Introduction

Debra Head is the founder and Managing Director of Head Trophies - a company specialising in providing trophies for the world of sport and business. Based in Harrow she has just moved premises because of the success of her business. She employs 6 staff and a dog!

Debra Head tells her story in trying to buy BT

“I’d heard lots of good things about cutting costs with Internet technology and I’ve made good use of our Internet site. We’ve doubled sales in the last couple of years based on technology. When we moved into new premises I thought I’d just sort out my phones on the web like everything else I do.

BT equals phones - right - so I went on to the BT site.

The first place I ended up at was BT Broadband Voice (VoiP) which promised free VoIP. It took a while to realise that this was for one phone only and it was so hobbled it wasn’t much use any way.

It turned out eventually that I needed to seek out BT Business Phone Line & Broadband pages. The web site asked “Is Hosted VoIP right for your business?” and went on…

“BT Hosted VoIP will benefit you if you want:

• the benefits of a phone system without the need for lots of equipment
• to grow your business or be able to set up and move lines quickly and easily
• to keep existing phone numbers even if you are moving out of area
• advanced calling features to help ensure you never miss a call
• to be able to work remotely or have home workers”

That sounded really good and because it was Internet based it had to be cheap didn’t it?

After lots more searching I found out that to benefit from BT Hosted VoIP I’d need:

• a BT Business telephone line
• a dedicated BT Business Broadband line with the 2700 Business Hub for every 8-10 lines of Hosted VoIP

Already I was lost – what the hell is a 2700 Business Hub. But it continued helpfully that: 

“The BT Business Hub allows you to connect 3 IP phones to the BT Hosted VoIP service.

However, a further 5 BT Falcon IP phones can be connected to the service by means of an Ethernet hub switch, making 8 phones in total.”

Well that sounded just my sort of thing.

I thought I’d go with say 7 phones because that would be one for everyone I employ, including me but excluding the dog.

This was going to get difficult I could see – they really didn’t want me to work out how much this was going to be, but when I saw that the BT price list was 1600 pages I knew I had just got to take up the challenge. There were going to be 4 sorts of cost apparently, one off costs for connecting things, one off capital costs and recurring costs for lines and calls.

So on the BT Business Phone Line & Broadband page I clicked on - I had to seek out which option I needed. Fortunately that bit was quite easy - I needed unlimited usage allowance because I had no idea how much data I needed. That meant Option 2 or 3. I didn’t want a Wireless dongle so that meant Option 2.

Now I had to choose the length of contract so I went for 12 months - up popped a figure £44.87 per month. Now did I want caller display, call waiting, ring back and call diversion. Yes please - add another £4.35 per month. Total £49.22 billed quarterly in advance. Oh and did I want 5 static IP’s, (whatever they were) and that would cost me a further £5.00. Since I hadn’t the foggiest I chose not to have them.

Then I saw the small print and read it. I read it OK but I could make no sense of it (if you are interested I’ve put it as appendix A). I think it means that they would charge me a lot more after the 12 months period and that the free router wasn’t really free - maybe?

So I think I had got to the point where I could do a comparison and I needed to compare them to something and so I talked to Birchills Telecom and managed to draw up the table below to compare them.

So the monthly cost was £120.10 with BT, I think, and £102.00 with Birchills Telecom. BT was 17% more expensive and I couldn’t figure if this was really the price anyway.

BT was an amazing 177% more expensive on the one off costs as well.

But BT are big, so I was still wondering. Then I read I had to have their Falcon phones which they’d named after a predatory bird. These phones didn’t seem to have line busy fields so if I tried to transfer a call next door I wouldn’t know if the other person was on the line.

Then I realised, of course, that I needed a fax. Oh dear. Now I needed another telephone line - BT don’t support any faxes on broadband, apparently. So that would be another £99 installation - or something. I’d lost the will to go through the small print again. Then add another £14.10 a month for a standard rental. Now add call charges - and what calling plan would I like. Birchills Telecom simply include fax in their standard offering.

There was some other stuff about if it broke then I could pay more money so they’d talk to me in order to fix it - if I paid a lot more money up front. But I didn’t care by now.

Oh and the absolute killer - I couldn’t port my existing phone numbers with BT. With Birchills Telecom it’s simple.

So it wasn’t much of a choice really. Did I want to sign one simple form and save or did I want to spend the rest of my life trying to sort out which special offer was about to expire. I chose Birchills Telecom.”

Debra Head, May 2009

Appendix A

Offer extended until 30.06.09. New BT Business Total Broadband customers up to Option 1 or Option 2. 12/24 month minimum term applies. £16/£12.50 a month for Option 1 and £22.50 a month for Option 2 24 month term only. Discounted prices apply for duration of minimum term, then full prices apply £20/£15 a month for Option 1 and £25 a month for Option 2. Credit of £48/£60 for Option 1 and £60 for Option 2 will be applied to the first or second quarterly bill. Cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer. Activation within one month of order required. BT Business Total Broadband requires BT line or similar and router. BT Business Hub inclusive with Option 2. Free hub offer available to new BT Business Total Broadband customers signing up to Option 1 and opting in to BT Business Hub. Credit of £59 will be applied to second quarterly bill. Subject to availability, minimum term and conditions.