Contract due to expire and FTTC not available as an option + price question

[candycane]

currently i have fibre halo 3 which gives me about 70mb over my copper wire telephone line

my contract expires in a few weeks and my renewal options for my address do not list anything other than full fibre

i want to avoid having to move furniture etc and keep what i have.

do bt no longer supply broadband over standard copper telephone lines?

also im being charged £52.92 per month just for that broadband speed and configuration. that seems very expensive when full fibre options are about that price for 10-20 times more speed.

am i being overcharged for my broadband in that instance?

[c64z86]

Have you tried ringing up BT instead? Sometimes you can get speeds and deals not available over the Web that way. It's a long shot, with FTTC being phased out in favour of Full Fibre/FTTP, but it's worth a try.

One day, eventually, it will be FTTP only. It costs too much for them to upkeep the older systems. You might be able to get a faster speed for cheaper. Last time I renewed I upgraded from 70mbps FTTC to full fibre 150mbps FTTP for a price that was slightly cheaper. I'm on fibre 500 now though. 

[rbz5416]

There is a general "stop sell" in place for copper based services where full fibre is available. If you want to retain what you have you can continue for now on an out of contract basis, but the price will likely rise higher. That's in addition to the annual rise next month.

I suspect a fair chunk of what seems like a high price is the Halo add-on. But getting rid of that seems to have been made deliberately problematic & would require a new contract, & therefore full fibre, anyway.

[Colin_London]

It sounds that you are in a fibre priority area. This means any new order must be for a fibre to the premises service.

If you want to keep your current copper cable broadband your only option is to do nothing and go onto a rolling contract. As you are seeing, this will ultimately not be the cheapest solution.

At some point you will have to move to a fibre to the premises connection as copper cables will be taken out of service.

You say you don’t want to move furniture - presumably this is because you are assuming the new ONT needs to go in exactly the same place as your current main socket? This is not the case - a new hole can be drilled through an outside wall and the ONT can be installed in a new location as long as it is within a short distance of a power socket. The external cable will then be routed around the outside wall to the street connection.

I would wholly recommend moving to a FTTP connection. I was able to do this in January. Not only is the connection much faster (I went for 300mbps download / 49mbps upload which is more than enough for most people) but it is rock solid reliable (no resynchs in the middle of video calls anymore!) and much cheaper. Admittedly I dropped the phone and halo protection at the same time and just use mobiles now, but the cost dropped from £68.77/mth for the broadband and calls element to £37.99/mth for the fibre service plus had an offer that includes complete Wi-Fi discs for that.

[iniltous]

Once FTTP becomes available via Openreach, it becomes the default network to use , anyone on an  existing copper service  ( ADSL, VDSL/FTTC ) can remain on that copper pair in the short term , but as the minimum term expires it will be on an out if contract basis and therefore relatively expensive compared to being inside a new minimum term on FTTP

As there is no forced change to FTTP ( yet ) , it’s the customer’s choice , move onto FTTP as part of a contract renewal, or as a new customer , and benefit from the discounts available to those inside a minimum term , or remain on the copper pair service, accepting that it means paying more than necessary , as an ‘out  of contract’ customer, it really is as simple as that .

If your own preference is not to have the ‘hassle’ of having FTTP installed ( which in most cases will be an  insignificant inconvenience ) then simply stay on what you have but accept the fact that it’s a more expensive way to take service.

FYI , once FTTP is available, changing ISP will also trigger the change to FTTP and obviously if another network is available that will also need installation ,  so the hassle you want to avoid is inevitable, unless you concede that your ‘choice’ to remain out of contract is the most expensive .

[candycane]

if i go the fttp route.

can these boxes that are placed inside the house be connected to a surge protected extension lead?

(i have no sockets near outside walls)

will my existing telephone work or do i need an ultra modern one?

(at the moment its a bog standard panasonic cordless phone with base station rj45 cable)

[iniltous]

The internal ‘box’ is the ONT and can  be powered from an extension lead if that’s what you want , although it’s not a particularly elegant solution, the ONT , within reason can be where you want it , it doesn’t need to be where the copper pair master socket is , but it’s preferably sited near a power outlet as it’s a powered device …..if converted to DV ( digital voice ) your existing phone plugs into the router instead of the master socket ( which is redundant after FTTP ) and works as it does now , a small difference is that you need to dial the full number  , even local calls , but some areas ( like where live ) that’s been the case for many years.
FYI , your current phone wont be a RJ45 cable