It is astonishing that so few broadband providers realise how intensely irritated their customers have become by having to fork out £15 an hour for broadband technical support just to keep their £6 a month broadband working.

Since the beginning of April this year, BT broadband has been offering completely free telephone support with no charge at all for using their six most favourite chargeable numbers - that's now 99% of numbers instead of 92%.

BT's managing director, Gavin Patterson, estimates that broadband customers have been losing out as much as £70 million a year, quite a staggering amount.

In addition to BT, other innovative providers in the field are Be, O2, Virgin Media, TalkTalk and Fasthosts Broadband, since they all provide totally free customer and technical support.

Do some homework before you buy

It seems unlikely, however, that many other broadband providers will follow BT's lead and perhaps from one point of view that isn't such a bad thing.

Freephone technical support raises prices of broadband packages so why pay for something that you might never use?

Then again, you do pay to have access to the Internet and quite rightly don't expect to have to pay extra for what often turns out to be your broadband provider's mistakes.

So how much are you actually paying your broadband provider for technical support?

The short answer is that it's best to first do some careful research before you buy, taking care to check the small print, or clicking on the 'contact us' page of your broadband providers' website and navigating around until you find the often-hidden telephone numbers page.

When free is not always free

Be cautious of some broadband providers who advertise free support.

That always sounds wonderful until you find it is only the customer support line which is free and that premium rates are charged for the essential technical support.

If you can afford to wait, a much cheaper option to deal with your problem is to make use of an email or phone call, or - if things are going really badly with no result - even a letter (you know, the one that goes in an envelope).



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