No ISP forgives early termination charges as a matter of course, if your contract ( minimum term ) expires end of September, and your new ISP is also going to use Openreach to deliver its services , then it’s 10-14 days to arrange, they serve notice to BT ( not you ) so the optimal date to call the new ISP is 2 weeks before the minimum term expires…..if moving ISP but staying on Openreach the 30 day notice doesn’t apply, ETC may apply depending on the date when the switch is made , but a day or two early , ETC is negligible, as is paying a few days at the ‘out of contract’ price if the switch is a day or two late of the exact date you woukd like
IMHO , it’s difficult and not worth the grief to try and get the switch for the exact date if the expiry of the minimum term , but you can always ask the new ISP for that exact date ( that’s if staying on Openreach ) , they may arrange it , they may not , or they may say they have , but it still happens a few days early or a few days late ,
If you are going to use Virgin or an Alt Net , the 30 days notice does apply as you are leaving Openreach completely , so the optimum time to give notice is the end of August, but obviously if you ask BT to stop on a particular day , and the new network isn’t ready ( delayed for some reason ) , you obviously will be without service until the new network is installed .
I suspect many would get the new network in and working , and only then give notice to quit the old provider as paying for 2 services for a month may be better than potentially having no service at all for a period.
