This topic

Am i being ripped off ?

zingerrob — Wed, 14 May 2025 18:17:43 GMT

Hi folks,

I have Full Fibre 500 contract started January 2025. News today - if you are paying more than £30 for your broadband than you are likely being ripped off - Sky News. I'll probably find out that everyone else is on £20 a month after asking this!

Thank you !

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

WSH — Wed, 14 May 2025 18:32:58 GMT

Well you don't give any details but probably. If you have been a customer for years, they know you won't move and so they can milk you. All the other ISP's are doing exactly the same to existing customers.

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

zingerrob — Wed, 14 May 2025 18:37:02 GMT

thanks for your reply - appreciate it. Not much details to give really just Full Fibre 500. On top of that I'm paying £12 phone and £20 Discovery so £72 monthly. I dont have a problem with the £12 and £20 as I knew what I was doing. The £40 was flogged to me as a "deal". Thanks again

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

NigelB72 — Wed, 14 May 2025 18:40:19 GMT

£40 sounds in the right ball park for 500mbps tbh. I'm paying £35 with Sky but it was an effort getting that 🤣

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

WSH — Wed, 14 May 2025 18:49:50 GMT

Yeah, that deal's pretty reasonable. You should see what I'm paying but, then again, I've been out of contract for a few years now.

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

Kimberlin — Wed, 14 May 2025 20:04:38 GMT

I guess when it comes down to it, it all depends on whether or not you believe you are getting good value for money.

The simple fact is, broadband customers are generally very lazy when it comes to their provider. They pay the money, the service continues and if nothing breaks, it's simpler to just stay with your provider and keep paying whatever they tell you your annual fee will be. All ISP's rely on their customers being lazy so they those lazy customers can subsidize new customers and give them those all important low cost monthly payments.

I had four trouble free years with BT, no complaints about the service, but the annual increases are in my opinion, just extracting the urine, so I parted company and now pay £32.99 a month for 500mbps broadband as opposed to the £43 a month they wanted to charge me for the same service. I also got a £85 Mastercard just for defecting to another ISP. I don't do landlines, so there's no 20th Century phone line to pay for. I don't do ISP TV packages, I do do Freeview on, yup, a satellite dish! and I pay for Netflix.

I could have got my current package cheaper with another provider, but I'd rather pay 3 quid a month more for an ISP I know I can trust and get good service from.

And not forgetting to mention (again!), once you're out of contract, it can take as little as 5 working days to swap from one ISP to another, well that's exactly how long it took me to swap from BT to Plusnet, exactly the same service, cheaper monthly cost.

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

Crimliar — Wed, 14 May 2025 20:32:57 GMT

Yup, I'm on a good deal, but there's more to it than that. My switching options were somewhat limited if I wanted some of the more eclectic IoT I have to continue working. One of the super-cheap suppliers could have beaten the good deal I have by about £5/month, but I'm no fan of theirs, having spent hours sorting out other people's connections on their network. Even PlusNet would not have been an option without a ton of work!

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

marco806 — Thu, 15 May 2025 08:07:08 GMT

£29 per month for city fibre 900 currently where i am...nearly every provider is cheaper than the best bt can do......

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

apoplectic — Thu, 15 May 2025 08:37:48 GMT

Don't forget there's no need to take out a contract. I've not had one for years and every time I check for any deals (which involve committing to a contract), cannot see any advantage. I like having the option to change provider if I'm not satisfied.

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

iniltous — Thu, 15 May 2025 10:51:36 GMT

Someone prepared to switch around may find Alt Nets , on first glance , are cheaper , but they are in dire need of income to offset the huge losses / debt interest they face , being initially the same price or more expensive than the incumbents ( if they are to ever pay down the debt ) isn’t going to help their pretty poor take up rates, the initial introductory prices are not going to be sustainable, BT on the other hand are a mature operator and can’t really discount FTTP against the FTTC price without upsetting those that can’t get FTTP , what’s more BT have to justify how a price is arrived at to Ofcom , Alt Nets don’t get any Ofcom ‘interference’ on these things

….obviously anyone who puts price first and foremost may take a chance on an Alt Nets , after all if the Alt Net folds and goes out of business , or is taken over by someone you don’t want , the customer may simply shrug their shoulders, and move on , the potential to be out of service or moved to someone else is worth taking the risk , after all the option to switch back to somewhere else remains, but the price Alt Nets charge now is not sustainable in the long run , you may say ‘big deal , it’s cheaper today and that’s all I care about’ , which is fair enough.

FYI , City Fibre isn’t an ISP , it’s a network provider, so they don’t offer 900Mb for £29 at all , an ISP using them may charge that , but that’s the equivalent of saying Openreach 900Mb is £45, but it isn’t , it depends on the ISP , on City Fibre , Zen is £40 a month for 900Mb not £29

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

Kodikid — Thu, 15 May 2025 10:36:58 GMT

SKY news...oh the irony

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

iniltous — Thu, 15 May 2025 10:47:11 GMT

As far as Sky news saying ‘it’s a rip off’ , that needs some context , if it were a ‘guest’ and that guest were a representative of an Alt Net or their ludicrous trade body INCA they can pretty much say what the want , it’s just their opinion, it doesn’t need to be fact or even partially true …if it were the Sky presenter saying that , that’s a completely different matter , they may need to justify those type of statements as ‘fact’ not an opinion, I suspect the OP hasn’t realised the difference between an opinion and facts

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

marco806 — Thu, 15 May 2025 10:50:43 GMT

I'm fully aware, of what city fibre is. Every single provider, all 23 are more competitive than BT/EE.

Folk need to move and move often..otherwise "loyal" or should I say non savvy, mainly older folk will continue to line the likes of BT profits....Must say, across everything this goes on, not singling out BT/EE or broadband in particular.

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

iniltous — Thu, 15 May 2025 10:54:41 GMT

If you are fully aware , why say City Fibre is £29 ‘ presumably you knew it was a factually incorrect thing to post, and as stated , if they weren’t cheaper instead of 10% take up , it would be less , the price is to gain market share , it’s not a realistic price in the long term

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

marco806 — Thu, 15 May 2025 10:53:55 GMT

Can you read?.."providers".....

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

imjolly — Thu, 15 May 2025 10:55:47 GMT

more and more people are realising moving provider will save money and gamble on service

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2025/05/1-million-uk-consumers-have-switched-broadband-isp-since-sept-2024.html

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

iniltous — Thu, 15 May 2025 10:59:41 GMT

Yes , I can read, and I know the difference between ISPs and network providers , City Fibre is the latter , not the former , simply accept City Fibre don’t charge £29 for 900Mb , they can’t , they don’t have retail customers, what City Fibre charge ISPs, who then may charge £29 is not known by myself or you.

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

Anonymous — Thu, 15 May 2025 11:09:32 GMT

@zingerrob

It's kind of academic as there's nothing you can do, being so early into a contract. But come renewal, use a broadband comparison tool via a cashback site. If you did that today you could get 500Mb for as little as the equivalent of £26pm from a household name using Openreach. BT's price today is £31pm equivalent.

Obviously that's broadband only, so you need to factor in the other add-ons.

As for the Sky claim, their retail price today for 500Mb is £34pm, so by their own definition a rip-off...

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

WSH — Thu, 15 May 2025 11:20:24 GMT

One thing I like about this forum is how tolerant it is. Last time I suggested people should move rather than complain on Sky I got censored!

Re: Am i being ripped off ?

gg30340 — Thu, 15 May 2025 14:15:29 GMT

@WSH wrote:

One thing I like about this forum is how tolerant it is. Last time I suggested people should move rather than complain on Sky I got censored!

You may have fallen foul of the forum rule/guideline: "The BTCare Community Forums are intended for the discussion of issues related to BT products and services. Please do not post material about competing services and products from other providers. This includes making obvious references to other providers without actually naming them".