The telecoms provider will be testing its Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) technology in the area, with Highams Park in London rumoured to be the first proposed site.

It is believed that the FTTH technology could bring broadband speeds of up to 40 Mbps to people living in the area.

Deployment of the next generation network would see fibre optic cabling running between street cabinets and homes currently covered by BT’s copper wire telephone wiring.

A spokesperson for BT told ZDNEt.co.uk that the Highams Park pilot was under consideration, but did not provide further details or timings for the scheme.

BT recently indentified 11 areas in London which had been chosen to benefit from super-fast broadband by summer 2010.

The telecoms giant first increased the cost of calls in April, and has now outlined plans for a second increase from October 1. The combined effect has seen priced rise from 3.91p a minute to 5.25p.

The company is also putting up the cost of connecting a call for the second time in less than six months.

Only customers who read the small print of a letter sent out by BT in the past few days will be aware of the change, meaning many customers will be surprised by hike in their next bill.

The increase will add hundreds of millions of pounds to the bills of both domestic and business users, at a time when UK consumers are struggling to fight the recession.

Small businesses, which will be hard hit by the increases, have called on the UK’s biggest telecoms provider to think again.

The charge was highlighted by PC pro recently, when the figure was raised from £18.11.

The fee will be incurred by users who wish to fully terminate their broadband connection instead of using their Migration Authorisation Code (MAC) to switch providers.

BT noted on its website that if a customer moves to a new address where they are unable to provide the service then they will not have to pay the fee.

However, customers terminating their subscription will be forced to pay the charge even if they have surpassed the minimum contract length.

Phillips, BroadbandChoices.co.uk product director, said: “Customers who have completed a 12 or even 18 month contract with BT should not be charged if they wish to end their service.

“These are difficult times for many people, and some simply might not be able to afford their broadband bills any more. And for someone in that position – looking to cut costs – £25 is a lot of money.”

The study of 5,000 people revealed the telecoms giant are nearly twice as bad at dealing with issues and complaints than second place British Gas.

Sky were third, followed by Virgin Media and Vodafone. Other corporate giants who fared badly were HSBC, AOL, Barclays, O2 and HMRC.

Automated telephone systems were the biggest problem for consumers, as they mean it can take several minutes to get through to a real person.

Other bug-bears included being passed around different people and having to keep on repeating yourself, along with foreign call centres where staff struggled to understand English, rude staff, and having to answer endless security questions.

BT also topped the list for the longest holding times, followed again by British Gas, and then Sky.

Those answering the survey said they believed they spent an average of around 23 minutes on the phone trying to sort out problems each time they called.

Just over 11 per cent said they regularly spent 30 minutes on the phone to companies.

Customer’s signed up to BT’s 8 megabit per second (MBPS) package could have speed cut to below 1Mbps while streaming from sites like youtube or the BBC iplayer.

In a statement, the BBC said: “While customers listening to audio and lower quality video streams would be unaffected, we are concerned that at peak times some customers’ higher quality video streams may be interrupted by buffering before falling back to a lower-quality version.

“This would suggest that traffic identified as BBC iPlayer traffic is being throttled back, thereby limiting the bandwidth used up by the service on slower connections.”

A BT spokesman said the firm managed bandwidth “in order to optimise the experience for all customers”, and pointed out that the speed limit is explained on its website, on a page describing its Total Broadband Fair Usage policy.

The clause in question says: “We do limit the speed of all video streaming to 896Kbps on our Option 1 product, during peak times only.”

Steve Weller from price comparison site uSwitch.com said BT was not the only internet service provider trying to cope with growing demand by throttling back speeds.

Customers are not told that the wake-up call will costs £7 when they ring to order, which led to one man unknowingly racking up a £118 bill for 17 alarm calls.

The customer, Ricky Reemer, 28, Managing Director of Unicorn IT, was so infuriated by the charge that he refused to pay. BT responded by cutting off his landline.

“I couldn’t believe it” said Mr. Reemer, “I was shocked when I realised how much they charged me a call. It’s so ludicrous it’s laughable. At first I was convinced they’d made a mistake.

“When I rang the BT operator and asked if they did a wake-up call they said ‘Yes, of course sir. What time for?’
“There’s no mention of the cost. But it worked so I carried on using it several times.” Ricky was horrified by the huge bill so complained to BT and Ofcom. But he was told the charge was correct and, when he refused to pay, his landline was disconnected.

He said: “I was shocked by BT’s unreasonable behaviour and furious I wasn’t told about the charge.
“There’s no way it can cost that much to make the call. It is just an example of big companies ripping off the powerless individual.” Now media regulators Ofcom are probing the tariff. The fee of £6.553 plus VAT is shown on BT’s website, but callers who dial 100 for operator service are not warned about the cost.

Bt defended the charge and pointed out they offer the cheaper automated service at 29p a time. For most people this works by dialling 55 and entering the wake-up time.

Ricky is angry he was not told about the cheaper option. He said: “If told there was a cheaper way of getting an alarm call of course I would have taken that option. I can’t help feeling that I was deliberately kept in the dark.”

A BT spokesman insisted: “Our charges are displayed on our website – we are not misleading customers.”
However, Mr Reemer’s bill is being halved. The spokesman said: “We appreciate there has been some confusion here.”

The viewers complained because in BT’s advert the “Home Hub” router and handset were displayed with the text “Free Hub worth £88”.

However the viewers claim that this is not so because the Home Hub and Handset have to be purchased separately if the customer signs up for BT’s Option One.

The ASA upheld the complaints because it believed that the advert gave the impression that the Home Hub and Handset were free with all BT packages.

The ASA decided that the last part of the advert was misleading and therefore BT will no longer be able to use this advert on TV.

Under the rolling contract introduced by BT in April 2008, customers of the ISP will automatically be signed up for another year unless they inform BT that they no longer want the service.

If customers have been re-signed to the same package, they will be forced to pay up to £180 to extract themselves from the contract.

BT’s renewal policy appears to be unlikr the majority of other ISPs, which do not automatically renew customers’ contracts when they expire.

“We believe that rolling contracts are a sharp practice at any time, but particularly so in the current credit crunch and with given the riches available in the market,” said Andrew Heaney from TalkTalk.

TalkTalk are also calling for Ofcom to stamp out the practice.

“BT cynically places the onus on its customers to cancel their contracts – simply because it knows that many of them will simply forget.”

BT said the rolling contract only affects customers signed to the Option1 broadband package, which offered users free weekend calls on top of their broadband access. The ISP also says the renewable aspect is clearly stated in the contract.

“Customers make a clear positive choice to opt in to a renewable contract in exchange for the considerable benefit of free evening calls. The renewable nature of the contract is clearly explained three times up front to the customer,” said BT.

Jessica McArdle, marketing manager of  broadband comparison site Top 10 Broadband, said: “Top 10 Broadband is surprised by BT’s decision to enforce rolling contracts on customers. Taking this approach is not particularly helpful to customers during these tough economic times”.

The announcement comes after BT pledged to make calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers free, prompting accusations that the telecoms giant was “giving with one hand and taking away with another”. Standard daytime phone call rates will also rise by 15% to 4.5p per minute.

The rise in BT line rental price will also have an effect on the cost of many monthly broadband packages – even if the customer does not use BT as their main ISP. This is because the majority of broadband users require a phone line (usually provided by BT) in order to operate.

There are alternative broadband packages that include bundled line rental as well, though. XLN’s total business broadband package for example, which includes line rental, broadband, and unlimited local and national calls for £24.95.

It was reported last week that some shareholders had expressed concern about BT’s £1.5bn fibre broadband plan, suggesting the organisation would be better off keeping hold of the cash instead.

But a BT spokesman told silicon.com: “The project isn’t at risk because of the recession. There’s nothing that is affecting that investment decision at this moment.”

He added, however, that it would be wrong to say for sure that the project would be “completely unaffected by the recession”.

For example. if plans to build new homes and offices around the UK are delayed or cancelled, the amount of residences that would be included in the rollout by 2012 could be affected.

The spokesman also confirmed that there were ongoing talks between BT and Ofcom, regarding changes to regulation to ensure the organization made a return on the investment.

Forrester Research analyst, Ian Fogg, said BT would be better off sticking with its plans, as it will put them ahead of competitors.

“If they invest now they will be in a much better position in the long run,” he told silicon.com.

He added that all the reasons the rollout of next-generation broadband are important to BT and the UK still apply, despite the economic downturn.

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