BT Marketing materials

[MrMobodies]

Attachment parameters don't seem to be working see pictures at bottom.

Get 3 months of BT Sport

Three months out of 24 month contract.

"The UK'S most powerful wi-fi versus major broadband providers: For a fast signal that goes further round your home."

I hear that all the time from other ISPS.

Stay Fast Guarantee:  Get the speeds we promise or £20 back."

A measly one time £20 but in the small print it states "we'll give you a £20 BT Reward Card, up to four claims per year", I wonder which is it?  Anyway I'd expect money of the bill or an option of leaving penalty free but they don't mention that in the small print.

Read the flexible excuses they may use:

Excludes outages, connection faults and some wiring outside BT's control.

Small print:

Page 2:
“All prices and content may change and your montly price including all out of bundle charges and add-ones will increase from March 2021 every year by the Consumer Price Index Rate of inflation publiched in January that year year plus 3.9% See bt.com/prices for details. Separate contracts apply to BT TV Sport, Broadband with TV.

Fibre Essential: Price correst as of 24 August 2020. 95% coverage across the uk. Average 36mbps. Price from month 25 currently £32.99 a month. Average speeds based on speed available to at least 50% of customers at peak time(8-10pm). Your actual speed will be dependent on your location, phone line, home wiring, wi-fi connection and time of day. Check your speed at bt.com/speed Compatible line required otherwise £49.99 connection charge may apply/ BT retains ownship of all equipment. Pay,ment is by Direct Debt. Personal use only. Subject to availability. Stay Fast Guarantee: We Guarantee the speed to your Hub. Check your speed using My BT app, online or by calling 0800 800 150. If after 30 days we can't get your back to the speed we promised we'll give you a £20 BT Reward Card, up to four claims per yet. Excludes outages, connection faults and some wiring outside BT's control.

Page 3:
More powerful Smart Hub: Verify at bt.com/broadband/smart-hub BT TV:  For new customers with BT Fibre and existing customers who re-contract their broadband for 24 months. 24-months minimum term.. Prices and content may vary. You can change your TV package every month (excludes Classic Entertainment). Any change will be at standard price as set out in our tariff guide. Every plan comes with a recordable TV box (unless BT has already provided you with one). HDMI connection required. A 10m cable cable will be provided. Optional £30 for an engineer install or £10 for broadband extenders, if required. Subject to availability. Terms apply. Sport: You can only access BT Sport in the UK.

"More power smart Hub?" what is so "powerful about it?"

No specifications, about the internals to compare to other competitors like found on Openwrt.

Wy would you choose anyone else?

From my experience I choose business broadband from other small providers because I find these providers were more willing to care about just the broadband connectivity and sending Openreach/contractors out to check onsite that it works properly at the start of entering into a contract before it is finalised. Rather than doing absolutely nothing on the premises and turning up later trying charge the customer for work they didn't do but should have done from the start. It cost a little more but I find it aggravation free. When I have an issue I just get on the phone little waiting and I speak to the majority on there who seem to understand most of the time and not often transfer me from person to person to get things done. Any orders or faults they do the chasing up and I get call backs on the appointments and the progress.

I know from someone who had Bt Business broadband last year and they were given a 4g backup sim (that they said works on their third party router) to be used in outages as part of their package but not all the other competitors so that is one good move.

Also the prices stay the same with the contract whereas with BT: "All prices and content may change" So according to that it seems that they can do what they like.

I hear some of my customers who are with BT complain that they keep on raising their bill and it is only when they enquire they bring bill down a little but increase back a couple of months later.

Does it mention if they are not getting the speeds they can leave on the leaflet?

On the website it does:
https://www.bt.com/help/broadband/learn-about-broadband/broadband-speed/i-m-not-getting-the-expected-stay-fast-guarantee-or-minimum-broa

If you're not getting the expected Stay Fast Guarantee or minimum broadband speed, please contact us and we’ll do our best to fix it. If it stays that way, and we can’t improve it, you may be able to exit your contract without penalty.

That seems to be the bit missing in the small print.

Reward card £20 a time, 8 times during the 24 monthds contract when they could simply leave if they wanted to.

I think claiming for loss earnings would be better but then that is for business and I think the losses have to be justified for any compensation claim.

What do you think about the marketing materials?

[steve30]

I think these ISPs are all the same. I heard an ad on the radio the other week for a VDSL ISP that did a 'WiFi Speed Guarantee' (might have been Sky). I've also seen BT's dubious claims on billboards, about them offering the best 'WiFi'... on DSL connections.

Personally I think it is best to just ignore them and look at reputable ISPs.

Of course, this is nothing new. Here is a leaflet I got from Virgin back in 2008 for their coax (cable TV) internet. It informs us that copper wire was invented for telephone calls, and fibre optics were invented for the internet.

[themadhippy]

you forgot to mention BT's favorite trick,increasing your monthly payments because "there not covering your projected  usage" even though your account is  in enough credit to pay the next 6 months bills,even with the added line rental they hid in the small print when claiming to offer you the  lowest price for broadband

[Cerebus]

I have lost count of the number of times that the Advertising Standards Authority has slapped BT down for their various claims in adverts, like "Most powerful wifi" but they come back and make misleading claim after misleading claim.  See: https://www.asa.org.uk/codes-and-rulings/rulings.html?q=British+Telecommunications

Their record of honesty in advertising has led me to choose to never do business with them if it is at all possible to avoid. Corporations just don't seem to 'get' the idea that people don't like doing business with proven serial liars.

[TomS_]

Its not just BT. Sky are at it as well. Not sure if Ive heard of Virgin doing it yet, but Im sure they would be if the other two are (and Im too lazy to look it up), they are in many cases directly competing with each other.

Personally, Im with Zen. No marketing nonsense, just decent service at a pretty reasonable price.

It informs us that copper wire was invented for telephone calls, and fibre optics were invented for the internet.

[Monkeh]

Let's not forget that most of their fibre service isn't fibre at all. Apparently they're officially allowed to get away with that marketing bullshit, but it's bullshit nonetheless. By their standards I was using fibre in the 90s with a 56k modem.

[bd139]

My father got bitten by this marketing bollocks a few years ago and got himself tied into a 24 month sky contract where his “fibre” was running at 8Mbits  . When he dropped dead 15 months into the contract I had the pleasure of trying to get the bastards terminated. “He’s dead” followed by “terribly sorry to hear about that” followed by them attempting to take the remaining money and exit fee via DD followed by debt collectors getting involved when that failed. No sympathy on the phone. The debt collectors who were terribly nice told Sky to fuck off in the end. Absolute wankers the big ISPs, up there with letting agents, television personalities from the 70s and the woman on the checkout at my local Asda who resents the existence of all customers.

I’m with Zen. 90% less wankers.

[MrMobodies]

you forgot to mention BT's favorite trick,increasing your monthly payments because "there not covering your projected  usage" even though your account is  in enough credit to pay the next 6 months bills,even with the added line rental they hid in the small print when claiming to offer you the  lowest price for broadband

Bet they might have been shown "unlimited" but entered for something else that costs similar but not unlimited.

That's why when I make a contract with an ISP's and they're offering me all these lowest price deals claiming to be lowest cost broadband, pay £25 for the first year then it goes up to nearly £50 in the second year of the contract, I insist that I pay a flat rate in the middle of lets say £30 to keep the price the same as possible and after when it becomes a rolling contract. That way I expect no surprises and they should not feel "short changed" about me using the service too and there shouldn't be any excuse like that for them to use to justify increases like that.

There are sometimes I remember many years I think it was TalkTalk business and they announced that they had to increase the prices to I think it was about £3 or so and gave a couple of months notice and an opportunity to exit the contract penalty free.

[Keith956]

Do what I did and switch to 4G mobile internet (and junk the landline). A good external antenna and a Huawei 4G modem/router gives 120Mb/s down and 30Mb/s up. And an unlimited Three data sim at £20/month is about a third of what BT were trying to charge for a pathetic 40Mb/s down, 6Mb/s up connection.

[bd139]

Not in London it doesn’t. Completely rammed here. 12mbits down 4 up.  I’m buying an iPhone 12 next week with 5G and we have a 5G tower on the street so I will see how that goes. Hopefully as an early adopter I’ll get some bandwidth for a bit.

[Monkeh]

Yep, because an Indian callcentre, random outages, and NAT on NAT is better..

[MrMobodies]

Do what I did and switch to 4G mobile internet (and junk the landline). A good external antenna and a Huawei 4G modem/router gives 120Mb/s down and 30Mb/s up. And an unlimited Three data sim at £20/month is about a third of what BT were trying to charge for a pathetic 40Mb/s down, 6Mb/s up connection.

Is that like the Huewei 5172?

I got some of those imported from Europe and really good. I was looking 4g modems a couple of years ago and found reviews about them on Amazon I could be in the middle of nowhere and get crap signals with one of those small pocket 4G modems but this one in a farm with hardly signal, 1 or 2 bars at 40mbps if positioned in a certain way and I paid about £40 each.

Also I like the analogue telephone port in the back for bridhing, with that external antenna and the 5172 has that backup battery but on some firmwares, one allows it to work with the battery but the later firmware in other model seem to shut the wifi and ethernet port.

[Keith956]

Is that like the Huewei 5172?

I got some of those imported from Europe and really good. I was looking 4g modems a couple of years ago and found reviews about them on Amazon I could be in the middle of nowhere and get crap signals with one of those small pocket 4G modems but this one in a farm with hardly signal, 1 or 2 bars at 40mbps if positioned in a certain way and I paid about £40 each.

Also I like the analogue telephone port in the back for bridhing, with that external antenna and the 5172 has that backup battery but on some firmwares, one allows it to work with the battery but the later firmware in other model seem to shut the wifi and ethernet port.

No it's a B535. As a modem/router its not bad, the only criticism I have is the wifi signal strength could be better.