Penalty for leaving BT while in contract.

[pidgeonpost]

We've been approached by Gigaclear to take up one of their deals on fibre. Even their slowest offering will be a big improvement on the 6Mb we currently get, so (tales of doom and disaster discounted for now) we're seriously interested. We've been with BT for years, and our current contract only began at the beginning of April so we've the best part of a year to run. We're wondering what charges we might be hit with for leaving. Can't see anything definitive on the website, only that we 'may' be charged. Does anyone have any more info please? Thanks all.

[Keith_Beddoe]

@pidgeonpost 

Welcome to this user forum for BT Retail phone and broadband customers.

Its going to cost you a lot of money to cancel. Contracts are normally 24 months, not 12 months.

https://www.bt.com/help/account-and-billing/manage-account/thinking-of-leaving-bt-

[NigelB72]

BT do publish their cancellation fees. From memory, ours were the wholesale costs that they'd have to pay Openreach for the period of when I left to the end of my contract. My early cancellation period was four months and the cancellation fee was about £45. Have a Google and you should be able to work out an approximate cancellation figure but it depends on what you're cancelling. 

I ended up only paying cancellation charges on my broadband because they sent me an email that I shouldn't have received which meant they couldn't hold me to my TV contract and had to allow me a free cancellation 👌🏻

[pidgeonpost]

Thanks, especially for the link, I'll see what it will mean for us in monetary terms. My mistake, April 2024 was the beginning of our second year. Even if we have to take a hit we will likely switch as BT can't offer anything better in the foreseeable future.

[pidgeonpost]

Thanks. I'll be looking in more detail. Chances are we'll switch anyway as the current BT deal is too expensive for the service provided. I appreciate that Gigaclear prices will increase after 18 month contract but they'll still be cheaper than BT and for a faster service.

[iniltous]

Obviously, if the new company is better speed / price then changing is understandable but many Alt Nets only focus on densely populated urban areas , where OR FTTC is usually available, and although some FTTC customers may only get 6Mb , that’s going to translate to around 3Km’s from the cabinet , not unusual in rural locations but pretty unlikely urban ones ? , so was 6 Mb the maximum speed that was available
unless the Alt Net is providing in a sparsely populated area and using something like BDUK, it seems an unusual choice of area for an Alt Net