Looking to swap 5G Router

[doc1964]

Bit of background first. 

Year and a half ago I went into a 3 shop to ask about 5G home broadband. I was interested in the initial trial period to see how it performed.

The guy in the shop accessed the coverage checker and told me that unfortunately 5G was not available in my area, I decided to go ahead and take on a 4G month pay as you go deal to try.

When actioning this he found that at that time the 4G deal was not available on a month to month basis, the 5G deal however was so he managed to somehow sign me up to that. I came home with the MC801A router and I must admit that despite the coverage checker saying 5G not available I get brilliant 5G speeds and am really pleased with the overall performance.

Fast forward to yesterday and I seen a post regarding the black Friday deal of home broadband for £19 a month, I am currently paying £25.90 so called up to see if I could upgrade. 

After a bit of discussion I was offered the £19 deal on a 2 year contract which I was happy to go with.

At this point I asked about the possibility of swapping my router for the newer NR5103E V2 one as the old router can only handle up to 32 devices whereas the newer one can handle 64, I currently have over 50 devices, bulbs, speakers, doorbell, tablets etc. I had seen a post some time ago where someone said they were offered this option and would have to pay £12.99 which I would be happy to do.

Anyway, agent said this could not be done, I would have to cancel existing deal and take out a new contract but would have to give an alternative postcode to get past the coverage checker. I did not want to go down this road so left it at that point. (I did take the 2 year deal)

A short time later I went on the online chat to make the same enquiry, there's an hour of my life I will never get back, I asked the agent why there was such a delay when replying to my responses, he advised me they have two chats going on at all times, anyway outcome was that I would be unable to simply swap over routers, I could only swap like for like.

Sorry for the long winded post but bottom line is, has anyone managed to change the model of their router for a nominal charge and if so how did you manage to do it without losing the will to live.

Thank you.

[KateS]

Hey @doc1964,

I believe you'd be able to upgrade your existing contract, however, the price may vary to the deal you've seen online as a new customer offer. Other than that, cancelling your existing contract and starting a new agreement would be the only other option. We don't have the ability to exchange a device that isn't like for like, nor do we have the option to pay a fee for a change of device that remains on the same contract.

I hope this helps clear things up.

Thanks,
Kate

[doc1964]

Hi there and thank you for your reply. I did just renew my contract the other day from a month to month pay as you go deal to a two year contract. I don't want to go down the road of cancelling contract and did think that there would surely be an option to exchange routers. I have no doubt there are plenty of them returned during the cooling off period by those who perhaps don't get a good signal. Oh well, will just have to muddle along. Thanks again for taking the time to reply. Cheers.