BT landline or mobile??? (1 Viewer)

[Clarky]

We pay BT around £50 per month for phone line and broadband (AKA rubber band).
As we are away for about 4 months of the year we pay BT over £200pa for nought. When we are home we don't make that many calls.

Broadband is slow as we are in rural Suffolk, around 2.5Mbps most of the time.
Mobile signal is not brilliant but I bought a mi-fi + window antenna from Motorhome wi-fi a couple of weeks ago and I can get twice the speed of the landline.

I know our Glorious Leader @Jim hasn't used a landline for years and he runs a communication business.
There is a complication in that I have a Hive controller for the heating and hot water so I can see the temperature in the house when we are away and tweak it if necessary, I also intend to get a couple of web cameras so we can keep an eye on the house from afar, they all need internet connection via a router.

So, any suggestions?
Should I just bite the bullet and keep paying BT?
What do you good people do?

Richard.

 

[Deleted member 29692]

You really need a proper, stable broadband connection for things like Hive and CCTV.

In theory you could connect them to a MiFi device as the device connection to them works in the same way as a router but it would depend on how stable and consistent the mobile signal is. You could potentially use a lot of data depending on how the cameras work so that would have to be a consideration.

If you wanted to try it then I would suggest getting your cameras sorted, finding a SIM card with plenty of data allowance and trialling it for a few weeks or months while you are at home and see how you get on. Don't get rid of your broadband until you've proven that you can do what you need without it.

The two important things to monitor will be the mobile signal consistency and the amount of data you use.

It doesn't really matter what anyone else does in this instance. It's something that will work differently for everyone so all you can do is try it and see what happens.

 

[tonyidle]

We pay BT around £50 per month for phone line and broadband (AKA rubber band).
As we are away for about 4 months of the year we pay BT over £200pa for nought. When we are home we don't make that many calls.

Broadband is slow as we are in rural Suffolk, around 2.5Mbps most of the time.
Mobile signal is not brilliant but I bought a mi-fi + window antenna from Motorhome wi-fi a couple of weeks ago and I can get twice the speed of the landline.

I know our Glorious Leader @Jim hasn't used a landline for years and he runs a communication business.
There is a complication in that I have a Hive controller for the heating and hot water so I can see the temperature in the house when we are away and tweak it if necessary, I also intend to get a couple of web cameras so we can keep an eye on the house from afar, they all need internet connection via a router.

So, any suggestions?
Should I just bite the bullet and keep paying BT?
What do you good people do?

Richard.

I'd love to do what you are suggesting too - but not at mobile data prices.

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[Stealaway]

£50 a month? With talktalk it would be £24.50. Line rental and internet access.
Plus £50 a month would buy a lot of mobile data instead.

 

[denisejoe]

Talk Talk only rent bandwidth from BT so their speeds are always lower than BT. For example when we had Talk Talk we were lucky if we got 2Mb but the lowest we got was 0.025! We probably had lower at other times as we couldn't always get a speed checker to load.

We changed to BT and it went to a steady 6 Mb, still not brilliant but much better. Things have improved over the last couple of years and now we're getting 20+.

Try calling BT and telling them you're thinking of leaving because the speeds are so bad and see if they'll offer you a better price.

Joe

 

[Lenny HB]

You appear to be paying BT well over the odds. We pay Plusnet (owned by BT) £29 for line and 38mb fibre broadband.

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[Puddleduck]

We are thinking about doing the same as our BT bill is around £50 a month as well.

£50 a month? With talktalk it would be £24.50. Line rental and internet access.
Plus £50 a month would buy a lot of mobile data instead.

There is no option here except BT as there is no spare line capacity. All the other firms say they can and then when they check they can't. No cable or fibre broadband here - it's all on copper longline. We have been told (but no promises) they may improve the longline by 2025. It will still be copper longline though. Speed check says under 1Mbps this morning and that is quite fast for here.

 

[Lenny HB]

We are thinking about doing the same as our BT bill is around £50 a month as well.



There is no option here except BT as there is no spare line capacity. All the other firms say they can and then when they check they can't. No cable or fibre broadband here - it's all on copper longline. We have been told (but no promises) they may improve the longline by 2025. It will still be copper longline though. Speed check says under 1Mbps this morning and that is quite fast for here.

You must really struggle we gave up with 3mb as it was so slow and upgraded.

 

[nomadic]

Yes, we too realised how much we are giving BT when away, and are currently investigating "3" offer of a 4G mifi with 20Gig's month rolling contract. On the surface we should save around £150/year. Had good reception in France this last 2 months of my old 3Gig mifi, the signal booster purchased at Peterborough show, earlier this year was a big, big disappointment. Will look into that later.

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[Clarky]

One of the problems when you live in the wilds with poor internet speeds is that no-one wants to take responsibility for poor service.
A near neighbour had huge problems with TalkTalk when their service dropped out and they had no service at all. TalkTalk blamed BT who passed the blame back to TT. Despite being a solicitor it took weeks to sort out.
Just had a look at Plusnet and they are a little cheaper than BT but there is the potential for buck passing when the service drops out or slows right down.
At least with BT they can't blame someone else for faulty lines.
Looks like a call to BT to try and pressure them into a better deal..........if only I could find a phone number from their website so that I can talk to a human.

Richard.

 

[Stealaway]

Just had a look at Plusnet and they are a little cheaper than BT but there is the potential for buck passing when the service drops out or slows right down.
At least with BT they can't blame someone else for faulty lines.

Plusnet is owned by BT

 

[Addie]

We don't have BT Broadband at home either - if we did they'd offer us 0.5 Mbps so hardly worth having.

However, using an external 4G antenna mounted on our chimney and the router in the loft space we can get a very respectable connection from Three (even though we're in a 'no service' area on their coverage map) which allows us to run our VOIP phone lines through it when we work from home.

We use the exact same kit as we put into Static Caravans at home, which is essentially just a slightly different version of what you already have @Clarky
http://www.caravanwifi.com/huawei-b315-router-antenna-package.html

We run a Nest (like Hive) our CCTV (which is cloud based, so not streaming all the time but 'on demand') plus various remotely controllable sockets etc all through the router. Because it's designed for home, it's got better WiFi local coverage than the E5577 which is fine for a motorhome.

EE Have a cracking deal of 32GB for £14.50pm on a 30 day rolling contract - however a word of warning that we've found them blocking some external services required for VOIP/CCTV so be sure to test you're able to do everything you need to before you go away: http://shop.ee.co.uk/cart?discounts=AWDATASIM32

Otherwise, Three allow you to do whatever and so all our services work fine.

Let me know if we can help

Adam

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[brynric]

We have a similar set-up, we have BT with broadband and Bt Vision. We get about 30 mbs. We also have Hive and a Hubble camera. The difference is we pay less than £30: £18 line rental, £11 broadband and free tv at the moment. Can you reduce a cost somewhere?

 

[Rapido925M]

Living in a small village in rural Norfolk we had BT [24/7 calls (max 60min), 20G per month broadband at 36M/s download, 8M/s upload] and when their "special offer" ended in July it was costing us £51pm inc line rental.

SSE offered 24/7 calls (max 70min) inc 20 overseas destinations, unlimitedG per month broadband at 80M/s download, 20M/s upload. BT said it couldn't be done on our system AND it didn't show up on MoneySuperMarket etc BUT USwitch had it available. We checked by phone, they agreed they could do it and on Day1 we had 76M/s download, 18M/s upload for £21per month on an 18month contract.

My brother in Teesside uses his WiFi for everything and contacting him is a pain in the **se. He only really looks at emails when he is at work.

CHECK as much as you can and good luck - Gordon

PS The SSE offer ends on 14th Nov!

 

[Puddleduck]

We have a similar set-up, we have BT with broadband and Bt Vision. We get about 30 mbs. We also have Hive and a Hubble camera. The difference is we pay less than £30: £18 line rental, £11 broadband and free tv at the moment. Can you reduce a cost somewhere?

If we had a cable system we could sign up for a deal. Because we don't have fibre or cable the deals are not available. Like we don't have mains gas so can't get dual fuel discounts.

Believe me I have tried - including three face-to-face meetings with the manager that covers all of Scotland. He made lots of happy noises but nothing happened except for a survey of possibilities - resulting in zilch.

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[Clarky]

If we had a cable system we could sign up for a deal. Because we don't have fibre or cable the deals are not available. Like we don't have mains gas so can't get dual fuel discounts.

Believe me I have tried - including three face-to-face meetings with the manager that covers all of Scotland. He made lots of happy noises but nothing happened except for a survey of possibilities - resulting in zilch.

Similar here in Suffolk.
No fibre or cable, just knackered overhead phone lines from a rural exchange miles away.
No mains gas, we use LPG.
No mains drainage, we have our own sewage system.
No street lights and buses every few hours.
But, it's a lovely place to live with lovely people.

Richard.

 

[Puddleduck]

@Clarky

You have buses????? You'll be telling me soon there is a mainline railway station in the county!!!

We do have a bus, Mon to Fri, you order it the day before you need it (or before lunch on Friday for the Monday). It arrives between 9 and 10 (and you have to wait for it - okay in the summer but not so nice this time of year). It takes between an hour and an hour and a half to drop you 8 miles away (between 10 and 11 am) and then you have to get back to it before 11.30 as it leaves on the dot of 11.30 to get you home sometime in the early afternoon. And the powers that be wonder why it isn't better used

We do now have a railway station about 20 miles away by road which goes into Edinburgh and is a real boon. A long way to walk to the station though.

 

[Lenny HB]

Buses we have one every 10 minutes, slows down after 8pm only every 30min & only one an hour after midnight.

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[pyro]

We have much the same deal with BT, line speed is around 54Mb/s in FTTC, and we run CCTV, remote access (LogMeIn) and a home server plus Slingbox through it without any problems. Dropouts/unreliability on local gsm based networks ruled them out, and the costs were absurd

BT is getting too expensive, prices edging up all the time. Mobile coverage is OK, but I hate the VOIP like quality they offer, especially in both parties are using them, and I far prefer the landline wherever I can

A lot of people I know have turned to Sky, but their landlines sound bloody awful - VOIP like. £50 a month to BT is just crazy though, so I am looking around. PlusNet looks a half decent deal

 

[Clarky]

@pyro
Had a look at PlusNet and it is cheaper. £35.50 per month with the 'unlimited calls' add on.
That is for 12 months then price increases to £43.48, not much difference to BT.
Then we have the problem of no-one wanting to take responsibility when the speed slows or the line goes down, always a problem out here in the wilds.

Richard.

 

[Clarky]

Buses we have one every 10 minutes, slows down after 8pm only every 30min & only one an hour after midnight.

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[Lenny HB]

@pyro
Had a look at PlusNet and it is cheaper. £35.50 per month with the 'unlimited calls' add on.
That is for 12 months then price increases to £43.48, not much difference to BT.
Then we have the problem of no-one wanting to take responsibility when the speed slows or the line goes down, always a problem out here in the wilds.

Richard.

I think you are looking at the wrong package, you said you can't get fibre and only some of their fibre packages are that expensive, you can get what you want for under £30/month.
When we changed to fibre we ditched the anytime calls and use mobiles on weekdays during the day.

 

[pyro]

@pyro
Had a look at PlusNet and it is cheaper. £35.50 per month with the 'unlimited calls' add on.
That is for 12 months then price increases to £43.48, not much difference to BT.
Then we have the problem of no-one wanting to take responsibility when the speed slows or the line goes down, always a problem out here in the wilds.

Richard.

Thanks Richard, good advice. Not a lot of point changing for such little saving, and the added complication of who is responsible when things go wrong

Mobiles? I spend most of my day on the phone, and aside from being far from comfortable with the health aspects, the signal quality is appallingly variable.

As for buses, our local village service was reduced from 6/day to 2/day (we are 30 miles from London!) because the buses were apparently "insufficiently accessible"

Back to the drawing board

 

[Clarky]

I think you are looking at the wrong package, you said you can't get fibre and only some of their fibre packages are that expensive, you can get what you want for under £30/month.
When we changed to fibre we ditched the anytime calls and use mobiles on weekdays during the day.

Thanks Lenny.
They seem to base their prices on different areas.
When you get a quote you have to input your phone number and post code from what I remember. They then give you their best prices.
The price I got was £27.50 for BB (up to 17mb) + £7.50 for anytime phone calls.

All academic now though as I've sorted a better deal with BT.

Richard.

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[Minxy]

Not sure if it's any use but '3' have a home B310 router now at £20 a month for 40gb for 12 months and the router is free (virtually identical to the one mentioned by 'motorhomewifi' above, as it's a 12v one we can also take in on holiday with us in the MH too which is great.

We've kicked our local phone 'monopoly' network provider (Kingston Communications) out of the door (we don't have BT here ... don't ask!) and have just got one and it's brilliant - the speeds we are getting are far superior to the landline service we had.

The '3' router is only supposed to be available in our 'monopoly' area in the UK (first trial area to see how well it's received) but apparently if you ring '3' you can get it wherever you are, they just don't publicise it on their website or in shops except our local ones.

 

[Clarky]

Result!!!
I finally found a phone number where I could speak to a real live human at BT and told them I was thinking of leaving.
Magically a deal could be done so I now have a £12 per month saving on BB plus free caller display (was £1.75).
Total bill with anytime calls is now £33.45 per month which is competitive with other companies and I am happy with.
I have also ordered one of their new Smart hubs which has got very good reviews and should improve my wireless coverage in the house. That was £50 plus £9.95 delivery and I look forward to unplugging the various wi-fi extenders that are dotted around.

Thanks everyone for your input and advice on this thread.


Richard.

 

[32143]

We are with Sky for broadband and phone, never used the phone wasn't even plugged in, when 1st year was up decided to cancel as we were paying around £25 a month and like yourselves away a lot. Phoned them to cancel at first offered me free broadband saving £7.50 a month. Said it still wasn't worth us keeping, as cancellation date grew closer next offer was free line rental instead. Checked what tie in was, told 12 months so signed up for 12 months at £7.50 a month plus £2.50 a month because we don't have sky tv. Giving us unlimited broadband and phone (still not plugged in) for £120 for 12 months. This was due to be up back in Oct, I figured no way would we get the same deal again, called them said again what would they offer, could I keep same deal, explained if couldn't would be cancelling at end of October and as away for 3 months would then try other providers on our return. Put me on hold, few mins later came back, will you stay with us at same deal £10 a month another 12 month contract? Yes absolutely, so we have another 12 months for £120. I was completely honest with them about it and I guess they can see at their end although Nige does hammer it downloading when we are home, other times it isn't used at all.

Lin

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[DJA]

Hi Clarky

I would certainly look for a much better price from BT than the one you are paying. For the amount you pay we get Unlimited Top speed, up to 76mb per sec, Fibre Optic with Evening and Weekend calls, Caller Display and Free McAfee security software for up to 9 computers I think. We use our Mobiles during the day one of which uses a BT sim only for £5 which gives us 200 mins, Unlimited Texts and 1GB of data per month.

I have to say that I have been able to easily resolve problems with BT, which have been few, with little difficulty including when communicating with their India support. On one occassion it took some persistance but once they recognised the problem it was resolved quickly.

Our BT4 Router offers 2 additional access points then the Secure main access we use. They are BTWiFi-X and BTWifi-with-Fon. The former is a secure access to anyone with a BT Account and the Latter is an Open access for anyone with a Fon Account which includes BT Broadband users who log in with the same as they do to their main account. On the BT website it refers to Fon as their 7million access points available around the world. The default setup on the BT routers is for these free access points to be available. You can I believe choose to turn this off but this means that you are then not able to access the facility for your own use.

I can only assume that the old Fon boxes that you added to your router are becoming a thing of the past as certainly in BT's case the routers they supply include the facility.

Hope this helps

Doug

B?gger must type quicker. Well done Richard. You know it made sense.

 

[Clarky]

Hi Clarky

I would certainly look for a much better price from BT than the one you are paying. For the amount you pay we get Unlimited Top speed, up to 76mb per sec, Fibre Optic with Evening and Weekend calls, Caller Display and Free McAfee security software for up to 9 computers I think. We use our Mobiles during the day one of which uses a BT sim only for £5 which gives us 200 mins, Unlimited Texts and 1GB of data per month.

I have to say that I have been able to easily resolve problems with BT, which have been few, with little difficulty including when communicating with their India support. On one occassion it took some persistance but once they recognised the problem it was resolved quickly.

Our BT4 Router offers 2 additional access points then the Secure main access we use. They are BTWiFi-X and BTWifi-with-Fon. The former is a secure access to anyone with a BT Account and the Latter is an Open access for anyone with a Fon Account which includes BT Broadband users who log in with the same as they do to their main account. On the BT website it refers to Fon as their 7million access points available around the world. The default setup on the BT routers is for these free access points to be available. You can I believe choose to turn this off but this means that you are then not able to access the facility for your own use.

I can only assume that the old Fon boxes that you added to your router are becoming a thing of the past as certainly in BT's case the routers they supply include the facility.

Hope this helps

Doug

B?gger must type quicker. Well done Richard. You know it made sense.

Oh, if only we could get 76mb download speed.
BT list our line at 1-2mb but we usually get 2.5mb............on a good day with a following wind.

We also have a BT sim for the Memsahibs mobile at £5 per month, which is not a bad deal.

Richard.