Home Essentials & digital voice

[dazbon]

Any body else had issues with moving to Home Essentials? End of last month asked to move over as home caring for my disabled & on Universal Credit. Explained that she has lifeline equipment & told that it should be OK. The day came & all of a sudden no home phone & emergency equipment would not call out.

Many hours trying to sort it out with BT & they finally agreed that they would switch us back to enable the lifeline equipment to work. Three weeks without the lifeline equipment & the day came & the line & equipment were working again. However, all of a sudden no broadband/internet etc. After once again talking to so many at BT it appeared that someone had removed broadband from our contract;

They have now agreed to place us back on Home Essentials with the normal phone line to allow the lifeline equipment to work (the lifeline company were not aware of the possibility of the digital switch rendering their equipment useless) & now we are due to be back on a working broadband sometime at the beginning of August. Was it all worth it, probably not!

[DavidM]

Hi @dazbon and welcome back.

I'm really sorry you've had a few problems switching over the the Home Essentials package. Hopefully everything is sorted but if there are any other problems please get in touch and we'll be happy to help.

Cheers

David

[dazbon]

Thank you. Obviously still waiting for the internet to be put back on, sometime beginning of August. In the meantime I have had to buy an unlimited data sim so that my wife can still watch her streaming services.

[dazbon]

Yes as of now seeing my latest bill of £130 + for what I do not know? This was after being told repeatedly that I would not be charged for being re-connected etc it looks like BT are doing just that as well as charging us for re-connecting us back to broadband? All of this because I wanted to save a little money with Home Essentials & after being without landline & wife's lifeline box for three weeks they want to charge us this much??

[JohnC2]

Hi @dazbon, thanks for posting back, and sorry that this charge for reconnection has been raised.

It may be the case that the person dealing with your complaint has diaried to remove the charge once it's billed but it's best to be sure. Therefore I've sent you a Private Message so you can get in touch with the Mod team and we'll be happy to ensure the bill gets corrected.

cheers

John

[dazbon]

Thx John,

Made a call & been told that it has now been all sorted.

[pippincp]

I'm glad you had things sorted out eventually but just wanted to comment on something you mentioned in you first post about the lifeline company not being aware of the switch to digital rendering their equipment useless.

Do they have their heads buried in the sand? Openreach have been quite open in informing everyone of the coming switch, it will be happening area by area over the next 3 years until the PSTN network  (copper phone line service) is turned off nationally.

How a company that purports to be a lifeline service is not aware and ready for the upcoming change is beyond me.

[dazbon]

Totally & that is what I told the person that I spoke to from the lifeline equipment company & they appeared blissfully unaware that this was happening.

[robert1310]

I'm glad u mentioned this I too have a life line phone your provider they will send someone out to put in box that works with phone has a SIM card hope this helps robert