Topic: BT Broadband

There’s good and bad news for subscribers to BT’s broadband services First off they have announced that they have slashed their prices with its 512Kbps service reduced from £29.99 to £26.99 and its faster 1Mbps connection down from £40.99 to £26.99.

Now the bad news, customers of its two 512Kbps services will be restricted to downloading 15GB a month. Although BT says this will still enable users to surf for 15 hours a day or download 250 music tracks and 180 minutes of video every week, but the question is why on earth are they capping the lowest speed services? strange.

No doubt you've seen it and for most, probably never gave it a second thought, but a BT Broadband TV advert has been taken off air by regulators for its misleading content.

The advert featuring man purchasing light bulbs, cites "Broadband from BT is double the speed and now from £15.99.". Text appearing on the advert further stated "BT Broadband Basic £15.99 a month Direct Debit for 3 months (was £17.99) £17.99 thereafter. Offer ends 02.08.05. New customers only (excludes upgrades) £6 credited to first or second bill after 16.06.05". Unfortunately for BT, two readers took the advert to mean that they could get broadband from BT for a fixed £15.99 for an unlimited time.

If you follow the trend of these adjudications you'll soon realise that the likes of the Advertising Standards Authority often find in favour of Joe Public in these situations, so it will be no surprise then to hear that the ASA have done the same again in this case.

BT are not to show the advert again in its present form.

The first 12,000 new subscribers to BT Broadband will be able to get a free SIM for their phone from BT mobile.

The offer runs between 16 June 2005 and 31 July 2005 and with users able to subscribe to the promotional 'Broadband from BT customer and BT Mobile offer', which will enable customers:-

• 'Free of Charge' BT Mobile SIM Card (no handset)
• 150 inclusive minutes per month (as part of line rental)
• 50 inclusive texts per month (as part of line rental)

But eagle eyed bug readers may notice that what BT are offering is actually a phone contract as well as broadband.

One wonders what BT will offer customers next? A cuddly toy maybe?

BT and Sony are joined forces which will running a joint promotion, which will offer new customers of the BT Retail broadband products free music downloads.

Available from the Connect music service range up to thirty free song downloads can be downloaded from the 700,00 track catalogue, but only if new customers sign-up via www.sony.co.uk/btoffer, between 10 May and 24 June 2005.

People who sign up to the BT Broadband Basic service will be allowed to receive 10 download vouchers, while those signing for the more expensive BT Broadband and Yahoo! products will receive the full 30 vouchers.

Something we missed earlier this month, is that BT's no frills BT Broadband, offering basic broadband access with very little else, has suddenly (and quietly) acquired some of those missing frills.

From 1st April, BT added 5 email addresses to its most basic offering, thanks to BTYahoo, to its funnily enough called "BT Broadband Basic". The service is available at 1Mbps only, and comes with a 1GB monthly cap. The service costs £17.99 per month (inclusive of VAT).

"BT Broadband" is BTs 2Mbps option, and again comes with the equivocal 5 email addresses courtesy of BTYahoo, although with the increased bandwidth comes a higher, 15GB monthly cap. The service costs £24.99 (inclusive of VAT).

Interesting, the difference between BT Broadband and BT Yahoo Broadband has always been slight, and with the introduction of email addresses on the cheaper BT Broadband titled products, the different is even less.

Comparing both BT Broadband's and BT Yahoo Broadband's 2Mbps 15GB cap products, sees BT Yahoo customers paying an additional £2 for 6 extra email addresses (11 in total), which some users may feel is not justifiable, especially when many free email accounts are available elsewhere.

As we reported BT Broadband Basic, the cut price offering from the telco has reduced it's price both to new and existing customers.

Not much you can say about saving a couple of quid, unless you are Duncan Ingram that is......

Hope he doesn't ask anyone in his office for a 'long chat'!!

For nearly 48 hours users of no fills ADSL service from BT Broadband have been unable to access the online payment site Paypal. Paypal have investigated and found no problem and blame BT. BT have investigated and - yup .. blame Paypal.

From reports in BT's customer newsgroups (here), it appears that subscribers allocated with an IP address of 81.x.x.x cannot gain access paypal.com or paypal.co.uk. Subscribers to BTs other ISP BTYahoo, are not reporting the problem (ie those on the 217.x.x.x and 213.x.x.x ranges).

Whilst the "it's not us" attitude continues on both sides, 100s of users are left with no access, unless they seek an alternative internet connection.

BT are already underfire for a recent slowdown blamed by an infamous spammer. This latest incident raises concerns about the way that the BT ISPs are open to working with 3rd party companies to which their customers have issues with.

Update: 17:42. BT and some of the users are advising the problem is now resolved. And it was Paypal all the time it seems.

Are you a BT Broadband customer, and happy to recomend the service to friends and family ? Yes ? Fancy £20 for doing just that?

Following on from similar schemes from other ISPs, the website by BT (bttellafriend.com) makes the process nice and easy, with the existing BT Broadband subscriber able to mailshot their family or friends - and as BT themselves put it - BT takes care of the rest.

More information and the mailshot form can be found on the BT website.

It looks like someone in BT has been on a Ryanair management training course, by deciding to launch a new "no frills" version, of what was BT Broadband (itself, a "no frills" version of a tradditional ISP (i.e. BT Openworld/Yahoo)).

The price ? Just £19.99 per month (when paying via Direct Debit).

BT are to introduce a new, cheaper version of its existing BT Broadband 512K ADSL service to be called BT "Broadband Basic", and available from the 1st March 2004.

The main features/differences between the existing BT Broadband and the new "basic" product appear to be:

• Mandatory purchase of a BT Voyager 105 Broadband Modem when ordering BT Broadband Basic (£50 inc 2 mirofilters)
• BT Broadband Basic includes a usage allowance of 1 GB data transferred per month

The activation fee will be £30 and the monthly line rental will be £20.99 (19.99 if paying my direct debit or BT monthly payment plan) - £8/month less than its existing BT Broadband tariff

It will also possible to change from the standard BT Broadband tariff to the new BT "Broadband Basic" one on payment of a £30 fee

So for £8.month less, you would be giving up the 0800 helpline and you "may" face an additional fee if you go over the 1GB monthly limit. Ideal for lower users or those who need/want to be with a BT ISP but are technically competent.

It may also attract some new customers to ADSL and perhaps even away from other ISP's as BT's new £19.99 price point undercuts many others - if they in turn, don't launch new product offerings.

ISPReview today carries a small article today releasing details of BT's new online community, in association with Ecademy.

Aimed more towards the telco's business sector, than their consumer counterparts, Broadband Ecademy aims to bring like minded people together creation a common ground to share experiences and seek help and assistance from other peers. Established groups under the Ecademy umbrella meet on regular basis, discussing a range of business topics.

Back in 2003, NTL released their own community website (although at the time of writting it appears to be down).