BT Sport 1
6:00am World of Football
The best action and news from the greatest leagues around the world.
6:30am Barclays Premier League World
As the 2013/14 season gets closer, we look ahead to another great Premier League season.
7:00am Caribbean Premier League
Caribbean Premier League T20 as Barbados Tridents take on Antigua Hawksbills at the Kensington Oval,... (read more)
10:00am Welcome to BT Sport
From our studios at iCity, we welcome you to the new world of BT Sport.
11:00am JP Morgan Rugby 7s
Pool A action from Kingsholm as Gloucester Rugby, Bath Rugby, Exeter Chiefs and Worcester Warriors f... (read more)
1:30pm Audi Cup Highlights
Highlights from the Audi Cup pre-season tournament as German and European Champions Bayern Munich we... (read more)
4:30pm Major League Soccer
The stars of the MLS welcome Italian giants Roma to Sporting Park, Kansas City, for the annual all-s... (read more)
6:00pm Scottish Football Preview
Ahead of another exciting season from Scotland, Darrell Currie looks forward to all the action as Ce... (read more)
7:00pm Live Partick Thistle v Dundee United
The newly promoted Jags welcome their old manager Jackie McNamara and the Terrors to Firhill, in the... (read more)
10:00pm Welcome to BT Sport
From our studios at iCity, we welcome you to the new world of BT Sport.
11:00pm Major League Soccer
The stars of the MLS welcome Italian giants Roma to Sporting Park, Kansas City, for the annual all-s... (read more)
12:30am BTsi
A tasty bite-sized treat from BT Sport, exclusive interviews, the best action of the week and so muc... (read more)
12:45am Caribbean Premier League
Live Caribbean Premier League T20 as Guyana Amazon Warriors take on Jamaica Tallawahs at the Provide... (read more)
4:30am World of Football
The best action and news from the greatest leagues around the world.
5:00am Welcome to BT Sport
From our studios at iCity, we welcome you to the new world of BT Sport.
BT Sport 2
6:00am World of Athletics
All the latest athletics news, interviews and action from around the globe.
6:30am Road to Rio
All the latest news in the build-up to Rio 2016.
7:00am Welcome to BT Sport
From our studios at iCity, we welcome you to the new world of BT Sport.
8:00am Audi Cup Highlights
Highlights from the Audi Cup pre-season tournament as German and European Champions Bayern Munich we... (read more)
11:00am Classic Premier League 95/96
Action from the Barclays Premier League archive as Liverpool met Newcastle at Anfield in an epic enc... (read more)
11:30am Classic Premier League 97/98
Action from the Barclays Premier League archive as Arsenal met Manchester United at Highbury during... (read more)
12:00pm Classic Premier League 07/08
Action from the Barclays Premier League archive. Highlights of the thrilling game between Spurs and... (read more)
12:30pm Classic Premier League 09/10
Action from the Barclays Premier League archive. Manchester United took on local rivals City in a hi... (read more)
1:00pm Southern California Open
Highlights from the WTA Southern California Open. Dominika Cibulkova won the singles title here in 2... (read more)
4:00pm Euro Beach Soccer League
Live Euro Beach Soccer League from Moscow, Romania v Spain.
5:15pm Euro Beach Soccer League
Live Euro Beach Soccer League from Moscow, Germany v Russia.
7:00pm Live JP Morgan Rugby 7s
Live from Franklin's Gardens, Pool B of the 7s contains Premiership champions Leicester Tigers, toda... (read more)
10:00pm Road to Rio
All the latest news in the build-up to Rio 2016.
10:30pm Live Southern California Open
Live WTA quarter-finals from Carlsbad, California. Dominika Cibulkova won the singles title here in... (read more)
1:00am WTA All Access
All the latest news from the women's tennis tour.
1:30am World of Tennis
All the latest tennis news from around the world.
2:00am Welcome to BT Sport
From our studios at iCity, we welcome you to the new world of BT Sport.
3:00am World of Football
The best action and news from the greatest leagues around the world.
3:30am Barclays Premier League World
As the 2013/14 season gets closer, we look ahead to another great Premier League season.
4:00am Live Southern California Open
Live WTA quarter-finals from Carlsbad, California. Dominika Cibulkova won the singles title here in... (read more)
Launch schedules now up on Digiguide, with BT Sport beginning with BT Sport Live at 6pm on both BT1&2, before splitting for live Audi Cup football on BT1 and Premiership 7s on BT2. Overnight there is Caribbean Premier League Cricket on BT1 and WTA Tennis on BT2.
Live sport on Aug 2nd includes Scottish Football and overnight cricket on BT1 and live European Beach Football plus more Premiership 7s and WTA Tennis on BT2.
Filler during the day as well as repeats of the previous nights live coverage includes cliassic Premier League, Major League Baseball and Road to Rio.
Thanks for posting. Very interesting (dare I say exciting!) and maybe one thing to emerge from all this is that for subscribers to both Sky Sports and BT Sport, or those who choose one or the other, all will have improved coverage than when Sky and ESPN were the 2 to base tv sport around their EPL rights
It was also offered discounted to Sky Sports subscribers wasn't it. I think it means people who were ordering ESPN didn't tend to just order ESPN - they were all looking to view other sports on offer from Sky too and had ESPN as an add-on. Sounds good to me anyway ha
Oh yes, it was slightly cheaper if you had Sky Sports (I think £8pm instead of £10pm). Not a huge discount though so the 1% figure is a bit misleading.
ESPN was available on sky as a standalone channel, £16 per month 1 month cancellation.I had it for a rugby season but it was quite unusual because the customer service agent said that it was the only one she had ever done.
It prompted me to add new channels tonight. You should be able to add them via the Add/Remove channels section of the Tools menu.
Nothing too exciting on ESPN - baseball, college football and X Games mainly - but they are showing the Audi Cup too. BT look to be launching with the final - had they launched a day earlier they could have shown Man City v AC Milan (5.15pm Wed). ESPN claim to be showing the final on the Thurday at 5.15pm, but I guess that might be 3rd/4th play off. It'll be interesting to see if they just have one team out there. I'm guessing whoever does ESPN's coverage they'll probably have Jake Humphrey host the match on BT.
I do wonder now that the ESPN deal has been approved and BT have won the rights to the FA Cup from next season whether they will now bump the ESPN FA Cup matches up to BT Sport for this season - I can't really see any reason not too.
ESPN was available on sky as a standalone channel, £16 per month 1 month cancellation.I had it for a rugby season but it was quite unusual because the customer service agent said that it was the only one she had ever done.
It prompted me to add new channels tonight. You should be able to add them via the Add/Remove channels section of the Tools menu.
Nothing too exciting on ESPN - baseball, college football and X Games mainly - but they are showing the Audi Cup too. BT look to be launching with the final - had they launched a day earlier they could have shown Man City v AC Milan (5.15pm Wed). ESPN claim to be showing the final on the Thurday at 5.15pm, but I guess that might be 3rd/4th play off. It'll be interesting to see if they just have one team out there. I'm guessing whoever does ESPN's coverage they'll probably have Jake Humphrey host the match on BT.
I do wonder now that the ESPN deal has been approved and BT have won the rights to the FA Cup from next season whether they will now bump the ESPN FA Cup matches up to BT Sport for this season - I can't really see any reason not too.
I'm surprised they didn't get a football league match (or FL72 as they insist on calling it) moved to Thursday to get head to head on launch night.
Looks like BT have a deal with IEC in Sports for various magazine programming.
Sky are showing 2 Super League games on a Thursday beginning with the London v Leeds game Aug 1st.
It looks like Eurosport are covering the same WTA (perhaps same tournament live and games on delay next day)?
Sky are showing 2 Super League games on a Thursday beginning with the London v Leeds game Aug 1st.
It looks like Eurosport are covering the same WTA (perhaps same tournament live and games on delay next day)?
BT only have joint rights with Eurosport this year, with exclusive rights from next year.
Former Football Italia host James Richardson is the latest presenter signed up by BT Sport.
Richardson will front Sunday Night Football on BT Sport 1, a specialist show featuring live coverage and expert opinion on the latest European football action from across the continent.
BT Sport has also bolstered its football punditry and commentary teams with the signing of outspoken manager Neil Warnock and former Scotland captain Gary McAllister.
Warnock will be part of BT Sport Live, a nightly show offering viewers the latest news and debate from the world of sport, hosted live at BT Sport's new studios. BT Sport Live's presenter lineup will also include Darren Fletcher, Vassos Alexander, Lynsey Hipgrave and Caroline de Moraes.
Meanwhile, rugby coverage has been extended to include weekly Wednesday evening series Rugby Tonight, hosted by Matt Dawson, Craig Doyle, Martin Bayfield and Sarra Elgan.
I signed up for BT Sport yesterday evening. I have got Sky HD and my broadband is also Sky. I just received an email from BT confirming everything and said I can track my order via MyBT. Even though I don't have any BT products anymore (moved to Sky Talk a couple of months ago) everything seems to have gone through my old BT a/c is that correct? Also they have sent me confirmation of my order saying I can watch BT Sport via the BT Sport app, is this right as well?
Good to see some schedules of what BT Sport intend
However...dissapointing to note that Russian football a previous product on ESPN hasn't been signed up and Brazilian football coverage continues to be patchy to say the least...there seems to be zero games on ESPN this weekend unless they add some late coverage...:mad:
Pretty sure that's going to be a glass floor and then will be able to show set plays etc interactively on it. Plus they will have the likes of Rio Ferdinand actually on it and showing how kicks could have been taken etc. Sounds like it's going to be good.
Boy did I speak too soon yesterday afternoon (see my post) about how smoothly my BT Sport sign up with BT went!
They did indeed renew my broadband but immediately cut off our broadband phone and axed our broadband phone number with its Anytime call package. As I discovered as soon as I tried to use it an hour later.
That was the only phone we have in the house (as I had told them) so were left (without warning) with a phone that gave a dial tone but just said in a message: 'You cannot make or receive calls from this phone!'
I had explained that I was a full time carer for my mum who after a massive stroke is paralysed and bed bound and has very limited communication. Hence we rely on the phone to call 24/7 to and from doctors, carers, family around the UK. Why we buy such an expensive package.
Our bill today (for 3 months) is £142 to pay for this with an Anytime Calls package for all those reasons.
Unbelievably, from my mobile (at vast expense - using all my credit) I had to call BT (0800 calls are not free there) and was kept on hold for an hour - being passed through 4 different people all of whom said they were the wrong person to assist.
I did then discover by chance (since nobody at BT suggested it) that pressing 5 on our BT Freestyle phone (that we bought to give the ability for mum to be able to hear conversations and that has worked perfectly for years via our BT broadband service) allowed you to make calls. Just as it used to do if you wanted to switch to making landline calls (which we never did with a 24/7 broadband calls package - why would we?)
So I called the 0800 number by that method and was kept on hold for another 87 minutes being passed through another 5 people. The last of whom said they thought they could sort it and put me on hold for another 12 minutes before cutting me off.
By this point I had had enough and rang cancellations and explained why I was quitting BT and going to Sky and wanted our MAC.
They were horrified and said they would sort it all out overnight (it was now 7.30 pm). To be fair this man was really helpful, e mailing me advice etc.
It is immensely complicated but it seems (I was ultimately told) that when BT renew your broadband now they are axing your broadband anytime calls package because too many people had been using it instead of landline call packages.
As a result you automatically lose your separate broadband phone number and its associated anytime call package. They do this instantly you renew.
But you do not get a new Anytime call package added on your now landline number for another week. Nobody knew why there was a gap.
Hence our broadband phone that we bought from BT stopped working properly (as in will not ring if called and you can only ring out if you press 5 and pay for every call for another 7 days).
We were advised to buy a new phone from BT (when it is in no way our fault they have made the one we bought from them stop working).
Moreover everyone from hospitals to doctors to family only have our broadband number and have been calling us on that for 6 years. But now we have another landline number that they have never used and so they cannot call us up at all. As they do not have that number and even if they did our phone does not work for incoming calls.
I have to now contact them - borrowing an old landline phone -to give them all the new number. As most are only contactable in the day during the week (the reason we have Anytime calls in the first place) we either have to stay out of contact for a week - obviously impossible in our circumstances - or pay for all these calls to advise change of number when that change was imposed on us by BT and our ability to call up on our pay package to inform others about it denied by BT imposing a one week gap!
Nobody could justify this to me. As I pointed out we have paid for 24/7 calls for 6 years through BT, have renewed this yesterday for another year and they surely should have kept the old deal going until they enabled the new one or enabled the new one from now instead of next Friday.
They agreed but - apparently - 'the computer says No'.
Ultimately they tried again to cancel and reorder today to solve the problem, but it simply made things worse and added another day onto when our Anytime calls package will actually be re-enabled.
So I was basically told to make all the calls, watch what we get charged for them over the next week or so and complain later. Possibly getting the money back in October!
The retentions guy could not have been nicer but this is a wholly ridiculous and frankly terrible performance and makes BT look like a bunch of complete idiots IMO.
I will not trust them again that is for sure.
Oh, and, of course, BT Sport via my Sky box is still AWOL - the whole point of calling in the first place. Nobody can now tell me when or if it will appear!
Boy did I speak too soon yesterday afternoon (see my post) about how smoothly my BT Sport sign up with BT went!
They did indeed renew my broadband but immediately cut off our broadband phone and axed our broadband phone number with its Anytime call package. As I discovered as soon as I tried to use it an hour later.
That was the only phone we have in the house (as I had told them) so were left (without warning) with a phone that gave a dial tone but just said in a message: 'You cannot make or receive calls from this phone!'
I had explained that I was a full time carer for my mum who after a massive stroke is paralysed and bed bound and has very limited communication. Hence we rely on the phone to call 24/7 to and from doctors, carers, family around the UK. Why we buy such an expensive package.
Our bill today (for 3 months) is £142 to pay for this with an Anytime Calls package for all those reasons.
Unbelievably, from my mobile (at vast expense - using all my credit) I had to call BT (0800 calls are not free there) and was kept on hold for an hour - being passed through 4 different people all of whom said they were the wrong person to assist.
I did then discover by chance (since nobody at BT suggested it) that pressing 5 on our BT Freestyle phone (that we bought to give the ability for mum to be able to hear conversations and that has worked perfectly for years via our BT broadband service) allowed you to make calls. Just as it used to do if you wanted to switch to making landline calls (which we never did with a 24/7 broadband calls package - why would we?)
So I called the 0800 number by that method and was kept on hold for another 87 minutes being passed through another 5 people. The last of whom said they thought they could sort it and put me on hold for another 12 minutes before cutting me off.
By this point I had had enough and rang cancellations and explained why I was quitting BT and going to Sky and wanted our MAC.
They were horrified and said they would sort it all out overnight (it was now 7.30 pm). To be fair this man was really helpful, e mailing me advice etc.
It is immensely complicated but it seems (I was ultimately told) that when BT renew your broadband now they are axing your broadband anytime calls package because too many people had been using it instead of landline call packages.
As a result you automatically lose your separate broadband phone number and its associated anytime call package. They do this instantly you renew.
But you do not get a new Anytime call package added on your now landline number for another week. Nobody knew why there was a gap.
Hence our broadband phone that we bought from BT stopped working properly (as in will not ring if called and you can only ring out if you press 5 and pay for every call for another 7 days).
We were advised to buy a new phone from BT (when it is in no way our fault they have made the one we bought from them stop working).
Moreover everyone from hospitals to doctors to family only have our broadband number and have been calling us on that for 6 years. But now we have another landline number that they have never used and so they cannot call us up at all. As they do not have that number and even if they did our phone does not work for incoming calls.
I have to now contact them - borrowing an old landline phone -to give them all the new number. As most are only contactable in the day during the week (the reason we have Anytime calls in the first place) we either have to stay out of contact for a week - obviously impossible in our circumstances - or pay for all these calls to advise change of number when that change was imposed on us by BT and our ability to call up on our pay package to inform others about it denied by BT imposing a one week gap!
Nobody could justify this to me. As I pointed out we have paid for 24/7 calls for 6 years through BT, have renewed this yesterday for another year and they surely should have kept the old deal going until they enabled the new one or enabled the new one from now instead of next Friday.
They agreed but - apparently - 'the computer says No'.
Ultimately they tried again to cancel and reorder today to solve the problem, but it simply made things worse and added another day onto when our Anytime calls package will actually be re-enabled.
So I was basically told to make all the calls, watch what we get charged for them over the next week or so and complain later. Possibly getting the money back in October!
The retentions guy could not have been nicer but this is a wholly ridiculous and frankly terrible performance and makes BT look like a bunch of complete idiots IMO.
I will not trust them again that is for sure.
Oh, and, of course, BT Sport via my Sky box is still AWOL - the whole point of calling in the first place. Nobody can now tell me when or if it will appear!
Make sure you send that post to OFCOM too. Not sure what they can do about it but they can do more if you let them know what happened than if you don't.
This is why I don't like bundling and triple play etc. - always a danger that other services are changed without any notice when you rather innocently try to add or remove a completely different product from your bundle. For me it was nowhere near as crucial a situation as yours but when I signed up to add BT Vision so I could get BT Sport and got them to knock the price down for broadband they did change slightly the calls package I was on. That isn't too big an issue as it doesn't make that much difference to me, but they should be declaring all this stuff when you sign up.
Make sure you send that post to OFCOM too. Not sure what they can do about it but they can do more if you let them know what happened than if you don't.
This is why I don't like bundling and triple play etc. - always a danger that other services are changed without any notice when you rather innocently try to add or remove a completely different product from your bundle. For me it was nowhere near as crucial a situation as yours but when I signed up to add BT Vision so I could get BT Sport and got them to knock the price down for broadband they did change slightly the calls package I was on. That isn't too big an issue as it doesn't make that much difference to me, but they should be declaring all this stuff when you sign up.
I will do this as I agree this needs a wider audience - assuming we were just not terribly unlucky and this will happen to others.
Comments
BT Sport 1
6:00am World of Football
The best action and news from the greatest leagues around the world.
6:30am Barclays Premier League World
As the 2013/14 season gets closer, we look ahead to another great Premier League season.
7:00am Caribbean Premier League
Caribbean Premier League T20 as Barbados Tridents take on Antigua Hawksbills at the Kensington Oval,... (read more)
10:00am Welcome to BT Sport
From our studios at iCity, we welcome you to the new world of BT Sport.
11:00am JP Morgan Rugby 7s
Pool A action from Kingsholm as Gloucester Rugby, Bath Rugby, Exeter Chiefs and Worcester Warriors f... (read more)
1:30pm Audi Cup Highlights
Highlights from the Audi Cup pre-season tournament as German and European Champions Bayern Munich we... (read more)
4:30pm Major League Soccer
The stars of the MLS welcome Italian giants Roma to Sporting Park, Kansas City, for the annual all-s... (read more)
6:00pm Scottish Football Preview
Ahead of another exciting season from Scotland, Darrell Currie looks forward to all the action as Ce... (read more)
7:00pm Live Partick Thistle v Dundee United
The newly promoted Jags welcome their old manager Jackie McNamara and the Terrors to Firhill, in the... (read more)
10:00pm Welcome to BT Sport
From our studios at iCity, we welcome you to the new world of BT Sport.
11:00pm Major League Soccer
The stars of the MLS welcome Italian giants Roma to Sporting Park, Kansas City, for the annual all-s... (read more)
12:30am BTsi
A tasty bite-sized treat from BT Sport, exclusive interviews, the best action of the week and so muc... (read more)
12:45am Caribbean Premier League
Live Caribbean Premier League T20 as Guyana Amazon Warriors take on Jamaica Tallawahs at the Provide... (read more)
4:30am World of Football
The best action and news from the greatest leagues around the world.
5:00am Welcome to BT Sport
From our studios at iCity, we welcome you to the new world of BT Sport.
BT Sport 2
6:00am World of Athletics
All the latest athletics news, interviews and action from around the globe.
6:30am Road to Rio
All the latest news in the build-up to Rio 2016.
7:00am Welcome to BT Sport
From our studios at iCity, we welcome you to the new world of BT Sport.
8:00am Audi Cup Highlights
Highlights from the Audi Cup pre-season tournament as German and European Champions Bayern Munich we... (read more)
11:00am Classic Premier League 95/96
Action from the Barclays Premier League archive as Liverpool met Newcastle at Anfield in an epic enc... (read more)
11:30am Classic Premier League 97/98
Action from the Barclays Premier League archive as Arsenal met Manchester United at Highbury during... (read more)
12:00pm Classic Premier League 07/08
Action from the Barclays Premier League archive. Highlights of the thrilling game between Spurs and... (read more)
12:30pm Classic Premier League 09/10
Action from the Barclays Premier League archive. Manchester United took on local rivals City in a hi... (read more)
1:00pm Southern California Open
Highlights from the WTA Southern California Open. Dominika Cibulkova won the singles title here in 2... (read more)
4:00pm Euro Beach Soccer League
Live Euro Beach Soccer League from Moscow, Romania v Spain.
5:15pm Euro Beach Soccer League
Live Euro Beach Soccer League from Moscow, Germany v Russia.
7:00pm Live JP Morgan Rugby 7s
Live from Franklin's Gardens, Pool B of the 7s contains Premiership champions Leicester Tigers, toda... (read more)
10:00pm Road to Rio
All the latest news in the build-up to Rio 2016.
10:30pm Live Southern California Open
Live WTA quarter-finals from Carlsbad, California. Dominika Cibulkova won the singles title here in... (read more)
1:00am WTA All Access
All the latest news from the women's tennis tour.
1:30am World of Tennis
All the latest tennis news from around the world.
2:00am Welcome to BT Sport
From our studios at iCity, we welcome you to the new world of BT Sport.
3:00am World of Football
The best action and news from the greatest leagues around the world.
3:30am Barclays Premier League World
As the 2013/14 season gets closer, we look ahead to another great Premier League season.
4:00am Live Southern California Open
Live WTA quarter-finals from Carlsbad, California. Dominika Cibulkova won the singles title here in... (read more)
Can I take it that the ESPN schedules are not yet available?
where on digiguide i can find this?
Not as far as I can see
Thanks for posting. Very interesting (dare I say exciting!) and maybe one thing to emerge from all this is that for subscribers to both Sky Sports and BT Sport, or those who choose one or the other, all will have improved coverage than when Sky and ESPN were the 2 to base tv sport around their EPL rights
Nothing too exciting on ESPN - baseball, college football and X Games mainly - but they are showing the Audi Cup too. BT look to be launching with the final - had they launched a day earlier they could have shown Man City v AC Milan (5.15pm Wed). ESPN claim to be showing the final on the Thurday at 5.15pm, but I guess that might be 3rd/4th play off. It'll be interesting to see if they just have one team out there. I'm guessing whoever does ESPN's coverage they'll probably have Jake Humphrey host the match on BT.
I do wonder now that the ESPN deal has been approved and BT have won the rights to the FA Cup from next season whether they will now bump the ESPN FA Cup matches up to BT Sport for this season - I can't really see any reason not too.
Were you subscribing to Sky TV at the time?
Can you copy and paste the schedule, Brekkie?
http://tv.espn.co.uk/gb/espl/tv-schedule?action=get-search-results&channel=ESPN&isLive=true&textSearch=football&addata=tv-schedule_football
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y163/brekkieboy2001/thu1.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y163/brekkieboy2001/fri2.jpg
I'm surprised they didn't get a football league match (or FL72 as they insist on calling it) moved to Thursday to get head to head on launch night.
Looks like BT have a deal with IEC in Sports for various magazine programming.
Sky are showing 2 Super League games on a Thursday beginning with the London v Leeds game Aug 1st.
It looks like Eurosport are covering the same WTA (perhaps same tournament live and games on delay next day)?
Thanks for that. I'm sure all the ESPNA watchers will appreciate it too.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a499383/bt-sport-james-richardson-lands-european-football-show.html
However...dissapointing to note that Russian football a previous product on ESPN hasn't been signed up and Brazilian football coverage continues to be patchy to say the least...there seems to be zero games on ESPN this weekend unless they add some late coverage...:mad:
Pretty sure that's going to be a glass floor and then will be able to show set plays etc interactively on it. Plus they will have the likes of Rio Ferdinand actually on it and showing how kicks could have been taken etc. Sounds like it's going to be good.
They did indeed renew my broadband but immediately cut off our broadband phone and axed our broadband phone number with its Anytime call package. As I discovered as soon as I tried to use it an hour later.
That was the only phone we have in the house (as I had told them) so were left (without warning) with a phone that gave a dial tone but just said in a message: 'You cannot make or receive calls from this phone!'
I had explained that I was a full time carer for my mum who after a massive stroke is paralysed and bed bound and has very limited communication. Hence we rely on the phone to call 24/7 to and from doctors, carers, family around the UK. Why we buy such an expensive package.
Our bill today (for 3 months) is £142 to pay for this with an Anytime Calls package for all those reasons.
Unbelievably, from my mobile (at vast expense - using all my credit) I had to call BT (0800 calls are not free there) and was kept on hold for an hour - being passed through 4 different people all of whom said they were the wrong person to assist.
I did then discover by chance (since nobody at BT suggested it) that pressing 5 on our BT Freestyle phone (that we bought to give the ability for mum to be able to hear conversations and that has worked perfectly for years via our BT broadband service) allowed you to make calls. Just as it used to do if you wanted to switch to making landline calls (which we never did with a 24/7 broadband calls package - why would we?)
So I called the 0800 number by that method and was kept on hold for another 87 minutes being passed through another 5 people. The last of whom said they thought they could sort it and put me on hold for another 12 minutes before cutting me off.
By this point I had had enough and rang cancellations and explained why I was quitting BT and going to Sky and wanted our MAC.
They were horrified and said they would sort it all out overnight (it was now 7.30 pm). To be fair this man was really helpful, e mailing me advice etc.
It is immensely complicated but it seems (I was ultimately told) that when BT renew your broadband now they are axing your broadband anytime calls package because too many people had been using it instead of landline call packages.
As a result you automatically lose your separate broadband phone number and its associated anytime call package. They do this instantly you renew.
But you do not get a new Anytime call package added on your now landline number for another week. Nobody knew why there was a gap.
Hence our broadband phone that we bought from BT stopped working properly (as in will not ring if called and you can only ring out if you press 5 and pay for every call for another 7 days).
We were advised to buy a new phone from BT (when it is in no way our fault they have made the one we bought from them stop working).
Moreover everyone from hospitals to doctors to family only have our broadband number and have been calling us on that for 6 years. But now we have another landline number that they have never used and so they cannot call us up at all. As they do not have that number and even if they did our phone does not work for incoming calls.
I have to now contact them - borrowing an old landline phone -to give them all the new number. As most are only contactable in the day during the week (the reason we have Anytime calls in the first place) we either have to stay out of contact for a week - obviously impossible in our circumstances - or pay for all these calls to advise change of number when that change was imposed on us by BT and our ability to call up on our pay package to inform others about it denied by BT imposing a one week gap!
Nobody could justify this to me. As I pointed out we have paid for 24/7 calls for 6 years through BT, have renewed this yesterday for another year and they surely should have kept the old deal going until they enabled the new one or enabled the new one from now instead of next Friday.
They agreed but - apparently - 'the computer says No'.
Ultimately they tried again to cancel and reorder today to solve the problem, but it simply made things worse and added another day onto when our Anytime calls package will actually be re-enabled.
So I was basically told to make all the calls, watch what we get charged for them over the next week or so and complain later. Possibly getting the money back in October!
The retentions guy could not have been nicer but this is a wholly ridiculous and frankly terrible performance and makes BT look like a bunch of complete idiots IMO.
I will not trust them again that is for sure.
Oh, and, of course, BT Sport via my Sky box is still AWOL - the whole point of calling in the first place. Nobody can now tell me when or if it will appear!
:eek:
Make sure you send that post to OFCOM too. Not sure what they can do about it but they can do more if you let them know what happened than if you don't.
This is why I don't like bundling and triple play etc. - always a danger that other services are changed without any notice when you rather innocently try to add or remove a completely different product from your bundle. For me it was nowhere near as crucial a situation as yours but when I signed up to add BT Vision so I could get BT Sport and got them to knock the price down for broadband they did change slightly the calls package I was on. That isn't too big an issue as it doesn't make that much difference to me, but they should be declaring all this stuff when you sign up.
I will do this as I agree this needs a wider audience - assuming we were just not terribly unlucky and this will happen to others.
Anyone have a contact at OFCOM to try?