same anyway)

08 calls are trickiest, with 0845 being free & 0844 charged, same with 0870 & 0871. I know BT charges 12p connection even for free calls, & so do O2. 18185 only charges 4-5p connection but does charge for calls to 0845 & 0870 (I think - haven't looked recently) Can I use 18185 with plusnet/primus/O2?

I'm not bothered about fibre - our best download speed currently is c 11MB & I'm quite happy with that (upload only 0.3 though ). I believe it is available here, we had a call from BT trying to sell us Infinity recently.

The 18185 should work on the Primus line (nothing to do with your ISP or mobile network(s) you use).

The "included" 0845/0870 calls have been a feature of some line rental packages, but a lot depends on whether/ how much you ever phone them. If you pay more to Primus you can get off-peak calls included (and they have a "90 minutes" limit for "free" calls, while most only offer 60 minutes per call). I don't know about 0870/0845 off top of my head, sorry. Think they

In my view, I'd prefer to pay 50p for a call to 0845 / 0870 once in a while than pay higher line rental (higher by say 3 quid) every month just for a few free calls. Even if I made a long call and spent a little over 3 quid, it would only affect a single month's charges and reach a level some families pay every month, whether they need to dial 0845/ 0870 at all.

Some mobile networks include 0870 in the "free" minutes bought as part of the fee they charge, alongside 01/02/03. None seem to include 0845 calls BICBW.

Ofcom put a spanner in the wheel when they blocked 0870 / 0845 call recipients getting an income split (it is how the dial-up ISP Freeserve [tied to Dixons Store Group] made money - even though 0845 calls may have only been 1p/min in the evenings, a fraction of it was passed on to Freeserve, while daytime the 4p/min allowed them to get say 1p/min. Multiply by millions of minutes and you can see how they could offer users a "free" service.)

Once 0870/0845 paid the recipient firms nothing, the telco firms and business users switched to 0844 and 0871, which have various charges from a landline and significant costs dialled from any mobile.

Seeing your upload speed reminded me of a website I made some time ago ( www.fasterbb.info - needs a thorough rewrite as I may have some wrong prices now). Worth looking at www.thinkbroadband.com and ISPreview.co.uk for some user comments (remember that grumbles with a service are likely to be shared on a public forum far more than comments expressing happiness and joy!)

Wonder if you have any long extensions (can sometimes drag speeds down), but then again, upload speed might only be a problem if more than one in your family want to try Skype at same time... sometimes an extension can introduce noise and cause lower speeds..

well, it seems I must have badly misinterpreted what I saw on the O2 page I was looking at which showed £30+ inc phone

after I registered that I was interested by looking at their prices, someone rang me today & we would get an amazing broadband package for £6.25 a month so I think we'll be going with them. we've had O2 mobiles for years & I've always been very happy with them. & we're on a rolling 1-month contract with AOL so can move straight away - yay!

their landline charges are better than BT's though not by much. I'll investigate Primus & others

thanks again for advice, NetworkGuy

Not surprised they are willing to do a good deal (price wise) as the most recent reports say they have been losing customers left right and centre.

See ISPreview news item about O2

check AOL on the
ISPreview item reporting Which? "ISP satisfaction" news and you'll be well shot of them!