You can leave at any time, either by ceasing the service with us, ceasing the phone line / copper pair which causes the broadband service to cease, or migrating away to another provider. If you leave us within the initial term for your service there is an early termination charge which applies for each broadband line for the remainder of the term. This depends on the tariff and service.
However, if you are unable to order via the web site for some reason, or for services which cannot be ceased through the order pages, please email or call us and discuss with the sales team.
We will be sad to see you leave, but at anytime our staff will be happy to review your tariff and service options to see if there are faster or more suitable tariffs for you to move to. It goes without saying that we are always keen to get broadband faults fixed and if you have problems in this area then please do get in touch.
If you cease or migrate service within the initial term then an early termination charge applies.
The charge applies to each broadband service line separately, and is a charged for the period from the cease/migrate date to the end of the initial term. The initial term is worked out from the line's order or upgrade date on a per line basis and shown on the control pages.
Home::1 has a simple 1, 6, or 12 month initial term (as you choose when ordering) and then an ongoing contract. There is no cease charge. The early termination charge is £15.00† pcm for ADSL and £20.00† pcm for FTTC/FTTP.
SoHo::1 has a simple 1, 6, or 12 month initial term (as you choose when ordering) and then an ongoing contract. Some exceptions apply, notified when you ordered. There is no cease charge. The early termination charge is £20.00† pcm for ADSL and £30.00† pcm for FTTC/FTTP.
Office::1 has a simple 12 month initial term and then ongoing contract. There is no cease charge. The early termination charge is £60.00† pcm per line.
Note that we don't do Office::1 without at least two broadband lines, or where we are not providing the copper pair for the broadband lines. Ceasing or migrating a service below this level will be taken as a request to cease the entire service.
You can transfer your service to a new provider if you wish. Contact the new provider, and they can start the process. It takes 10 working days at least. We will receive a notice and send you an email to confirm. If you change your mind you can contact the new provider to cancel the transfer. The email we send also contains links that allow you to ask us to cancel the transfer, as well as details of any early termination charges that apply.
The new One Touch Switching, from 12th Sep 2024, changes this.
For residential customers using One Touch Switching we will do a match for a request from your new provider and email you details including any early termination charges. For switches not done using One Touch Switching you will get no advance notice from us. In either case, from 12th Sep 2024 we will no longer be able to stop a migration - it will be up to you to contact the new provider.
To use One Touch Switching you will have to confirm, with the new provider, the correct address and surname on your account (see slamming below). You may have to confirm your account number (A...A). You will get an emailed notice from us to the contact details held on our control pages for yours please ensure these are correct. If your new provider has issues, you can contact our sales team to double check the details we hold and help the process.
Billing continues as normal until the transfer is complete, at which point you are charged any early termination charges and credited for any service already invoiced beyond the transfer date.
Note that we only provide copper pair (telephone line) services for use with broadband. If you transfer broadband you will have to ensure you also transfer the copper pair as well as otherwise it will be ceased and that may stop your broadband working with the new provider even after it has transferred.
Note that if you have telephone service on the same line with another provider, migrating your service could impact your telephone service, depending on how the new provider does the transfer. We recommend discussing with your new broadband provider and existing phone service provider in advance.
To cease service you simply request this on the broadband Order page. Once the cease completes you will receive a bill or credit to adjust your service billing to the actual date the service ceased/transferred, plus a charge for any early termination fee.
Customers paying by Direct Debit that receive a credit that means a refund is due as a result of ceasing or migrating will normally receive a refund payment by BACS automatically. Please do bear in mind that this process can take a few days. We email you to advise you of the refund. In other cases (customers paying by other means or more complex accounts), you will receive Credit Notes, and can check on-line to see your statement. You can ask us to send any refund due (and advise us of bank details) - contact our accounts department.
Phone lines are going away, but some of our services do have a related phone line still.
Ceasing the associated copper pair / phone line causes a cease of the broadband line. Once the cease completes you will receive a bill or credit to adjust your service billing to the actual date the service ceased/migrated, plus a charge for any early termination fee or cease fee that applies.
If we are providing a telephone service with your broadband service then this will be ceased when you leave unless you first arrange for it to be taken over by a new provider. Contact your new provider to arrange this before ceasing service as it will stop your new broadband working.
Occasionally a phone line is ceased by mistake and the broadband line ends up being ceased. This can be a mistake by a customer, or BT, or other phone line reseller. When this happens the cease charge and any early termination fee is charged as normal. Typically you want the service reinstated in such cases and that means the normal install charge as well, and if you ask for it, an expensive expedite charge as well. If the cease was a mistake by a third party such as BT you are obviously able to try and recover these charges from the third party. Either way, you need to pay us the charges that apply, sorry.
For a long time we have operated an anti-slamming option where you tell us in advance that you do not wish your broadband to be migrated to a new provider. You could then change that at any time.
However, the new One Touch Switching system works differently. We will no longer be able to reject switching. However, to start switching the new provider needs an address and surname to match. They can start a switch process in BT without, but this is less likely as the normal process for consumers, and probably most businesses, will be One Touch Switching.
Because the surname has to match, we now allow you to edit the contact name on each line you have with us. Your name is what you want it to be, so picking any name for any circumstance is your right, and we have to respect that and allow you to change your name under GDPR, even if only on that very specific part of our system - the contact name for a broadband service.
If you change your surname, even if it is to PSJKHGJGEXC, then that is your choice. And any One Touch Switching match request would fail unless using the surname PSJKHGJGEXC.
One small caveat, the contact name is used with carriers for things like fault repairs, so watch out for a BT engineer turning up asking for Mr PSJKHGJGEXC.
Obviously this is meant to be for your surname not really as a pseudo password, but, well, it is up to you.
[This is our current understanding of the process]
The normal migration process applies for business services, and could be abused to apply for residential customers as well, as the new CP has no way to know if a service is business or not. It seems BT Wholesale are removing the advance notice of migration (Notice of transfer) so we won't know about it in advance and so won't be able to tell you. Even if we were told in advance, we would not be able to stop it, or tell you where the service is going so that you can contact them to stop it.
