Legacy 55/10mb Unlimited Broadband customer questions

[#1]

My current retention deal is coming to an end in next few weeks.

On two previous occasions when I accepted a new retention offer, my speeds always dropped from 55/10 to 40/10 profile.  On the last occasion, it was rectified after intervention by @Gandalf .

https://community.plus.net/t5/Fibre-Broadband/Legacy-55-10-to-40-10-product-change-mistake/m-p/15439...

A friend is on same package as myself, and never saw profile drop from 55/10 to 40/10 when they renewed in May 2018 so it was a bit of a puzzle why some 55/10 legacy customers saw change in speed profile, and other did not see any change.

Are legacy 'Unlimited Broadband' customers with 55/10 speed profile still able to keep this legacy benefit if the customer accepts a new retention deal on their 'Unlimited Broadband' contract, or has this legacy benefit expired?

Has anyone with 55/10 profile renewed their contract lately and witnessed the drop to 40/10 profile?

[#2]

When I renewed my contract in May 2018 I was assured that my 55/10 profile would not change. However it dropped to 40/10 on the renewal day but was restored promptly to 55/10 once I complained to CS.

I have just renewed again and had a discussion about retaining 55/10 with COT. Again I have been assured that the 55/10 profile will not be changed and the email I received after renewal quotes my estimated line speed as 45 - 55  and so if they do drop my profile to 40/10 they will breach this statement. The COT representative seemed to be a bit perplexed about the 55/10 profile and I had to explain the history behind it.

Anyway, it is another another two weeks or so until the new contract starts and so I shall see what actually happens. I do hope I do not have to chase CS again.

[#3 · Accepted solution]

Hi @bill888 

There's no short answer to this, so I'll go into a long answer straight away:

The way that 55/10 is provided over the Unlimited Fibre package means that re-contracting generally resets the speed profile on your account and puts through a modify order to regrade the speed to the current speed offering of that package.

In the past I've done some digging into this and to be honest I've unfortunately not been able to find out what makes this part of the system tick, for example why it only sometimes downgrades you from 55/10 to 40/10 upon re-contracting but not other times, because on the face of things there's no difference to how the renewal is put through the system.

Even though 55/10 is based on our Unlimited Fibre package which is a current package, as it's 55/10 legacy as you've said, if you recontract, you'd ideally be agreeing to the current speeds we offer on that package.

Having said that, I think it all really depends on what you agree with us when you renew. If you agree a contract for Unlimited Fibre retaining your 55/10 speeds, we'll honour this if anything happens to your speeds.

It's a really simple and easy change to revert you back to 55/10, feel free to drop us a message over here if you do agree a new contract keeping your speeds the same and if anything does happen, we'll be happy to correct this for you.

I hope this helps.

[#4]

@bill888 

There are two ways to look at the 55/10 product.

1. You get an extra 15Mbps download speed.

2. When recontracting this can put you in a poor negotiating position as there are no cheaper competitive deals to use as a negotiating point.

I found it was cheaper to upgrade to 80/20 by quoting competitors 80/20 deals over just recontracting on 55/10

[#5]

@Gandalf Thank you for the comprehensive reply.

I subsequently live chatted with one of your colleagues and was able to agree a new 12 month contract to continue with same broadband and calls plan at a really good price which I wasn't expecting.  I could keep my 55/10mb speed profile.  Starts end of October.  Email quotes 38-55 Megabits per second estimated speeds.

@Baldrick1 fwiw, when I used to have 40/20 (aka 80/20), I had noticed unexpected DSL disconnections which disrupted streaming TV services. I'd settle for a 'stable' 40/10 line if I couldn't keep 55/10mb.  My line is only good for about 57-60mb.   My 55/10mb FTTC connection hasn't dropped in last 276 days.

[#6]

@bill888 No problem and thanks for renewing with us. I've gone into your account to check up on this and I've added a reply to your support ticket here: https://www.plus.net/wizard/?p=view_question&id=194413250 Hope this helps.