Topic: BT's faster broadband trial

[Clive]

BT is trialling a new home IT help service that claims to boost your internet speed by at least 0.5Mbps or you won't have to pay a fee.

Called Broadband Accelerator, the £90 service will look at improving your home wiring and your PC's performance to address slow internet speeds.

According to BT, the service will suit those people that find their broadband speeds are a lot lower than what they should be, depending on how far they are from a local exchange.

Taza Mohammedbhai, head of BT Home IT Support, said: "Our research has shown that up to 60 per cent of our customers could benefit from the accelerator service. People could see quite a marked difference in performance, maybe 3 or 4 megs in some cases."

Broadband Accelerator will work on a no-fix, no-fee basis so you don't have to pay if BT doesn't deliver a difference to your speed of 0.5 Mbps or more. The service is currently on trial in the south-east of England. If you're interested in taking part, call BT on 0808 100 5006 and ask for Broadband Accelerator.

BT's current Home IT Call service costs £6.99 a month (for the first four months, then £8.99 a month) and offers help and support over the phone or via remote access. It also lets you book an engineer for face-to-face help, with fees starting at £90.

In separate recent research, it was claimed that many broadband connections slow down between down to 2.5Mbps between the hours of 7pm and 9pm.



www.bt.com/homeitsupport

[Simon]

As usual, with anything BT related, I'm sceptical.  Do you have to sign up for the Home IT Call package before they will give you the Broadband Accelerator?  If they only have to reach an improvement of 500Kb, that's not a great deal, and could probably be done, in many cases, by tweaking RWIN / MTU settings, improving wiring, getting a high quality ADSL filter or faceplate, or a better router, all of which cost less than ninety quid.

[Clive]

I don't think the Broadband Accelerator is linked to the BT Home IT Call package - it just happens to be mentioned in the same article.  Of course the bait is the sentence

 People could see quite a marked difference in performance, maybe 3 or 4 megs in some cases.

BT is not a trustworthy company. 

[Simon]

Yes, the words "could", and "maybe" being the most critical. 

[Clive]

Be (O2) Questions BT's Broadband Accelerator Service

Oli White, Head of Marketing at Be Broadband (O2), has questioned the value of BT's new Home IT Support 'Broadband Accelerator' service (original news), which charges £90 to help improve broadband ADSL line speeds:

The BBC also published a table that listed the top ten ISPs for speed:

TOP TEN ISPS FOR SPEED*
1. O2 - 6.4Mbps
2. Be - 5.5Mbps
3. Virgin Media - 4.1Mbps
4. Sky - 3.8Mbps
5. PlusNet - 3.2Mbps
6. Post Office - 3.0Mbps
7. TalkTalk - 2.9Mbps
8. BT - 2.8Mbps
9. Demon - 2.8Mbps
10. Orange - 2.7Mbps

*Average speeds.

Oli White, Head of Marketing at Be Broadband, commented on the article: “BT aim to close the speed gap on Be by 0.5Mbps. That still leaves them a further 2.2Mbps behind Be's average speed according to the BBC’s table, and they are charging £90 in the process. This shows just how much Be’s broadband service is value for money.”

[sam]

not sure I trust those results... wonder what their physical spacing was aswell.

[Simon]

I see the 'Top 10' is the usual suspects once again.  What rubbish!

[daveeb]

Why don't they just apply the accelerator to all their unfortunate customers to help provide a half decent service in the first place 

[Clive]

Because it may involve having to replace your wiring.  Hmmmmm - I thought "rental" means that they own the line and are therefore responsible for maintaining it.  Silly me! 

[Sandra]

I am still getting 16mb plus downloads and 1.3mb uploads with Be and no throttling or capping as far as I can tell