BT Box Pro - Internet Connection Only

[ARTH9WW]

So, when were you planning on telling me......?  

My new box (since a house move and new contract in January) has been connected by aerial.  Absolutely no problems until a few weeks ago, when the signal quality deteriorated hugely.  Massive pixelation and sound break-up on all Freeview channels.  (Streaming fine).  The app told me that there was a problem which was to be rectified.  Waited and waited.  Eventually telephoned for assistance and after discussing with assistant for about half an hour, he told me that yes, there was a problem in my area.  I waited patiently (my wife was less patient!) for the fault to be rectified.  Still had the same problem.  Picture has been OK during the day (not that I watch very much daytime TV) but from about 8 pm onwards, the picture and sound breakup came back with a vengeance.  Totally unwatchable.  We gave up even trying last night.  Today I borrowed my son's Amazon Firestick hoping to find a way to watch Freeview channels, but although I tried the various channels that a Google search told me about, I just couldn't get it to work.  I was on the verge of ringing to cancel my BT TV subscription when I did a bit more Googling and found an announcement stating that from August, new BT Box Pro customers AND EXISTING USERS could choose to have their box connected by internet instead of aerial.  I had to search the internet for this.  Did a complete reset of my box and finally managed to set it up for full internet use.  I now have the channels that I want.  Channels that it seems I could have had three and a half weeks ago when the problem first started.  A solution that the assistant could have explained to me over the phone, but for some reason decided not to.  Why was all of this not notified to BT Box Pro users back in August?  The last three and a half weeks have been hugely frustrating, but I suspect that BT will accept no responsibility at all for all of the time and programmes that I haven't been able to watch live.  Given the chance, my wife would have thrown the box into the garden....  Really disappointing.  

[JonMace]

BT could have told you about the internet reception option.

But as to the initial problem, did you plug your aerial into the TV to see if the issue was the box or the signal?

If its the box then it should be replaced.

If on the other hand its a signal issue i.e. freeview what do you expect BT to do?

[ARTH9WW]

Thanks Jon, yes, I did check the aerial with the TV and it was just as bad.  I don't know why the good reception we've had here for 9 months suddenly deteriorated, however the weather has been pretty bad the last few weeks.  What concerned me is that the app was reporting issues with TV, so I just assumed that it was these 'problems' that were causing the issue.  My point though is that BT could have suggested I change from aerial to internet but seemingly they either chose not to or didn't realise that it would be a solution.  In my opinion, every existing user of a Pro Box should have received a notification in August that they could reset their boix and use internet instead of aerial.  The internet (and indeed these pages) are full of issues with people struggling to receive live TV by aerial.   You would think they would want to make sure that customers knew the options open to them.  That is what I would have expected BT to do....

[JonMace]

To be fair I went for the box purely because of the IP reception

[ARTH9WW]

Yes, good decision I think.  Maybe it was 'advertised' better for new Box Pro users/subscribers.  I'd be interested to hear from any pre-August Pro Box subscribers about whether they knew (know) that they can now go aerial-free.....?