BETTER BROADBAND

Last Friday afternoon an engineer called to install our new business line. The total cost of the new line installation including the Open Reach engineer visit was just £24!!  Last time I checked, BT. where charging some £128 plus VATat 20% so being the discerning frugal shopper I am, I was elated with the £24 which is most definitely a real bargain and why I am giving it a worth mention here in my blog.

I find that you can learn a lot just by chatting to people and by chatting with our nice engineer I soon learned that he likes white tea with 1 sugar!  I asked him if he got a good discounted deal as he worked for BT and he told me that actually he didn't work for BT, but worked Open Reach.  He went on to say that when the telecoms market was de-regulated the Regulator. (Oftel I think) told BT that it could not have it's own engineer's, so a new company was set up and called Open Reach.  This company is monitored and audited to ensure that all service providers receive the same level of service and all the work done by Open Reach is to the same high standard.  I believe that Open Reach is a separate company but owned by BT..

Our engineer then went on to say that the new company has fewer benefits than he did with BT, and although he got free broadband (which cost Open Reach/BT nothing to provide him), he still had to pay for his BT line rental!  Take a look here for BT's profits on broadband alone for this last year http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15569291

Anyway, I was a bit worried about changing over our broadband and phone from Sky, we have all heard horror stories about weeks without service etc but I have to say that it was easy to do, I just signed up online, which took about 15/20 minutes to do, and I everything else was taken care of for me. Also, I was kept fully informed by text, letter and email, which was very professional and reassuring! And I'm already saving money!

I was given plenty of choice of appointments, and the engineer called to say he was on his way, (he was even early and asked if I minded!). The only thing to watch out for is that if you miss the appointment then you will be charged £98, but this is a BT/Open reach policy, and nothing to do with our new provider.

The line was up and running within minutes of the engineer leaving, and the engineer helped me connect the router that I had been sent by my new provider, (which cost me nothing by the way and had been sent out a week earlier, also followed by a text and email to ask if it had been received). I had a problem connecting the broadband, but I was able to make a free call to a UK technical support call centre. The young chap simply talked me through the procedure, as it turned out the problem had been caused by the way the Sky set-up worked, and now we have first class,  fast broadband with no problems.

I have taken the anti-virus package as well, which has many excellent features. I did have to adjust the settings, as I had set it up with parental control and it had me down as a teenager and had blocked me from adult sites and surfing after midnight! But this can only be a good thing right?  However, such a simple thing to change (if you have the parental password.)

We also took gas, electricity as well as home phone and broadband and now Linda wants a new mobile, so that's the next thing to do, all under the one roof, one bill, all itemised with cash-back card for extra saving - how easy is that?  http://www.utilitywarehouse.org.uk/robreid