BT offers expert home visits to quell 'techno rage'

[BGonaSTICK]

BT has entered the growing market of companies offering to help consumers who struggle to install new technology in their homes.

BT said yesterday that those signing up to one of its broadband packages can now pay an extra £50 to get an engineer to install the service in their home. The company is also offering to send anyone with a BT line an engineer to help with other technology-related problems for £75 for the first hour.

Until recently, broadband suppliers largely relied on customers to install the super-fast internet links themselves. About 10m British homes now have such a connection.

But as anyone who has tried to set up a new link knows, it rarely happens without a hitch. Long waits for customer service agents using costly phone lines can add to the sense of frustration.

In an effort to cash in on growing "technology rage", BT has joined rivals in offering home visits. In the summer, Sky said it would install broadband for its customers for £50. DSG, the company behind Dixons and PC World, recently launched a similar home-visit service.

BT said it was spending £65m over the next three-and-a-half years on the service. It has set up a team of 2,000 specially trained staff. Engineers will be able to set up a wireless router, or help with a host of other problems. But in a move clearly designed to add value to BT's own products they will not be allowed to help connect customers to a rival broadband network.

The home service follows the launch in March of BT Home IT Adviser, a service that gives customers paying £9.99 a month unlimited access to an adviser who can "log on" to a computer remotely to troubleshoot a problem.

Emma Sanderson, director of value-added services for BT Retail, said: "People are becoming increasingly dependent on broadband to help run ever busier lives but not everyone has the time or the expertise to set things up or maintain them on their own.

"Our new service is designed to help people exploit the full potential of broadband and make it really work for them," she said. "There are a host of things that people know they want to do but are not sure how to. For example, sharing files, photos and music between computers on a wireless home network or linking other devices like gaming machines and iPods."

When DSG announced its "Tech Guys" service this month, it said it expected the market to grow dramatically over the next few years. It is investing £50m over three years to set up 200 support centres around the country.

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LOL, like I'm going to pay BT £75 to come and screw up my network :roflmao:
I wonder if any of the '2,000 specially trained staff' have started 'big' school yet?

Whoa, I've gotta curb my cynicism!

[Jimdefruit]

Part of the fun is setting up the broadband connection and a network if you have one. Why pay someone else to take away the fun.

[Analoguesat]

Anyone who is so much of a techno-idiot as to not be able to set up a bb connection shouldnt be allowed to have one in the first place. You can pretty much guarantee its such users who dont keep the virus defs up to date or whose machines get hijacked by trojans to spew junk emails to the rest of us..

[BGonaSTICK]

Yes, but unfortunately that's probably way over half of all users, and those refuseniks that don't already have broadband are going to be far worse than those that do

[jontydog]

idiots the money would be better spent upgrading the broadband they already have. I am paying for "up to 8 meg" and I am still only getting 1. I am off to ntl as soon as my contract is up or maybe before if I refuse to pay the current bill and they cut me off which I am seriously considering

[alcina]

Interesting. This is a return to how it used to be ie. you weren't allowed to touch it yourself as only highly qualified, highly trained engineers were allowed to make the connections - all at your expense. Not matter you told them "it's fine, I can do it" you had to pay £200 quid for some snotty nosed "engineer" to come to your house and then tell you "oh macs can't connect to the internet" > . Then BT introduced the "Do It Yourself" kit which comprised two filters and a squashed frog for only £50 and left the rest to you. After that they all stopped sending round their boys and provided cheap kits.

When will they understand that their market (not just their market but quite a lot of markets!) has two types of customer: one who would much rather do it themselves because they really do know how to do it and doesn't want to pay for someone else to mess it all up for them; one who would much rather pay for someone else to install it all. Both types of customer cannot be accommodated with one package. You pays your money and takes your choice! That's how it should be!

Mutter, mutter...

Alcina