BT Reviews

I have really avoided being a BT Broadband customer over the years because Ive never felt that the cost of line rental justified the service. However 8 months ago i started an 18 month contract with BT Broadband and compared to Talk Talk, AOL, Orange and Telewest (Virgin Media cable now) they have provided a better speed, better equipment and much faster resolution time when i have had the odd issue.

I will be more than happy to renew my contract for the first time with any Broadband provider, the extras given with the service are excellent and most Ive found useful.

I did have an issue getting connected once but a quick call resolved it and despite the fact the assistant i spoke with wasn't a native speaker he was both proficient and knowledgeable. AOL i had 3months lost service and its taken me a year to get a refund. Orange would always pass me to BT when i had a problem despite the fact the problem was always resolved with a replacement router. Talk Talk just didn't give support in a reasonable time and resolutions always seemed temporary rather than permanent.

Telewest my biggest issue was throttling my service, i want unlimited, i use unlimited and BT has so far proven the best for this.

Joined BT BB in June 2008 choosing the option 3 package from September to the end of December I had a connection speed of 424kbp/s according to the hubs homepage and regularly got speed tests to show that my download speed was just under 0.4Mb (average) then the last day of 2008 the hubs connection drops and reconnects @ 160kbp/s after rebooting a few times I get it to 320kbp/s and speed tests show a download speed of around 295kbp/s (average)
In May I decide to drop to the option 1 package from when the 12 month contract ends and BT start the option 1 package from 2nd June and from that date my connection has been dropped back to 160kbp/s and even rebooting the hub does not help to get a faster speed, speed tests at 3am show a speed very close to what I get during peak times. If I could get 0.4Mb for 4 months and a stable connection at that then all I can say is that BT must be capping the connection to my service. I would not recommend them to anyone if you are after a fast connection

I've being subscribed to BT for about 6 months now and I've got to say that as someone who uses the net alot, there are definatly better services out there.

If you download during peak hours (which they seem to define as from about 8am till midnight) you are VERY likely to suffer the wrath of their EXTREMELY aggressive traffic management, the limits can go anywhere from a slight manageable lag to full on destroying your line, this can ruin gaming experiances and make streaming video impossible to watch without prebuffering 3/4s of the clip. Its worth noting that during the off-peak hours the speeds are usually fine, I don't tend to get cut off, peer to peer works about as well as you would expect and ftp downloads can get close to a 1mbps, which is about as much as my line can take.

With my previous ISP (PlusNet) if the worst happens and you their tech support you got a nice english person who knew what they were talking about and could talk you through what was going on. Not so with BT, quite why companies still insist on outsourceing tech support to India I'll never know. I couldn't imagine having to deal with them trying to fix any major faults because they basically have no clue to what they're doing other than the screens in front of them. Surfice to say the best solution to any technical problem is to just leave the line and hope and pray that it will come back on its own.

The homehub they send you is a cheap nasty rebranded thompson piece of crap, it works and the wireless N standard is nice if you have the hardware to support it but to be honest you would be much better off with your own gear (which thankfully they don't mind you doing) oh and don't go relying on the phone part of it, it will KILL your speeds.

I feel that you will only ever get the negative side from reviews on sites like this (its somewhere to vent frustration after all) If you don't use the internet THAT much, or if you do don't mind sticking most of your bandwidth hogging activities to off peak hours you could do worse than BT, but not much.

I've used a few different providers now (since I've moved a few times) and I have to say that BT provides - by far - the worst service I have ever seen.
Connections are dropped permanently, latency is high and throughput is unsurprisingly low.
Online gaming is obviously out of the question, but even watching youtube videos becomes a chore when the connection is dropped half-way thorugh and it becomes impossible to watch a video all the way. It should be noted that these are permanent issues. They're not occasional glitches.

BT's best average speed was 480kbs. This went on for two years, I could blow a gasket soon, nothing I could say would change this, I was always polite and calm, but inside I was fuming, they would do test after test, send engineers and test more, and still they would not invest in better equipment or software. Verbally I had to force them to cap the feed, it was resetting so often I would only be getting 124kbs for days on end.
So in January 2009 I ended up on TalkTalk's doorstep because they don't use BT's software at the exchange to drive the ADSL. I have to say they are so far the best three months I have ever had with broadband, the ADSL speed went up by 50%, and no resets, I would love to have stayed with BT but two years is a long time to put up with a disappointing service wouldn't you say.

Being an IT guy I get involved with setting up (and dealing with problems) for all major ISPs. I can honestly say experiencing problems with BT Total Broadband are far and away the worst.

You get fobbed off, told to ring various different departments (all overseas). The technical team say they'll phone back and never do. When you call them back, they go through the same procedures again and again (line test, check router, etc) even though you explain that it has already been done. You ask to speak to a supervisor, the supervisor's is "busy" (what a surprise!). Of course, they will still bill you even though you are not online.

There is no co-ordination between departments, nobody who actually has any knowledge outside the script, and expect several weeks and long phonecalls before any resolution. Choose BT at your peril!

I got BT broadband in 2003. It is fair to say, I think, that back then the service was flawless. The connections rarely ever broke and I hardly ever needed to speak to their customer support people.

Then, sometime last year, my conenctions started breaking off on a regular basis. And, I also noticed that the e-mail account they gave me (for life supposedly - or at least for the life of my relationship with BT) had been de-activated for no reason. I had them re-activate it. This happened about five times over the next few months (they would de-activate and I would ask them to re-activate). Then I gave up. 

My connection is as bad, if not worse, than what it was back in October of last year when I first experienced these problems. Why haven't I changed yet? Because it is not that easy to change particularly given the hassle involved - and I have a very demanding job which prevents me from doing it. 

However, enough is enough and I have made a decision to put an end to this nonsense now. It is a shame that I cannot give BT a minus 10 rating becuse that is what it truly deserves. 

After 4 years of extremely slow, but resonably good service dial up service from Demon.co.uk, I found it necesary to switch to BT to get broadband.  Initially getting only 1 megabite download speed from our very rural exchange,which was an amazing speed increased, this increased to a potential 4.5 megabite download speed with the new BT home hub which was provided.  

I subsequently decided to upgrade my own computer and my wife began to use my old model.  We are both now connected to the hub via an ethernet connection and we now have 24/7 connection to the internet at excellent download speeds.  While initially download speed tended to slow down at periods of high usage, we have found that, recently, BT are providing a high speed throughout the day approaching their promised high.

We both use their Broadband Talk facility which has become much more stable with the Home Hub set up. 

I used to be a big fan of BT Openworld. I had BT since ISDN was available through Home Highway. When their ADSL packages came out I upgraded to that to. Speeds were great. Then ADSL+ packages were released and I opted for Option 4, which offered a then up to 8Mbps (usually 5-6Mbps all day) service with a 30GB bandwidth cap at £29.99 a month.

Recently BT has become a total nightmare. Because I didn't want to upgrade to a new 18 month contract BT Total Broadband, taking all of their other unnecessary services such as a Home Hub and Phone with their new Option 3 package which has an up to 8Mbps package with an unlimited bandwidth for £24.99. Because I accidentally went over my 30GB bandwidth allowance I was limited to 512Kbps download limit at peak times (I assume 6pm to 12am) for more than two months. Even know I was paying through the nose above their Option 3 package.

I finally had enough, I quit BT after 6 years on ADSL and when I called to obtain my MAC code, they tried to hard sell me with their new option 3 package and 18 month contract. Telling me that the bandwidth cap would be lifted if I agreed there and then.

Avoid like the plague.

I have moved to Aquiss, I am on a business package, and I am extremely happy with the service. They have a £32.99 package which includes up to 8Mbps download & 832Kbps upload (I am averaging 6Mbps/650Kbps respectively 24/7). More than enough bandwidth allowance at 45GB at peak times and 300GB at off-peak times. A 1 month contract and you can upgrade or downgrade your account with 10 days notice. Support is great. They answer your questions quickly and DON'T put you through to a foreign country. They did have a few outage problems when I first arrived, but these were explained in detail on their support website and the problems didnt last for more than a couple of hours. For the past month and a half I have not had any downtime at all. Highly recommended.

Changed over from Freeola to BT Broadband option 3,because I no longer required the 330 Gig limit, and with BT I could get free evening and weekend calls (well that was the plan)

3 weeks later I have had no internet connection between 20:00 and 08:00 the following morning.(no free evening calls then) Calls to the Indian call center were interesting, but fruitless, so I rang up to cancel my internet connection only to be told that i would have to pay a years subscription.

They have given me an account manager, I would rather have an internet connection but that is not high on there priority list.

Avoid BT. In fact Exterminate Exterminate