Issue with leaving BT

[Shanye]

I am in the process of leaving BT and have signed up with two separate companies to provide voice and internet because this will give me a bit more flexibility in future. I am at the end of my contract with BT and started the process of moving during the last couple of weeks of the contract.

I made a mistake which is worth knowing about. 

The mistake I made was to sign up to a new voice service provider before signing up for a new broadband provider to replace the single fibre with voice package from BT. My thinking was that the BT voice service would stop, and the new voice service would start, but the BT broadband service would continue to the end of the contract or just a couple of days before the end when the new broadband provider's service started.

But it didn't work like that. The result of doing things this way is that BT is going to end my entire package with them at the same time the new voice service is supposed to start. The problem with this is that the new voice service won't be able to start because the broadband service will have stopped - it needs the broadband to be active to work.

I'm assuming if I had done things the other way around, I would have been OK, because the broadband service from the new provider might take two weeks to start, which would have put me ending the BT service at about the last day of the contract, and I could then have started the new voice service at that time, leaving me without telephone for maybe a couple of days. But instead I am going to be without telephone and internet for maybe two weeks!

Live and learn, I guess.

I don't suppose anyone else has a solution to this? I have spoken to customer services and they confirm that my BT services are going to end in 2 days... 

[imjolly]

I think if you had gone the other way round and ended broadband and phone contract then you would probably lose your phone number.  if that was not important then that would have been best way - hindsight is a wonderful thing

[chrisjp]

Am I being too cynical in thinking BT make it as convoluted and risky as they can to end service with them so as to discourage leavers from doing so?

[licquorice]

With the advent of VoIP, Digital Voice and broadband without voice service, it's about time BT completely broke the link between telephony and broadband contracts.

Ceasing telephony service should not result in ceasing broadband also.

[Shanye]

True enough.

I had read in the information from the new voice provider that they could only offer bringing my old number if the voice service was active - that was another reason I did the voice changeover first...

[Shanye]

This would have been ideal. For some reason I had assumed that the two BT services, voice and broadband were effectively separate, but bundled as a package for sale. It never occurred to me that the result of trying to spilt them as I left would lead to such a mess.

[Shanye]

Indeed.

And to be honest, I can't see a solution to this problem without running the risk of losing your telephone number during the change, or having to deal with losing internet for a week or so.

It feels like there is no good solution to leaving whilst BT deals with the situation like this.

[Shanye]

Just another update -

My home phone ended at about mid day on the 12th as I was told would happen when  I talked to customer services, and the number port to the new IP phone service happened later in the afternoon. It all works as it should.

But, surprisingly, my BT broadband service has remained active, and when I look at the account page I can see that the broadband is marked as ending on the 21st. Hopefully, by then the new broadband service will have taken over assuming the broadband service does stay on until then.

So, maybe BT has sorted out the difference between a request to end the voice service only after all, but customer services were unaware of it. Either way, this has gone better than I thought it might at first. 

I have a borrowed 4G router and data SIM waiting just in case the new service doesn't kick in on time.

Well done, BT!