My BT Not Showing Products

[chrisjp]

As is often the case, posters with complaints never provide all the details needed to provide advice.
It was only in post 7 that the OP revealed that he had no broadband with BT and no router, so it's not clear how he is accessing myBT over the internet - unless another ISP is providing his broadband service.
If another ISP is providing the service then 2 points are salient:
1. If he has no BT broadband he'll only have access to his telephone billing via BT. That's not a fault - he has no other BT services to access anyway.
2. As has been said by another comment - if he does have broadband from another ISP then this shared line arrangement can no longer be supported as BT converts all landlines to digital voice. The OP will need either to get both his telephone and broadband service from BT, or he'll need to see if his existing broadband provider can provide him with a telephone service - some do, some don't.
I think the OP needs to clarify these points before any more help can be offered

[nicknic]

Thank you, iniltous, for providing a most enlightening and informative reply as your assessment of the situation is almost entirely accurate. It begs the question as to why BT couldn't have responded similarly given that the same information was provided.

In answer to your question a basic broadband package will be discounted if added to my existing plan if BT's marketing material is to be believed. However the fact remains that I do not currently require a broadband service whether from BT or any other provider.

Consequent to this information, I'm tempted to contact BT in order to reopen the complaint and request to have it escalated on the basis that it's interim solution offers no method of managing an account other than by contacting BT.

[nicknic]

By way of clarification, the OP connects to WiFi at the local library in order to access MyBT and other relevant entities for the purpose of account management.

[iniltous]

Although it’s clearly your ‘right’ to complain that the replacement PDPL service is in your view inferior in that the online management is much reduced, but in my opinion won’t get you very far …PDPL is only a transitional product, simply to enable phone only customers to keep service after PSTN switch off , and in part was always a sub optimal choice for BT , in that other products were available , namely taking a regular broadband service , either paid for by the customer ,  or a much reduced bandwidth (0.5Mb) broadband connection provided for free by BT just to enable Digital Voice while restricting any usable broadband access , but BT management knew this falls foul of the ‘it needs mains power and that is unreliable where I live’ brigade, PDPL doesn’t need a local power supply ,but it’s a costly and arguably an unnecessary complication as far as BT are concerned (other providers would simply refuse to supply telephony service ) and it’s only until copper pairs are entirely replaced with FTTP anyway , so for many will be replaced in the next few years , although for some much longer .

New customers can’t get PDPL it’s for the relatively few remaining phone only customers BT have , so it’s a relatively big investment for a few and constantly reducing number of customers, developing this PDPL into a directly comparable product to DV is just not cost effective (which is why your complaint won’t get anywhere , its a financial burden that no one other than BT has to bare ( given the most common moan BT is expensive compared to others )  , no doubt in part due to these type of obligations no one else has .

A final point ,  many phone only customers are just refuseniks, they make a point of deliberately avoiding broadband almost as a lifestyle choice ( the price of broadband and phone almost the same as a standalone phone service so it’s hard to argue it’s a financial burden ) the attitude being I don’t want broadband , and you just make me take it , and what’s wrong with the phone system  we had anyway  ? , an argument in that case is on line management is a relatively recent addition made available to customers in the recent past , and only of use to those that are ‘on line’ anyway , and for those that want things to be like ‘how they used to be’ , they have that with PDPL , it’s just like a phone service from 25 years ago before the general population had  an online presence.

[nicknic]

iniltous,

I'm grateful for your insightful comments as they provide a clear picture of BT's Digital Voice strategy and is information which ought to have come from BT itself.

It remains the case that BT arbitrarily and unilaterally changed the conditions of service it provides without notifying the customer ofsuch. Does this not warrent referral to the regulator?

[iniltous]

You will be hard pressed to point to any BT terms and conditions that BT have  arbitrarily changed by moving a PSTN telephony customer  to PDPL , and what’s more customers are notified of the change before it happens.

As a phone only customer with BT  your expectation can be little more than BT provide a functional  telephone service which PDPL provides , things like on line account management etc are peripheral to the main service and don’t constitute any part of that basic service , also its pretty naive to think the regulator hasn’t been involved in the PSTN switch off and it’s replacement for telephony only customers , and have already signed off on it , but as stated if you want to approach whoever it is that you think will look favourably on this  from your perspective ,that’s up to you,  but what is it you would expect to be provided instead of a PDPL ?

[mikejay97]

Just posted the same question before finding this thread same has happened to my 80yr old mil we manage her phone online as she has no broadband. Says she has no phone package and we can no longer block all the scam calls she gets 😡