I understand the call centre is somewhere in India ? How can this be for such a megalithic monopoly ? Fortunately the set up has been stable enough to avoid contact so would have to give the half way balance of 5 out of 10 there.
Have to put my cards on the table and state i know very little about the world of computers and interwebbyness.
My previous first experience was with what has been called on here "AoHell" - a several pint job in a pub to explain in itself !
In my opinion BT excells in duplicated, slow, wooden complexity. There is this strange accolyte called "Yahoo" as if BT feels awkward, embarrassed or incapable of solely relying on it's very own mainpage.
It seems impossible to have more than one window open at any one time, unlike AoL even allowing for the seven year vintage of my Hewlett-Packard machine. There is the feeling a neighbour has lifted a manhole cover to dump a freshly bagged bulging dog turd down the four inch soil pipe but lo, there has to be a back bollocking pressure of more turd to instil any kind of speed into their wire system.
Then there is the clumsy enigma of the thing called "Outlook Express" which has to be gone through as like a split brain entity which devolves off the main page, in my opinion tediously. Hate to say it but AoHell was streets ahead on email for simplicity.

Most annoyingly, BT imposed what i think was called a 'fair use policy' on many subscribers after they signed up so the monthly payment became £20 rather than less on signing up.
To me this is far too much for the small use i place upon their service and pay rental for telephone line - which ought to have been paid for many times over even in the last decade !

No more big providers for me with hideously long contracts - had enough of that and am going to find a smaller ISP. If they take old fashioned cheques, that is even better.