Finally decided to move on from BT ....

[Lordgeous]

Does anyone else long for the days when we just had Phone, Electricity, Gas and didn't have all this hassle??? Anyway, I'd always been happy with Plusnet - now they too are part of BT! Nostalgia? Not what it used to be!

[french frank]

Does anyone else long for the days when we just had Phone, Electricity, Gas and didn't have all this hassle???

I'm close to that now, still with BT for all my phone/mobile and broadband. I did move my electricity and gas from SWEB and British Gas, but now have duel fuel from Good Energy - even simpler.

[Dave2002]

Does anyone else long for the days when we just had Phone, Electricity, Gas and didn't have all this hassle??? Anyway, I'd always been happy with Plusnet - now they too are part of BT! Nostalgia? Not what it used to be!

Plus banks which didn't "require" 2nd factor authorisation and all sorts of other shenanigans just to be able to manage accounts.

The assumption that everyone has a smartphone I find a real pain, plus the fact that different organisations use different methods.
Almost everything is somehow linked to email and phone accounts nowadays. Things are getting too complicated, and not always very well thought out.

[gurnemanz]

Does anyone else long for the days when we just had Phone, Electricity, Gas and didn't have all this hassle??? Anyway, I'd always been happy with Plusnet - now they too are part of BT! Nostalgia? Not what it used to be!

Yes, mostly.

I suppose competition has to some extent forced suppliers to be more efficient and less complacent, but for me, life's to short to have to be constantly playing their game of jumping through hoops to save (allegedly) a couple of quid. I suppose many people succumb to dotty price comparison ads with opera singers and meerkats etc. They must be doing pretty well (like the betting companies) to afford this blanket advertising, taking a commission every time someone uses their services. The running costs of these switching sites are presumably ultimately paid for by all customers whether or not they are switchers.

I have only switched once - many years ago in order to get the same provider for gas and electricity, which seemed quite logical, as well as including a dual fuel discount. I always try to haggle with our existing provider when a renewal comes round.

[Leinster Lass]

Plus banks which didn't "require" 2nd factor authorisation and all sorts of other shenanigans just to be able to manage accounts.

The assumption that everyone has a smartphone I find a real pain, plus the fact that different organisations use different methods.
Almost everything is somehow linked to email and phone accounts nowadays. Things are getting too complicated, and not always very well thought out.

Ain't that the truth?
Like gurnemanz, I've only ever switched once, When I subsequently finally got round to visiting one of those comparison sites, it said I was on the best deal I could get and didn't need to change.
Let's keep things simple!

[Dave2002]

Yes, mostly.

I suppose competition has to some extent forced suppliers to be more efficient and less complacent, but for me, life's to short to have to be constantly playing their game of jumping through hoops to save (allegedly) a couple of quid.

Not really worth it for a "couple of quid", but our efforts at checking, and switching if appropriate, have "saved" (or avoided) spending £00s per year. The switch from BT might save as much as £400 in a year (approx). Other switches we have done are for insurance - both car insurance and house insurance, and gas, electricity and oil. The annual savings across all services are potentially around £1000 pa - based on the notion that without keeping an eye on charges - and charge increases - the service providers would have little hesitation in bunging extra charges on their services at each annual renewal.

[oddoneout]

Not really worth it for a "couple of quid", but our efforts at checking, and switching if appropriate, have "saved" (or avoided) spending £00s per year. The switch from BT might save as much as £400 in a year (approx). Other switches we have done are for insurance - both car insurance and house insurance, and gas, electricity and oil. The annual savings across all services are potentially around £1000 pa - based on the notion that without keeping an eye on charges - and charge increases - the service providers would have little hesitation in bunging extra charges on their services at each annual renewal.

With savings like that it becomes the sensible thing to do but, like gurnemanz I fall into the saving peanuts at best or actually costing more(once all the small print is perused) so I don't bother. I haggle where it seems worth trying, and have succeeded on occasion in getting a better deal, but generally I'll settle for one that's not worse than I already have. I do keep track of what alternatives are out there, so not entirely a lost cause despite what Martin Lewis would have me believe. Monthly Direct Debit being ruled out due to wildly fluctuating income means that many supposed options aren't available anyway.
The car insurance adverts that boldly claimed to save hundreds on my annual premium did once tempt me to see how far I could go, as one of the persistent offers would have seen me 'saving' twice what my annual premium was in the first place, ie being paid by the company to be insured by them. I think one was about £5 cheaper, but offered less than I already had, the other I tried cost considerably more.
The thing that bugs me about the telecoms is that the broadband is way more in terms of function than I need or want (just email and internet browsing, no film/audio etc), so I am paying over and above. I used to be on a Value tariff which was more than adequate but that was withdrawn and,(like all the other companies) the 'cheapest' on offer was what had been the middle tier option previously, so immediate doubling of bills at least, and no way to reduce the cost. There is no real competition for the telephone line as it all has to be bought from BT as far as I'm aware, and they aren't going to sanction undercutting on any useful scale. Again I only have the most basic, and I was relieved I already had an answerphone as the company decided to start charging for 1571 last year.

[ardcarp]

I switched over to BT Business for phone and broadband some years ago.

Advantage? You get through to someone in the UK straight away who talks sense...and the agreement is that they fix any fault within 24 hrs.
You really are a 'priority customer'

Disadvantage? It is eye-wateringly expensive, but when you need to keep in touch business-wise, it is worth it.
You are tied in for a contract, usually 2 years.

Another slight advantage: When your contract comes up for renewal...costing more of course....you simply threaten to change supplier and amazingly they find a deal which is sometimes cheaper than the one before.

[Dave2002]

The EE router and wiring kit arrived a few days ago. Today is/was switch over day. Took me maybe 10-15 minutes to get the router fixed in and working, but now seems OK. Now that I can compare the routers side by side, the EE one (which I'm told is very similar to the current BT one) is slightly bigger than the BT one we were using. So far it seems to work OK - though it's early days yet. There's a web page where one can see all the connected devices.

Speed test shows Ping of 30 ms, Download rate of 68 Mbps and Upload rate of 18 Mbps - though that's just a one off test. That's fast enough for most purposes I hope, though reliability may be more important.

So far so good ......

[ChrisBennell]

The EE router and wiring kit arrived a few days ago. Today is/was switch over day. Took me maybe 10-15 minutes to get the router fixed in and working, but now seems OK. Now that I can compare the routers side by side, the EE one (which I'm told is very similar to the current BT one) is slightly bigger than the BT one we were using. So far it seems to work OK - though it's early days yet. There's a web page where one can see all the connected devices.

Speed test shows Ping of 30 ms, Download rate of 68 Mbps and Upload rate of 18 Mbps - though that's just a one off test. That's fast enough for most purposes I hope, though reliability may be more important.

So far so good ......

By the way, you are not restricted to using the router supplied by your ISP. (with the exception of SKY I think). You may be able to get a much better router by shopping around for an alternative. On my BT line, I have used a TP-Link Archer VR2800, for past 2 years. This has been rock solid. My last new BT router is still unboxed! The TP-Link router was not all that cheap (about £160 I think) but for me it was worth it. Installation was a breeze - connect it up and it configured itself.

[Dave2002]

By the way, you are not restricted to using the router supplied by your ISP. (with the exception of SKY I think). You may be able to get a much better router by shopping around for an alternative. On my BT line, I have used a TP-Link Archer VR2800, for past 2 years. This has been rock solid. My last new BT router is still unboxed! The TP-Link router was not all that cheap (about £160 I think) but for me it was worth it. Installation was a breeze - connect it up and it configured itself.

I'm never sure about that. The previous (BT router) was still working this morning - but I thought I'd better put in the EE one. It may be a better model anyway. So far it seems to push out a WiFi signal further than the other one, so maybe switching has been good - and not only for the reduced costs. Will have to see.

Keep getting "updates" from BT. Part of the organisation still seems to think I'm a subscriber, and is sending me details of TV channels I don't want to watch, while I get nags about "what I'm missing" from the part of BT which "doesn't want to lose me.

I need to check whether I really need to send any kit back to them. Some former subscribers are supposed to send routers and any boxes back or face a charge, but since we've been paying BT for years perhaps this isn't going to apply to us. I don't particularly want to have old equipment lying about if the new kit works, so will check this. The YouView box might be useful if we ever get a terrestrial signal which is strong enough. Unfortunately configuring that unit generally requires it to detect some signal, even though it can be configured to run off the internet. We do still have some old programmes stored on it, though as we've not got round to watching them in several years, it wouldn't upset me wildly to return it.

[ChrisBennell]

I'm never sure about that. The previous (BT router) was still working this morning - but I thought I'd better put in the EE one. It may be a better model anyway. So far it seems to push out a WiFi signal further than the other one, so maybe switching has been good - and not only for the reduced costs. Will have to see.

Keep getting "updates" from BT. Part of the organisation still seems to think I'm a subscriber, and is sending me details of TV channels I don't want to watch, while I get nags about "what I'm missing" from the part of BT which "doesn't want to lose me.

I need to check whether I really need to send any kit back to them. Some former subscribers are supposed to send routers and any boxes back or face a charge, but since we've been paying BT for years perhaps this isn't going to apply to us. I don't particularly want to have old equipment lying about if the new kit works, so will check this. The YouView box might be useful if we ever get a terrestrial signal which is strong enough. Unfortunately configuring that unit generally requires it to detect some signal, even though it can be configured to run off the internet. We do still have some old programmes stored on it, though as we've not got round to watching them in several years, it wouldn't upset me wildly to return it.

I'm not sure they are particularly bothered whether you send old kit back to them - I have sent back stuff in the past, but I'm hanging on to my new unboxed BT router, just in case something happens to my existing TP-Link one. Also if you report a fault, there may just be a need to connect their own kit, in case they need it to do tests. But so far, when I've occasionally had a fault on the line, they didn't notice that I wasn't using their kit.

The main reason I got my own router was much better WiFi performance over the house, better reliability, and the ability to do more configurations in the router, than the BT one allows.