# The Phone Co-op



## JLO (Sep 27, 2006)

Has anyone heard of or used the phone co-op. I was reading a blog last night about one mans (very funny) trials and tribulations with Sky, O2 and RBS, amongst others. He mentioned the phone co-op, so I had a look. They reckon we could get unlimited downloads and free weekend calls for £8 pound per month they also say we can get the same download speed that we are currently getting with BT which we are currently paying for about £35 per month, any thoughts? 

Jacqui


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## dovtrams (Aug 18, 2009)

My daughter uses them and speaks highly of the service. However, the reason to moved to them was because of their 'ethical' status; shot through with all the latest problems at the Co-op group.

Dave


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## cabby (May 14, 2005)

i just went onto their web site and they wanted to do a line check, put in the details and they said I have not got a working phone line, well I wish they would tell all those sales calls that and how do I get online then.>>

cabby


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Doesn't sound like a fair comparison to me. £8 against £35z. Does the £8 include line rental or are you still paying that to BT? I cannot believe you will get calls, broadband and line rental for £8.

Be careful as well if your in a rural area like we are. Often these offers turn out to be restricted to urban areas.

You also have to consider support and service. If a provider is practically giving it away then there won't be any.

You can always negotiate with BT. I got £70 mocked off this year just be haggling


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## ChrisandJohn (Feb 3, 2008)

We were with The Phone Coop for several years and were impressed with their customer service. At the time we'd just moved into our present house and it took some weeks getting transferred to The Phone Coop from the previous owner's provider (Talktalk), because of 'a tag on the line'. Whenever I rang The Phone Coop I felt I was talking to a real person, and usually the same person, who I didn't have to explain from scratch to each time. I think this was something to do with it being a relatively small organisation compared with the better known providers.

We changed to BT about 3 years ago because of services they offered, including TV, that The Phone Coop couldn't match. I can't remember their charges but I think they were reasonable. I didn't think The Phone Coop was connected to The Coop Bank and it's related society, but I might be wrong about this.


Chris


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## JLO (Sep 27, 2006)

barryd said:


> Doesn't sound like a fair comparison to me. £8 against £35z. Does the £8 include line rental or are you still paying that to BT? I cannot believe you will get calls, broadband and line rental for £8.
> 
> Be careful as well if your in a rural area like we are. Often these offers turn out to be restricted to urban areas.
> 
> ...


I know it sounds too good to be true, the initial price was from £6 but then when I put my postcode and landline number in it went up to £8. I do get money knocked off by BT as I do haggle with them every year. We are pretty rural here and get 7.4 meg with BT (I checked the line yesterday) I am not sure if the co-op price includes line rental, I wouldn't imagine it would at that price.

I think I would have to give them a call to suss that one out, though I haven't got time this week as WE ARE OFF TO FRANCE on Thursday :grin2: and I am at work Mon & Weds. I was speaking to a friend about it and he has just come over to BT and he is getting 7.4 meg and he is even more rural than us, at least we live in a village, he lives in a hamlet and he was saying his next door neighbour only gets .5 meg with EE.


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

Most homes have to use the same old wires whoever sends you the bills.
So BT at £35 or CooP at £8 is likley to be the same service.
But as Barry says you might still be paying BT the line rental.

France seems to have taken the all inclusive calls a stage further.
Both Orange and sfr, the two main suppliers charge an all inclusive fee of €29.98 or £21.50.
This includes 24/7 internet, 24/7 free calls to 102 countries, line rental and sometimes a free SIM.

But their after sales client service is abysmal.

Ray.


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## JLO (Sep 27, 2006)

We have got a problem where our router keeps dropping out so I sorted it yesterday with BT on live chat on my laptop whilst cooking tea and no language barrier to contend with.....I still haven't lost my Yorkshire accent after nearly 35 years after moving away....but I only have to talk to my sisters or go to Sheffield for a couple of hours and it's back:wink2: BT did a line test and told me I need to plug my router into the main socket to fix the problem, how did they know it wasn't in the main socket??


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

I guess it's the same the world over. They run through a series of procedures. 

When we had problems last month and I knew exactly where the fault/break was, I was always told to reboot the modem even though the fault was 500m. from the house. 
Took them 20 calls and 10 visits to agree with me.

Ray.


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

JLO said:


> I know it sounds too good to be true, the initial price was from £6 but then when I put my postcode and landline number in it went up to £8. I do get money knocked off by BT as I do haggle with them every year. We are pretty rural here and get 7.4 meg with BT (I checked the line yesterday) I am not sure if the co-op price includes line rental, I wouldn't imagine it would at that price.
> 
> I think I would have to give them a call to suss that one out, though I haven't got time this week as WE ARE OFF TO FRANCE on Thursday :grin2: and I am at work Mon & Weds. I was speaking to a friend about it and he has just come over to BT and he is getting 7.4 meg and he is even more rural than us, at least we live in a village, he lives in a hamlet and he was saying his next door neighbour only gets .5 meg with EE.


If your getting 7.4 meg on standard broadband then thats pretty good for a rural area, you must be very near the exchange.

As said, BT are the only company that provide telephone lines and broadband but there are many resellers. If you have an actual line fault where an engineer visit is required it will be a BT Open Reach engineer that turns up, doesnt matter who your lines or broadband provider is. They are just another link in the chain back to BT.

JLO. They will just be guessing about your source socket. One of the first diagnostics they will do is check your plugged into the main (or first) socket in the house. They will sometimes make you take the front off and plug it into the test socket which is a complete waste of time.


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## Stanner (Aug 17, 2006)

barryd said:


> Doesn't sound like a fair comparison to me. £8 against £35z. Does the £8 include line rental or are you still paying that to BT? I cannot believe you will get calls, broadband and line rental for £8.
> 
> Be careful as well if your in a rural area like we are. Often these offers turn out to be restricted to urban areas.
> 
> ...


In my experience you ONLY need support if you are with BT. They are the only provider I have ever had trouble with. I took over a BT line a year ago and have had more hassles in the last year than in the previous 20. I dumped BT as soon as it was possible to get a line from anyone other than BT.

I had Screaming/Worldonline/Tiscali and Cambridge Cable/NTL and now Orange at this address and rarely if ever had to call CS.

My unlimited Orange deal is less than £20/month my stingy BT "Unbeatable Deal" is over £27. The only extra it gives me is Fon, that isn't worth over £7/month and certainly doesn't make up for the 10Gb limit either.

BT at the other property has been B(ig) T(rouble) for the whole year. Limited to 10Gb (none of the others had/have any limits) and a counter that doesn't reset on the date they say it does and if you go over the month 1 limit in the first 2 days of month 2 they try and sting you for "Exceeding your monthly limit" - No the limit should be reset at midnight on the last day of the month not at some random time within the next 2 days.

I've been lied to - I asked if they were sure I had the best deal they could offer and was assured it was. Then within a couple of weeks saw various "Sale" offers far better than what I was on. I rang to ask why I wasn't offered those deals - "They weren't available then and anyway they are only available online"
"There is nothing you can do until your 18month deal runs out in November"

I will be leaving................... but if you're happy with BT, good for you.


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## JLO (Sep 27, 2006)

barryd said:


> If your getting 7.4 meg on standard broadband then thats pretty good for a rural area, you must be very near the exchange.
> 
> As said, BT are the only company that provide telephone lines and broadband but there are many resellers. If you have an actual line fault where an engineer visit is required it will be a BT Open Reach engineer that turns up, doesnt matter who your lines or broadband provider is. They are just another link in the chain back to BT.
> 
> JLO. They will just be guessing about your source socket. One of the first diagnostics they will do is check your plugged into the main (or first) socket in the house. They will sometimes make you take the front off and plug it into the test socket which is a complete waste of time.


 We are about 5 miles from the exchange which is at Tattershall, but the have got infinity there now, not sure if that makes a difference. 
The last time they did a check on our router I had to go to all the faff of plugging it into a different socket(it was in the main one that time) and they tested the line and said it was the router, this time because I didn't want to go to all that faff (and I was cooking tea) I fibbed so they decided the line into it was knackered and they would send a BT engineer out and if they found the fault was within the boundary of our property it would cost us £129, so I had to fess up and promise to plug it into the main socket, they wanted me to it there and then but I couldn't so I said I do it later and call them back if there was still a problem, so that's my next thing to do, after I've moved the router....or Hub as they like to call it.


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## JLO (Sep 27, 2006)

Stanner, it sounds like you have had a bad experience, I know it's no consolation, I work in a NHS complaints department and sometimes we have a fairly small low level complaint come in and then for reasons that are beyond us all everything that can go wrong does go wrong, that patient will be the one whose appointment gets cancelled or their notes go astray or their belongings get lost. I know it has happened to me with the Halifax on occasions, must be Sods Law or something


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Stanner, its sounds like your on the limited connection. For about £3 a month more you can get unlimited. I could probably use 10GB in a day easy a I watch most of my TV stuff online. As said, it makes little difference who your provider is, your still using BT Lines. Just because you switch to talk talk or whoever, they dont come and install new lines or a new service, they are just selling it on and in some cases the contention ratio is worse on the cheaper deals.

Dont get me wrong I am not a massive BT fan but they have improved over the years and their latest wifi routers (BT Hubs are excellent). 

Yes JLO BT are very good at scaring you away when you have a fault with their £129 bill if the fault turns out to be internal wiring or equipment. This applies to whoever you are with though. Its pretty easy to determine if the fault is local just by going through the various checks. The source socket one is where they will start. I think in 15 years of working with broadband and hundreds of broadband faults I think I can count on one hand the number of times a fault has been down to local internal wiring or equipment. Its nearly always a problem with either the cabling between the house and the exchange or in the exchange itself. Half the time the provider will come back and say we cannot find anything wrong but then miraculously it will get fixed.

This tends to be down to the fact that BT and Open Reach are effectively different companies and their communications is awful. All you are doing however by moving to another provider is putting an extra company into the support chain. They still have to go through BT and Open reach to resolve line issues.


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## JLO (Sep 27, 2006)

barryd said:


> Stanner, its sounds like your on the limited connection. For about £3 a month more you can get unlimited. I could probably use 10GB in a day easy a I watch most of my TV stuff online. As said, it makes little difference who your provider is, your still using BT Lines. Just because you switch to talk talk or whoever, they dont come and install new lines or a new service, they are just selling it on and in some cases the contention ratio is worse on the cheaper deals.
> 
> Dont get me wrong I am not a massive BT fan but they have improved over the years and their latest wifi routers (BT Hubs are excellent).
> 
> ...


We did have issues with our speeds a while ago, they suddenly dropped off for no reason that we could see, that took me about 2 weeks to sort out, in the end I dispensed with the on line chat because we were getting nowhere and they actually got a person in the UK to call me, they asked us to test the speed and when I told them what it was they couldn't believe it, so tested it themselves, after much discussion etc they actually contacted the exchange and apparently they had been doing some work at the exchange which entailed turning the broadband speed right down to .5 meg and they had forgotten to turn it back up again, does that sound feasible? I don't know if it was just us or if it affected a lot of people. I think I am quite happy to stick with BT as our speeds are definitely better than they were with whoever we were with last time.

My sister was with Tiscali and she lives in rural Suffolk, her broadband speeds dropped right off and Tiscali couldn't do anything about it, I advised her to swap to BT and now she gets better speeds that we do. As I said yesterday our friend gets 7 meg with BT and his neighbour gets .5 with EE.


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

JLO said:


> We did have issues with our speeds a while ago, they suddenly dropped off for no reason that we could see, that took me about 2 weeks to sort out, in the end I dispensed with the on line chat because we were getting nowhere and they actually got a person in the UK to call me, they asked us to test the speed and when I told them what it was they couldn't believe it, so tested it themselves, after much discussion etc they actually contacted the exchange and apparently they had been doing some work at the exchange which entailed turning the broadband speed right down to .5 meg and they had forgotten to turn it back up again, does that sound feasible? I don't know if it was just us or if it affected a lot of people. I think I am quite happy to stick with BT as our speeds are definitely better than they were with whoever we were with last time.
> 
> My sister was with Tiscali and she lives in rural Suffolk, her broadband speeds dropped right off and Tiscali couldn't do anything about it, I advised her to swap to BT and now she gets better speeds that we do. As I said yesterday our friend gets 7 meg with BT and his neighbour gets .5 with EE.


Sounds typical. They will tell you pretty much anything. The main issue really is that BT Open Reach are a law unto themselves. There is nobody else servicing lines and exchanges and they are a separate entity to BT Wholesale who manage the lines and support your broadband. The communications between the two is dire. It all depends on the luck of the draw which engineer serves your exchange or sorts out your problems. Some are very good but many are rubbish and there seems to be little accountability and as said there is no competition waiting in the wings. We are basically at the mercy of BT Open Reach.

Two houses next to each other by the way with 7 Meg and .5 indicates a real problem, they should be the same or very similar no matter which provider they have a contract with. Sorting it out of course depends on how good the support from the provider is and the end user jumping through the hoops to get a result.


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## JLO (Sep 27, 2006)

Yes I think you are right, we are at their mercy, but whatever they did they fixed the broadband speed. 

I have recently had a run with a company who told me they had taken me of the subscribers list...but they hadn't...unfortunately the person who emailed didn't email from a generic or no reply address, so every time the emailed me with a newsletter I sent her 20 emails back instructing them to remove me from their mailing list, it took 60 emails in two days before they got the message


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## Stanner (Aug 17, 2006)

barryd said:


> Stanner, its sounds like your on the limited connection. For about £3 a month more you can get unlimited. I could probably use 10GB in a day easy a I watch most of my TV stuff online. As said, it makes little difference who your provider is, your still using BT Lines. Just because you switch to talk talk or whoever, they dont come and install new lines or a new service, they are just selling it on and in some cases the contention ratio is worse on the cheaper deals.
> 
> Dont get me wrong I am not a massive BT fan but they have improved over the years and their latest wifi routers (BT Hubs are excellent).
> 
> ...


Yes I am on a limited (10Gb) service there for 2 reasons 
1 10Gb with BT is already £7.00 dearer than I pay Orange elsewhere for unlimited BB with the same phone package.

2 If I need more from the BT line I just use the FON connection - I'm then using the same connection over the same line for free - so why should I pay an EXTRA £3 for that.

I know the line service is all provided via Openreach (unless you have Virgin cable) but it isn't Openreach I've had problems with, it is the retail bit at the end BT Home or whatever. 
They are the ones that LIE about deals, they are the ones that don't reset the meter at midnight on the last day of the month and try to charge for use in June on the May bill and say "It's over your limit for May, so it's £5/Gb even if you only used a couple of Mb."

It took me 2 weeks of arguing with various Indians who clearly had no idea of what I was telling them as it wasn't "in their script" and kept parroting on about me going over the limit in May when I had a screen print showing my usage as 9.88Gb at 23.59 on May 31st before they finally connected me to someone in England who accepted what I said and explained it away as "Ohh well it sometimes takes up to 48 hours for the usage meter to update/reset." 
My reply was "Well a usage meter that doesn't show actual usage is pointless, isn't it?"

Q. If it is all down to various bit of BT, why do I have little or no trouble with BT Openreach lines via other companies for 20 years, but more Big Trouble with BT Openreach line via BT Retail in 1 year than in the previous 20?

A Because it's the BT Retail bit that is the problem.

PS When I have needed Openreach's services (via Orange) for a damaged line, I have found them to be very good.


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

You can definitely negotiate for a new service mid contract Stanner as I've done it and also done it for customers, of course it will mean taking out a new unlimited contract. You may prefer to wait and change to Orange.

I could bore you with horror stories from all the providers including orange, zen internet seems to be about the best service wise these days for business and home broadband. Their support is excellent and all Uk based. A zen broadband and a hosted exchange account for email with Fasthosts or Microsoft for outllook, iPhones etc is bullet proof and it's what I install for business customers.

The price of broadband has been forced right down so service suffers. When I started selling broadband 15 years ago it was £90 a month for a half meg connection!!! The support though was excellent! .


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## Stanner (Aug 17, 2006)

I'm not sure it will be Orange, although I've been with them here for over 10 years and only needed help twice, both times with a damaged line Our line stretches about 100m from the pole and no longer has an intermediate building to hang a support on, so it's a very long dangle.

I'll do a hunt around online for deals nearer the time. 

About the same time I may need a completely new line to a building that doesn't have a service at present, so that may be another bargaining ploy. In fact I would actually like that to be an extension off the current BT line - I know remote extensions used to be quite common, not sure if they are still possible.


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Stanner said:


> I'm not sure it will be Orange, although I've been with them here for over 10 years and only needed help twice, both times with a damaged line Our line stretches about 100m from the pole and no longer has an intermediate building to hang a support on, so it's a very long dangle.
> 
> I'll do a hunt around online for deals nearer the time.
> 
> About the same time I may need a completely new line to a building that doesn't have a service at present, so that may be another bargaining ploy. In fact *I would actually like that to be an extension off the current BT line - I know remote extensions used to be quite common,* not sure if they are still possible.


Hmm, If you mean splitting the pairs it used to be common practice and in the early days of Broadband BT had a habit of doing this despite the fact that broadband (ADSL) will not work on a split pair!!! :frown2:


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## Stanner (Aug 17, 2006)

barryd said:


> Hmm, If you mean splitting the pairs it used to be common practice and in the early days of Broadband BT had a habit of doing this despite the fact that broadband (ADSL) will not work on a split pair!!! :frown2:


Hmmm don't know if it involves splitting hairs, but a garage I used to run had an extension at a filling station about 3 miles away on the outskirts of Oxford. From the filling station we had to dial 9 to the PABX at the main garage to get an outside line and calls to the main building were just a matter of picking up the phone and dialling an extension number.
The system was already there when I started so I have no idea how it was set up.

I'd like the same again, just 2 phones with the same number at 2 separate locations about 250m apart.


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## greygit (Apr 15, 2007)

Here in the Forest of Dean we are getting 68 Mbps downloadswith BT ,no one else can match that speed, if we get problems, which are rare,BT help desk are on the ball instantly. It aint cheap but you gets what you paid for. Oh, and I have just got a BTmobile sim which is costing me a fraction of what I was paying EE for the same deal.........odd when you think BT now owns EE.


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## JLO (Sep 27, 2006)

greygit said:


> Here in the Forest of Dean we are getting 68 Mbps downloadswith BT ,no one else can match that speed, if we get problems, which are rare,BT help desk are on the ball instantly. It aint cheap but you gets what you paid for. Oh, and I have just got a BTmobile sim which is costing me a fraction of what I was paying EE for the same deal.........odd when you think BT now owns EE. [/QUOTE
> 
> EE phoned me to try and get me to switch to their Broadband and I told them I was in the middle of a contract with BT, the woman on the other end went into the usual sales talk about how they were better than BT until I reminded her that an announcement had been made the previous day that BT had just bought EE, it sort of went quiet for a bit then she decided to terminate the call


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Stanner said:


> Hmmm don't know if it involves splitting hairs, but a garage I used to run had an extension at a filling station about 3 miles away on the outskirts of Oxford. From the filling station we had to dial 9 to the PABX at the main garage to get an outside line and calls to the main building were just a matter of picking up the phone and dialling an extension number.
> The system was already there when I started so I have no idea how it was set up.
> 
> I'd like the same again, just 2 phones with the same number at 2 separate locations about 250m apart.


Its getting into the relms of Telephone systems which I do supply but I use a telephony and cabling partner company who I have worked with for 15 years so my technical knowledge is limited. Its fairly easy to set up a VOIP (Voice over IP) telephone system. We have done it, where the main calls come into the main office phone system (we use Alcatel) and you can have an extension anywhere in the world and the call is just transferred over the internet to a VOIP extension. You still need broadband in the second location though.

for 250 metres though you could either cable it with CAT 5/6 cabling or use a directional wifi antenna and access point and just make it part of your LAN.


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## Stanner (Aug 17, 2006)

barryd said:


> for 250 metres though you could either cable it with CAT 5/6 cabling or use a directional wifi antenna and access point and just make it part of your LAN.


It's 250m through a housing estate and across a main road.


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Stanner said:


> It's 250m through a housing estate and across a main road.


If its not line of sight then wifi could be difficult but still possible. You may need a second line, broadband and then a VOIP phone.


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