No time for BTOpenworld's Anytime (btopenworld.co.uk)

Member Name: ajmer_99

Product:	btopenworld.co.uk
Date:	21/01/02 (191 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fixed fee

Disadvantages: Problems connecting at peak periods, Feels like service is being run down in order to push people onto ADSL

BT Openworld (or BTInternet as they were then) have been my ISP for 4 years now. I was initially attracted to them because they started with a bang and got rave reviews for their great service and they quickly hoovered up a lot of disgruntled surfers who were with ‘smaller’ ISPs at the time – I was one of these long suffering surfers, putting up with good old Demon Internet (anyone remember them?) for a few years before that.
I connected then with a modem and I still do today, via their BT Openworld Anytime Monthly package. This package allows free Internet access 24/7 for a flat monthly fee of £14.99 via a BT only telephone line, you also get 10 email addresses, and 50Mb of web space.

Please note, this is not just a review of BT Openworld’s Anytime subscription service but also a look at the options available for moving on from it into broadband connections. I’m writing this to give people who are thinking of switching to broadband some more information about making the switch, as this is what I am on the verge of doing. I’ve researched the issue and come up with some interesting findings which I’ve put in this section, although I think more people may find this useful than just BT Openworld users.

I haven’t moved to broadband myself yet as I’m moving house and I don’t want to be tied into a one year contract and paying an exorbitant monthly fee for a service that seems to be declining and an ISP that behaves with incredible arrogance; arbitrarily banning users it feels spend too long on line (after promising them unlimited access).

Fortunately, oftel are coming down hard on BT so broadband prices are plunging and with DIY broadband now available (meaning you don’t have to get a BT engineer come around and rip you off to the tune of £150) surfers will soon have a real choice as to who their provider is.
BT have also been forced to drastically cut how much it ch
arges rival operators to access its exchanges, as well reducing the number of occasions a BT engineer is required to be present when a rival operator is visiting the exchange (and thus the fee BT charge them for that 'service'). Oftel have also forced BT to dispense with the 1 year sign up for broadband services – cutting this to one month, although rival operators will probably pin users down to a 3 month sign up.

All this means that the market for broadband services is finally opening up and prices charged by rival ISPs will continue to drop as costs for rival operators to BT start to decline.

As I indicated earlier, I’ve been with BT Openworld since early ’98 so I’ve had a fair amount of time to evaluate their service and it’s had its ups and downs and now it is definitely on a downer. Connections at various times of the day usually end up with an engaged tone and need 4-5 redials which simply is not acceptable in this day and age – the numbers of new users getting online is probably not at the avalanche level it has been for the last few years – and anyone who is not online by now is in no hurry to ever get online. When you do finally manage to get connected, spontaneous disconnections occur with surprising regularity, especially at peak periods.

So, if you are looking for an ISP right now or are looking to switch, here’s my advice; first, switch your email account to a free one like Yahoo! or MSN. This means your email account is independent of your ISP, thus circumventing the biggest disincentive for switching; most users adopt an email address provided by their ISP and feel they are stuck with their ISP as a result. Seting yourself up with a free email account ensures you won’t miss any emails that would have gone to your ISP provided email address when you switch. It also ensures your email is accessible from anywhere that offers Internet access. If you like having a
‘hardcopy’ of your email downloaded to your email application on your PC (e.g. MS Outlook) you will find that most of these free email address providers like Yahoo! provide a forwarding facility or POP3 access so your email application can download your email directly from the servers of the free email address provider – this also means you use up less space with your free email account thus avoiding any space usage limits. Another advantage of setting up this kind of account is that should you be unhappy with the ISP you have switched to, dumping them and moving on will be relatively painless; this method is even easier than keeping hold of your existing mobile phone number when switching network providers!
If you're worried about how long these free email address providers like Yahoo! and MSN will be around for, all I can say is that they've already been around longer than most ISPs.

Once you have set up your ISP independent email address or addresses, all you then need to do is fish around for an ISP that provides the type of access you want at a reasonable price. This counts out BT Openworld as there are other ISPs out there who offer high connection speeds and a higher level of service for a lower monthly fee. Personally, I’ll be trying out Blueyonder.

In a nutshell, the regulators and the government are pushing broadband take up hard and are forcing BT into making big reductions in costs for access to its broadband hardware by rival operators.
This will be passed onto customers by competing ISPs, which should render BT Openworld uncompetitive on its existing pricing (Blueyonder is already significantly cheaper – down to £25 a month if you use any other Telewest service).
Set up an ISP independent email address and you can pick and choose the best value for money ISP based on what I have said here and other reviews on competing ISPs.

But, beware, in my experience the service prov
ided by any ISP goes in cycles. The ISP getting rave reviews today may be getting slated in a few months time because it has become a victim of its own success, and vice-versa.

Summary: