This topic

Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

Burmey — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 16:57:07 GMT

I renewed with BT because they said that as soon as full fibre was available at our address they would upgrade me. Well, it's available now for me but they have told me that I'd have to take out a new two year contract in order to get this upgrade. And they'd not be able to give me any preferential terms as I'm not within 4 months of my contract end and so am not eligible to special deals. Not at all what the terms say.

I've managed to obtain the full terms for the full fibre promise after commenting on another post about this topic. From the website

"BT Halo 3+ Terms and Conditions

What is BT Halo 3+ and how does it work?

If you have BT Halo 3+, in addition to the rest of the BT Halo 3 Broadband benefits you’ll also get access to our Full Fibre, Hybrid Connect, Complete Wi-Fi and our Smart Hub.

1. What is Full Fibre? Full Fibre is our next generation fibre broadband piped straight into your home. It’s our fastest and most reliable broadband yet. We are bringing speeds of up to 900Mb to our customers and our speeds are more consistent no matter how many devices are connected and what time of day. Current BT Halo 3+ customers will be able to upgrade for free to Full Fibre 100 when it becomes available in your area. You will not need to re-contract."

I phoned up again today and was told the same thing as before ; that when I can get full fibre (they are connecting the dots regarding that as I was set up with an access point at the exchange over a week ago but it's not showing on their systems yet) I will need to recontract on a fibre package as I'm currently on a ADSL package. Er yes, but within the full fibre promise it's clear - a continuation of contract and no recontract and I should be put on the Full Fibre 100 .

Does anyone know how, in practice that this works and has anyone ever managed to get the full fibre without recontracting?

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

iniltous — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 17:18:48 GMT

So to confirm , you currently pay extra for the Halo3+ option in addition to whatever ADSL/FTTC broadband package you take ?, perhaps the Mods will take a look as it does seem clear that a no contract extension upgrade to FF100 is a benefit of Halo 3+ , it’s unclear why this is an issue .

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

Burmey — Thu, 02 May 2024 10:18:43 GMT

Well I've been onto the value team again today and they are insisting that even on Halo 3 plus I will need to recontract for another 2 years if I want to move onto full fibre. They veer between saying it's not available in my area to saying I can have it but I need to recontract. I am getting such utter rubbish . They don't know their own terms and conditions.

So I'm stuck. I don't want to recontract.

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

iniltous — Thu, 02 May 2024 10:27:33 GMT

Having FTTP access is easily checked , enter your address here

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome

If FTTP is not available the the non contract extending upgrade is somewhat moot

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

Burmey — Thu, 02 May 2024 11:01:26 GMT

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

Burmey — Thu, 02 May 2024 11:11:00 GMT

I can only think that BT are being a little underhand here and not routinely honouring their Halo3 plus promise. Every agent I have spoken to (three now) have said I have to recontract. That must happen to everyone who has Halo 3 plus and fibre becomes available. It's really not good....unless there are some obscure exclusions from this very bold Halo promise that they make.

I'll just move to Sky when my contract is up for renewal in 6 months.

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

imjolly — Thu, 02 May 2024 11:06:30 GMT

@Burmey

it is quite clear to 'what do you get with halo 3+

With BT Halo 3+ you'll get...

Smart Hub 2. We'll give you a Smart Hub 2 with wi-fi controls for managing your family's screen time
Hybrid Connect. Stay online even if you lose your broadband connection. This is instead of the Keep Connected Promise and means you don't have to wait for a Mini Hub to arrive
Full Fibre Promise. This means a free upgrade to Full Fibre 100 once it's available in your area
Complete WiFi, which gives you a strong signal in every room in your house or £100 back

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

Burmey — Thu, 02 May 2024 11:11:17 GMT

I know it's clear. How do I make BT give it to me and honour their promise?

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

imjolly — Thu, 02 May 2024 11:15:51 GMT

@Burmey

it is even clearer here

BT Halo 3₊Terms and Conditions

What is BT Halo 3₊and how does it work?

If you have BT Halo 3+, in addition to the rest of the BT Halo 3 Broadband benefits you’ll also get access to our Full Fibre, Hybrid Connect, Complete Wi-Fi and our Smart Hub.

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

imjolly — Thu, 02 May 2024 11:18:43 GMT

@Burmey

as CS obviously don't know their T&C (not unusual) I have asked a forum mod to help they will post here

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

JohnC2 — Thu, 02 May 2024 11:35:29 GMT

Hi @Burmey, sorry you weren't able to get this resolved when you called in.

I've sent you a Private Message so you can get in touch with the Mod team and we'll be happy to help you with this. We are busy at the moment so it'll take a few days for us to get to you.

Cheers

John

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

iniltous — Thu, 02 May 2024 11:51:41 GMT

The DSL checker return ( presumably for your individual address) shows an ONT exists, but with no active service ( which is odd ) is there an ONT fitted at your address or any evidence of FTTP like a CSP ? , is it possible a previous occupant ordered FTTP but removed the ONT ?

The assumption is that you are on FTTC with Halo3+ , and the FTTP upgrade when FTTP becomes available is appropriate , but the DSL checker seems to suggest your address has already been ‘upgraded’ to FTTP even if there is no longer a service on it , if the address has not been provided with FTTP previously but the wholesale records somehow show it has , that may be why your ‘upgrade’ is being denied…it’s a bit strange

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

Burmey — Thu, 02 May 2024 12:23:07 GMT

Open reach fitted it a month ago. They've advised BT and say I should be able to order it. When pressed, the value team say I can order it but will have to re-contract. And so I go on, around in circles.

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

iniltous — Thu, 02 May 2024 13:18:56 GMT

That just begs further questions, how is it that the ONT fitted but it’s not in use , if it were only a month ago what happened back then ?, Openreach don’t just turn up and fit FTTP without an order from an ISP , why wasn’t the installation completed back , then and how did the FTTC service remain active once FTTP was fitted, if ordered from BT , unless ordered as a second service, the FTTP should have closed the FTTC service.

TBH , the initial assumption seemed pretty straightforward, a FTTC customer with Halo3+ denied the ‘free’ FTTP upgrade that’s clearly stipulated in the T&C’s , ( one that didn’t re-contract the customer ) , but it’s obvious not as simple as that , there is undoubtedly more to this story.

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

Burmey — Thu, 02 May 2024 14:08:50 GMT

They can sometimes just turn up and fit the fibre if there has been an error in the original fibre networking of the area. Basically the fibre was installed in every other house along our road apart from mine and a couple of other houses in our road (18 months ago). Part of the set up was completed but they didn’t finish the job and so it looked like we were never ever going to get fibre because there were no plans to put it in in our area in addition because they thought they done it. So I contacted Open Reach direct and they came and had a look and they did as much of the job as they could do because they could see it was going to be complicated.

They said they sorted out all of the communications to BT telling them that I could have if I wanted it.

they most definitely are not going to just turn off my cable supply until I have an active fibre supply running or confirmed. We can’t be without broadband as I have three home workers living in the property hence I needed fibre in the first place.

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

Burmey — Thu, 02 May 2024 15:17:37 GMT

apologies - the fibre infrastructure rather than the fibre itself being installed in the rest of our road.

Mine was complicated, but very easy in terms of the physical work that had to be done to get it from the road to inside my house - we have a conduit running under our drive, so no digging required whatsoever

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

iniltous — Thu, 02 May 2024 15:35:08 GMT

Seems strange, in a ( brand new ) newsites environment, the FTTP infrastructure is installed without a customer order , no copper network exists , it’s FTTP from the outset, every other situation is retro fitted , even on relatively new buildings , where phase one may have been copper and a neighbour on phase 2 has FTTP , the retro fitting of FTTP on addresses that have copper , is driven by an order from an ISP .

I suspect here that some well intentioned, but ultimately misguided intervention has left you in this position, where the address is seemingly has FTTP , so any inducement to move to FTTP causes a systemic failure….TBH , I would think ( and as the mod has taken an interest ) that the obvious way forward would be to upgrade without wanted element ( not extending the minimum term) but have a ‘file note’ saying you shouldn’t be held to this new date , your current otherwise, as you are considering a different ISP and it’s ( apparently not to far away from your current minimum term end ) hold off until then and consider your options

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

Burmey — Thu, 02 May 2024 21:37:24 GMT

I tried to get fibre from my ISP (BT) but they said it wasn't in the plan until at least back end 2026 for me and even then they couldn't promise. This wasn't acceptable to me as all my neighbours were getting it (one less than 6 metres away and we share the BT service thingamy). As I said, they'd made an error when they upgraded all the conduits etc and so that meant we weren't scheduled for years. BT advised that I get in touch with Open Reach, which I did.

I get what you mean regarding the position I'm in. There has to be a way around this though. Computer can't always say no, surely. And I'm only considering a new ISP because the offers on Sky (and everywhere else for fibre) are so much cheaper than BT and I only stayed with them because I had Halo 3 plus, which they now tell me they are discontinuing going forward. The Open Reach engineers said that in my property (it's 18 months old) they should really have fitted a hybrid line and not copper

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

iniltous — Thu, 02 May 2024 22:01:33 GMT

At 18 months old , the default offer from Openreach was FTTP , unless a small development, AFAIR 1-19 plots still require a ( relatively small ) contribution from the developer, but ultimately the network provided is the developer choice to make , at 18 months it’s not likely that FTTP wasn’t offered but did the developer accept, it’s irrelevant anyway.
As stated , the stumbling block seems to only be the requirement for FTTP to come with no extra contractual obligation, the Mod may offer a way around that.

FWIW , I had reason to visit a new site around 2 years ago , a development of new builds ( made to look old to fit in with the existing housing stock in a village setting ) , the odd thing was there were around 6 or 7 sets of semi detached cottages ( so around 14 dwelling ) the first set of semis had BT66’s on the house wall ( indicating a copper pair service ) the next set of semi’s had CSPs on the wall ( so FTTP ) the third set of semi’s back to BT66 etc , it turned out the criteria for ‘free’ FTTP had changed during the construction, and the half *rsed way the developer built released the plots meant this peculiar way neighbours had different methods of service , depending on when the plot was released, perhaps your build was something similar

Re: Full Fibre Promise on Halo 3+

Puma937 — Fri, 03 May 2024 11:41:57 GMT

Halo 3+ is just a scam and the FF promise is totally misleading. I'm in exactly the same boat as you. Unfortunately due to a family issue, I haven't been able to rectify the problem, but I am going to get back on the case next week.

@Burmey - BT imply that they will upgrade you as soon as FF is available in your area, BUT they don't inform you when it is. You need to keep checking yourself and then instigate the upgrade, which in turn begins a new 2 year contract.

You should try removing Halo completely - it's impossible as BT state that you cannot do that. The only way is for a MOD to intervene and then you get a flat offer - take it or leave it and any queries you may have take days to be answered.

I've just looked at my account and I have an outstanding order, which I have not instigated. This is in relation to Broadband & Digital Voice - meaning that I cannot see any offers or make any amendments to my account online.

I originally took out Halo 3+ as it offered the best connections at the time and future proof assurance. In actual fact it has turned out to be a complete waste of money, with the FF promise a total lie.