Can we stay with BT Mobile and not be moved to EE?

[Brucemeister5]

Did the letter state that it was a renewal with BT Mobile? It sounds as though they’ve moved you over to EE Mobile and sent you new SIMs.

[Bancquo]

I spent three hours on a chat last night, subjected to constant high pressure selling, all of which was designed to direct me away from BT and onto an EE service. What I wanted was quite simple. My partner and I have bought a house together, and she had transferred her BT account to the new address, where we were provided with full fibre broadband for considerably less than either of us were previously paying for a pretty poor copper connection. I wanted simply to terminate my broadband, which is about to expire, and add my mobile to the new account. That wasn’t offered. We were offered two EE options to replace our current BT broadband, both of which involved losing our landline. Not a big deal, but why are they so keen? We were offered mobile deals with unlimited data at a good price, and eventually a discount on the package, to which we finally were bludgeoned into accepting, as our dinner was congealing on the plates. The final part was a screen sharing of the telesales person’s screen, to which we had to agree, and all was going fine, just skimming through the text until I was lucky enough to notice that roaming was no longer included. This led to a series of messages saying this was normal post. Brexit, and everyone was doing it. Except BT I was able to tell her, as we have been enjoying free roaming twice annually since Brexit, and also have a statement from them that there’s o intention to change that until at least 2025. Or Tesco. Roaming was going to cost us £9/week she said, and if she had been upfront with that, we might still have gone with it, but her attempt to con us into accepting a poorer service by failing to mention it resulted in us cancelling the whole thing, and going back to square one. She said that BT was moving out of retail, and that everything would be EE in future. Who took over whom? Anyway, a messy business, and a level of moral corruption that seems typical of pretty much everything these days…

[Brucemeister5]

If I’ve understood you correctly, there’s nothing to stop you keeping your own BT Mobile service. It would just mean that you would lose the £5pm discount as you’re closing your broadband account. It does seem rather mean of them not to allow you to transfer an existing account to your new address in your partner’s name though. We’re out of contract with BT Mobile and we have no intention of moving to EE Mobile for one simple reason - free roaming.

Unfortunately everything else that you were told about BT moving out of retail and everything becoming EE is correct from everything that I’ve heard, although remaining with BT until you’re ready to move was supposed to be up to the customer. The good thing is that you’re in an area that can access full fibre ( we’re still waiting, although we’re happy with our current speeds). I don’t understand why you’ve got to lose your landline though. I thought that Digital Voice should be an option.

[Lesley3]

I am an ex BT employee who was with BT Mobile since they entered the mobile market back in 2015, prior to that I was with 02, another business previously owned by BT. I also wanted to stay with BT Mobile due to free roaming but when my contract expired it simply wasn't a good deal they offered me, it was very close to the price I was paying for handset & data package, and my handset was paid up. If they move you to EE you are effectively a new customer so you don't get to keep roaming which I think is really mean of them. I ended up moving to 02 via eswitch, got a great deal and free roaming. I did try Tesco mobile but free roaming is only for existing customers.  Also to roam with EE is either  £2.29 a day or £15.00 a month, so for someone taking a 7 day break its cheaper to pay for the month which again is unfair, why not offer weekly packages. 

[Brucemeister5]

Roaming with EE Mobile is now £25pm.

[Anonymous]

There are at least 2 EE MVNO's that I know of which are available (having just checked), contract free, without annual price increases and included EU data roaming.

Prices are very keen with generous data allowances.

Speeds and coverage are excellent, one of them even uses the EE core network, so is literally an EE SIM with a different badge.

If you don't want to swap provider then disable roaming and add an eSim just for data when abroad if your device supports it (or use a secondary SIM).

Plenty are available with loads of reviews and tutorials on YouTube which you can watch on anything other than a BT/EE TV Pro Box.

[YorkieDom]

Two years ago I got a call from BT Mobile saying I had to move to EE.

I wish I had stuck with BT. I pay for 4 phones and the price was £5 per month each as I was a BT Broadband user. The £5 was fixed too..ie no annual inflation rise every April.

The EE contract was £10 per phone per month and this has now risen to £14 per phone per month. Ie I was paying a total of £20 per month and now £56.

I'd been a BT customer for 36 years and now I've left them, the landline and broadband now only costs £30 per month instead of £92.

They pressured me into switching to EE mobile. I hear of loads of people who didn't move. It's costing me £430 extra each year and rising....

Poor show BT.

[Lesley3]

You don't actually have to move to EE, but they don't tell you that. You can stay with BT Mobile on a new contract. I was offered a 2 year contract for £10.00, bearing in mind I was paying that for package and phone and the phone had been paid up. I decided to move to 02 so I could get free roaming as EE do not take into account all the years as a BT Mobile customer and see you as a brand new customer. I had been a BT mobile customer since 2015 and an employee for just shy of 48 years and I got no incentive to make me stay. So it was bye bye BT

[Brucemeister5]

Plusnet Mobile( part of the BT Group) is being closed this month, and customers are having to move to EE on special deals (or to another provider) or else they will lose their number for good. I believe that the intention is that BT Mobile will also be closed, but no time scale has been given for this so far. We’ve been out of contract on our Family SIM on BT Mobile for over a year now, and will monitor things and do what we think is the best thing for us when the time comes. 

[Colin_London]

I have no doubt that after Plusnet mobile is shut down that BT Mobile will be next. But it is going to be very difficult for BT because of the links with Halo broadband deals.

For example I have 2 x 4GB Family SIMOs (out of minimum term) which are boosted to 8GB each per month by the Halo 3 deal. The Halo 3 deal was bought specifically for double data only in April so has 22 months to run. I am only paying £18.85 + £6 delta for the Halo 3 = £24.85 for 2 x 8GB data both with Roam like Home and TNT Sport (which is worth quite a bit in itself).

Are EE going to offer me 2 x 8GB SIMs + Free Roaming + TNT sport for £24.85 per month for maybe 18 months? Somehow I think not. It is going to be a generic data deal only at best with none of the add-ons.

Also what are BT going to do about their Halo packages if they can no longer offer the double mobile data because they have closed down BT Mobile? They can also not offer the unlimited data in the event of a fault making Halo pretty pointless. It's going to be a right old mess.