BT Basic Phone On It's Own Or With Broadband Cheap If On Certain Benefit's £10.07!

[StarBright]

I'm now being shown an equipment delivery date of 4th July, with a service activation on 5th July.

Not sure if almost a fortnight for delivery is normal for BT?

In the meantime one of my neighbours (don't know which one) has a BT hub, so now I'm a BT broadband customer myself I'm able to log into the BT open wifi hotspot on that.
I'm logged into it right now.

Yes you get access to BT wifi straight away, my home broadband connects me to that first then changes it to my hub, it's only a couple of mins to wait on startup much quicker than VM.

It's not the delivery that takes two weeks, they only despatch the hub & free phone when they know they can come the next day or two days time to switch it all on. My hub & phone were not dispatched until a couple of days pria switch on day. I don't know why they do this. I'm guessing because people change their minds?

Two weeks seems about right because on my screen they kept telling me they can come before my switch on date ( I waited 30 days because of VM) which the first one was around the two week mark.

[nukecad]

Sounds like the Honor X8 2018 version - that does connect to 4G but not 5G. (The 2022 version has 5G as well).
If you turn mobile data on it should tell you at the top of the screen, next to the signal strength, whether it's connecting to 3G, 3G+, or 4G, it will depend which is available wherever you happen to be at the time.

That BT open wifi is interesting, it's still there and I can still connect to it, but now it's saying 'No internet'.
Not sure if that's my computer, or BT, or if the owner has changed the settings (or unplugged it from the phone line?).
I know that it can be turned off altogether, but this one is still on and still showing as a network.
I have noticed that some of my neighbours turn off their routers when not using them or overnight, maybe who-ever it belongs to unplugs the phone line instead when they go out?
People often do odd things when they don't understand how the tech works.

EDIT- The open wifi is now internet connected again, I guess it was at BT's end?

[StarBright]

Yes it's the 2018 phone.

Iv'e only used the free wi-fi hotspots

The free wifi hotspots are always saying it's there for me to connect to if I wanted to. Just tried & it let me get on no problems but sounds like your using something else. I googled BT open wi-wf & it say's it's £4.99 a day so don't think your using that

[nukecad]

BT open wifi is free if you are already a BT customer for certain things including broadband, you only have to pay if you aren't already a customer and want to use it.

I've worked out that if you have the BTwifi app on your phone it will connect/login to any available BT hotspot, but on a laptop/PC although it connects you have to login each time through your browser.
Which can be awkward if like me you have a homepage set on your browser which will overide the BT login page when you open the browser, soon sorted by setting the login page as a bookmark.
https://www.btwifi.com:8443/home?CPU...://home.bt.com

Just to note that if you are an EE customer it probably won't show you the 3G/4G/5G on your phone when you turn on mobile data this afternoon because it's not connecting, they have been plagued by outages UK-wide since about 12:30 and it's still going on, some are even reporting that they can't make calls on EE:
https://downdetector.co.uk/status/ee...ng-everywhere/

I know that Yodel are also having problems, a suspected cyber attack.
It may be that the Russians are messing us about over over our support for Ukraine. (It wouldn't be the first time in the last couple of months).

[StarBright]

Arh! I just call it free wifi not BT open wifi which is it's correct name.

On my chromebook when I click to use BT Wifi on my chromebook it connects & a message comes up saying you may need to visit this page to be able to use the network or words to that effect, but when I click on the message it comes up in a bigger page & does not connect to anything, but I can still use it. So no signing into it on a chromebook.

I'm with Asda mobile which used to be EE but is now vodafone

Pleased you have sorted it out now & that you can use it

[StarBright]

I think you can set up how you want to pay now. I've chosen to pay monthly with a debit card. I had an email on Tuesday letting me know my next bill is due on the 1st of July or before. I always pay on the actual due date.

[nukecad]

I set it up as a direct debit, not sure what day each month that will be but if I don't like the day that they set I'll change it.

If they have any sense about them then as this 'essentials' account is linked to having UC (or another IR benefit) they'll ask the DWP and set the DD to be the same day as your UC payment date.
Big companies don't always use common sense though.

I tried to put the BT app on my mobille phone but the Android version is too old - that's another reason why I need a new phone, many apps no longer work on my current one.

PS. EE is back up again, although a few are still reporting ongoing problems.

[nukecad]

BT Open Wifi is free to everyone at the moment - of course if you are reading this then you probably don't need it.

There was a problem this morning and nobody could logon to their hotspots, so they've made it a free for all and you just need to click a button to access it with no login details required.

(Wonder if it's connected with the EE problems the other day?, They are the same company after all).

[StarBright]

Could be Nuke,

They seem to be genuious so far. When I had mine set up, they got the broadband working great but could not get the digital voice phoneline set up that day. I spoke to a customer service agent on the BT website. The next day I got an email from BT saying it's all set up now. Then shortly after they sent me another email saying I was due some money back because they could not set up all my services when they said they would. They took £5.04 off my first bill. I never knew I could claim that!

[nukecad]

I've just discovered a restriction with BT Open Wifi. (It's back to logins again BTW).

I tried to upload a couple of screenshots to another forum and it wouldn't allow the uploads because I was on an 'open' connection, ie. not secured.
Had to switch to tethering through my phone to make the uploads.

Oh well, it's only for another week or so until my own kit comes.