The pandemic and energy crisis has shown us that internet connections are so important. We may have the very thing that will beat the black-outs that are coming this winter. BT’s Unbreakable Wifi!
The UK’s largest broadband provider BT main offering now includes a service called BT Halo. This services benefits customers who have BT Broadband and BT Mobile. The two options currently available are BT Halo 3 and BT Halo 3+. In order to offer this, BT have joined forces with EE’s mobile network and a BT Group member, they have made “Unbreakable” Wifi. It connects your broadband to EE’s mobile network if you main broadband Wifi connection goes down and acts as a backup, this is Hybrid Connect. It automatically kicks in when your main connection goes down and then switches back to your main connection when service resumes.
This is the first of it’s kind in the UK, combining the best fibre home broadband Wifi technology from the Smart Hub 2 with EE’s award-winning 4G LTE mobile connection to be the only UK provider providing their customers with unbreakable wifi at home.
BT Halo 3+ is the most reliable services and lets households and families have peace of mind that you will always be able to connect to the internet for work, school or family/friends events without losing your connection. It could happen while you’re on a work call and not even notice.
There are some differences between Halo 3 and Halo 3+. Halo 3 comes with the home tech experts, the Keep Connected Promise and Price protections and BT Mobile Double Data. Halo 3+ includes the Halo 3 package with the “unbreakable” wifi thrown in with the addition of Hybrid Connect and Complete Wifi.
BT Halo 3+ is £65.99 for broadband and Halo 3+. This is the start of the convergence revolution. We explore the full details of this service and if it’s worth your money.
- BT Halo 3 and Halo 3+ available
- Halo 3 includes Home Tech Experts, Keep Connected Promise, Price Protections, BT Mobile Double Data
- Halo 3+ includes Halo 3 benefits, Hybrid Connect, Complete Wifi
- Smart Hub 2 & EE 4G LTE Router
- Unbreakable connection is secured via switching between the Smart Hub and EE Routers
BT Halo put simply is a selection of benefits added to BT’s products. These benefits cover both broadband and mobile products. BT have removed Halo 1 and 2 from their list of products. Learn more here.
We have a found a table that outlines the difference between Halo 3 and Halo 3+, these are as follows:
Here are the top deals with BT Broadband that include Halo 3+:
Service Provider | Package | What’s included? | Speed | Monthly Price | Deal |
 | Fibre with Halo 3+ |  Stream, game and download in HD on lots of devices at once – and BT Halo benefits too | 74Mb/s | ||
| | Full Fibre 100 with Halo 3+ | For the busiest homes with everything connected at once – and BT Halo benefits too | 145Mb/s | ||
| | Full Fibre 500 with Halo 3+ | Ultrafast and super reliable – stream, game and download with more people online at once – and BT Halo benefits too | 500Mb/s | ||
| | Full Fibre 900 with Halo 3+ | Our fastest full fibre yet – reliable gigafast speeds for the busiest connected homes – and BT Halo benefits too | 900Mb/s |
BT Halo is an extra layer of stability and reliability for your home connection. Let’s look at each extra benefit individually:
In the following section, we’ll look at each of the BT Halo features in more detail.
The Home Tech Experts are similar to Apple Geniuses or any other customer facing support provider. They will install, repair and optimise all the BT products and services for you in the comfort of your own home. This can include; the Smart Hub, BT TV, Complete Wifi, BT Master phone socket, Hybrid Connect and My BT app. If you need advice on any of BT’s products, they can provide support and help you buy them when they visit your home. They can help connect non-BT devices to your Smart Hub over Wifi as well.
Home Tech Experts usually help with upgrades to Halo 3+, making your broadband or TV run as best as possible, when you add a new service to help make it all work together, and the special service they offer is an Annual Health Check. With the Annual Health Check they will visit your home to check everything is setup properly, give some recommendations to make your connection better across your home, and make some improvements if you are happy for them to do this. They can pay you a visit if there is something wrong with your broadband or TV. You can call 0800 917 3192 or book online.
The BT Price Promise is great for family or household budgeting. You will keep the same monthly price even when your contract ends. Monthly costs go up every year with broadband services. You will still be subject to the Customer Price Index rate inflation and 3.9% but some packages can go up much higher without the price promise so this is a big benefit to keep future costs down. The increase can be as much as £8 a month or more.
The Keep Connected Promise is when BT gives you unlimited free BT Mobile data as a backup service when your broadband goes down. You can use this as a hotspot to connect your devices without worrying about using all of your data from your mobile contract. You will need to have a BT Mobile contract to get access to this. The strength will only be 4G so gaming will not be possible unless it’s mobile gaming. If you do not have BT Mobile contract, they will send you a mobile broadband dongle, this will come next day delivery.
To access this, your broadband problems need to be qualify but you will be able to use the Broadband Backup until your connection is restored. If you have Halo 3+, you will already have the EE router so it won’t be necessary but you can still access it if that breaks too.
You will receive double your mobile data allowance on all BT mobile devices that are on your BT Halo 3 broadband account. This includes unlimited UK calls from a BT landline. You can get the £20 a month 5G unlimited mobile data sim card with this too.
Halo 3+ comes with Hybrid Connect which is a convergence setup. Hybrid Connect uses both BT Fibre Broadband and the EE 4G mobile network to offer an unbreakable connection to ensure you can always use the internet. You will need a Smart Hub and a Hybrid Connect Device. The Hybrid Connect device has a SIM card with unlimited data and communicates with your Smart Hub so when the broadband does go down, it will switch to the EE device. Once the issue is fixed, your broadband will switch back to the main BT Fibre connection, it is so seamless you may not notice the switch over.
You will need to check to make sure you have 4G coverage in your area, you can do that here.
The Hybrid Connect EE device will give you speeds up to 30Mb, which is almost the same as BT Full Fibre Essentials. Enough for streaming, emails and browsing, maybe even some webcalls. It can be added to any other plan without Halo 3+ for an extra £7 a month.
BT Compete Wifi provides wifi to every corner of your house. The aim is to have the same signal strength no matter where you stand in the house. This is achieved by using the Wifi discs that help to extend the signal.
BT have a Complete Wifi Guarantee, they will send an extra two discs along with the two you receive as part of your full fibre broadband package to make sure there’s a signal of at least 10Mb in each room. BT will give a one-off £100 credit from your BT broadband bill if they cannot deliver complete wifi across your house. This does not apply for the 4G mobile network connection. They need to do tests and work with you to make sure, you and BT have done everything possible to improve your connection. This is how much BT believe in their Complete Wifi service.
BT Halo 3 and Halo 3+ use the Smart Hub 2 which is BT’s most advanced consumer router. The performance is much better than previous models and it has multiple functions. If you do not have the Smart hub 2 but would like it for your BT Broadband, you can buy it for an extra £100.
Halo 3+ with a Full Fibre Broadband connection costs £65.99 a month. New customers can get the price down with deals but this is BT’s premium service.
Hybrid Connect is £7 a month by itself and Complete Wifi booster kit is an extra £10 a month and the Smart Hub 2 is £100 one-off purchase, but with Halo 3+ this all comes as part of the package for as little a £1 extra a month to your whole broadband package. This does depend on location and deals at the time of year. It is still a massive saving. We recommend buying it at the start of your contract rather than adding it later.
Existing BT Customers can add Halo to their plans for an extra £1 a month, this depends on your plan and if you want Halo 3 or Halo 3+ but the downside is that you will need to extend your contract by 24 months from the date your add Halo.
For New BT Customers, you can get Full Fibre and Halo 3+ for £69.99 a month. This is one of the most expensive broadband options out there but well worth the investment if you use the internet for work and family entertainment.
We will do our best to answer all your questions about BT Broadband.
There aren’t any problems with Halo 3 itself. If you do not want to risk losing your connection and waiting for the Broadband dongle to arrive in next day delivery when your broadband goes down, then it would be better to opt for Halo 3+.
The Halo 3 Discs are part of the Complete Wifi package and ensure you have wifi across your whole house.
BT Halo 3 is installed when you have your wifi set up. If you order it later, the extra products will be sent to you in the post.
BT Halo is worth the extra money if you are someone who works from home or needs to be connected to the internet reliably. It will be useful during the winter when we may have black outs but you might need to have a battery or generator to make sure you EE Hybrid Connect device can remain powered.
With BT Halo your broadband speeds will be the same as your contract speeds but you will not lose connectivity.
