BT Halo 3

BT Halo 3 and BT Halo 3+ offer BT broadband customers a range of extra features for an additional monthly fee.

Customers can access home technical support, double mobile data, a price promise, and a mobile broadband backup service, as well as bundling Complete WiFi and Hybrid Connect in the plus version.

BT Halo can be a valuable service for customers dependent on their home internet connection, but it's worth ensuring the services are really needed.

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At a glance

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What is BT Halo?

BT Halo is a premium add-on that can be combined with any BT broadband package.

It offers additional features that both improve the service as well as the redundancy (or reliability) by ensuring customers stay connected at all times.

There are two options available; BT Halo 3 and BT Halo 3+, which replaced the previous BT Halo 1 and BT Halo 2 in February 2021.

BT Halo 3 is cheaper, while BT Halo 3+ is more expensive but bundles more tangible benefits. The add-on can be taken as either a bundle for new customers, or added to existing customer plans. However, as we'll see below, prices aren't static and can vary.

BT Halo 3

BT Halo 3 includes the following benefits:

• Home Tech Experts: at home support for an engineer to help set-up equipment, as well as carry out annual checks
• Keep Connected Promise: a 4G mobile broadband mini hub with unlimited data provided if the fixed-line connection ever develops a fault
• Price promise: Get the same low price as new customers when renewing the contract
• Double mobile data with BT and EE: All household BT Mobile and EE mobile plans will get double data

The value of some of these benefits is hard to quantify, although each Home Tech Expert visit is usually charged at £40, or £60 where a customer has two TV boxes.

The double mobile data is worth approximately £3 for each mobile plan boosted, while the price promise could be worth up to £6 as the maximum amount a package could increase by at the end of a minimum term.

The Keep Connected Promise is hard to value because its only provided if the fixed-line service fails, and then only until the usual broadband connection is back up and running. However, an unlimited data SIM with EE currently costs from £15 per month on a contract.

Overall, if existing customers are offered the BT Halo 3 for the low price of £1 per month as BT suggests, it could offer value for money.

BT Halo 3+

BT Halo 3+ offers everything in BT Halo 3, with the addition of:

• Hybrid Connect: an automatic 4G mobile broadband back-up that works seamlessly with the BT Smart Hub 2 router in the event the fixed-line broadband develops a fault
• Complete WiFi: a whole home WiFi guarantee with up to three WiFi booster discs and a £100 money-back guarantee if the service doesn't provide a strong wireless signal in every room of a customer's home
• BT Smart Hub 2: customers will be provided with BT's latest router, the Smart Hub 2, however this is now provided on all new packages as standard
• Full Fibre promise: get a free upgrade to Full Fibre 100 as soon as Openreach full fibre is available in your area

The main benefits here are the Hybrid Connect and Complete WiFi services, with the BT Smart Hub 2 now provided on all new BT broadband packages anyway, and the BT Full Fibre 100 upgrade offering minimal value, with prices only £1 to £3 more than BT's part-fibre deals.

Hybrid Connect and Complete WiFi can both be added to any BT broadband package separately though, so customers don't have to take BT Halo 3+ to get them.

At the time of writing, Hybrid Connect costs £7 on its own, while Complete WiFi is on offer to new customers for £5 on some plans, with a standard price of £10 per month.

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How much does BT Halo cost?

BT say existing customers can add BT Halo 3 from as little as £1 per month. However, their latest price guide, effective from July 2023, shows costs varying between packages, with some listing maximum prices with BT Halo 3 the same, while others increase between £2 to £14 a month, with the cheapest deals available on full fibre packages.

BT Halo 3 doesn't seem to be actively marketed to new customers however, with the only on-site BT Halo deals bundling the Halo 3+ add-on.

BT Halo 3+ is unexpectedly more expensive, however it's value for money is potentially more questionable, because as we've seen, Hybrid Connect and Complete WiFi can be taken separately.

While the price guide shows prices for BT Halo 3+ varying from £10 to £28 extra per month, deals for new customers price the add-on much higher, between £38 to £49 extra, although this does seem to be due to more heavily discounted standard plans.

Here are the latest BT Halo 3+ packages for new customers:

In comparison, these deals without BT Halo 3+ are available at the following prices (and customers can add Hybrid Connect and/or Complete WiFi in the checkout):

So, the price differences to upgrade these plans to BT Halo 3+ runs between £38 and £49 extra per month, with customers taking the faster packages paying less for Halo 3+.

When we've previously looked at upgrade deals for existing BT broadband customers, the cost to add BT Halo 3+ was between £6 and £23 less per month compared to the new customer offers.

Conversely, BT Halo 3 was more expensive than BT suggest, with upgrade offers around £7 per month more, or £5 less than BT Halo 3+.

The point here is that because pricing for BT Halo varies so much, customers should always compare the base broadband deals offered by BT, and then look at whether it's good value to add BT Halo 3 or 3+.

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BT Halo 3 features

BT Halo combines a range of additional services offered by BT into a premium add-on that should save customers money.

In fact, BT say Halo 3+ includes services worth £488 over the length of a 24-month contract. This is based on the separate costs of Hybrid Connect, Complete WiFi, and two BT Home Tech Expert visits.

The real value of BT Halo could be higher, or lower, than this depending on what a customer actually uses. Our own calculations showed a potential value of as much as £800 over a 24-month contract, when also factoring in costs or savings of the mobile data boosts, price promise, and full fibre upgrade offers.

As with all extras and add-ons however, the best value for money comes when a customer would otherwise already be using, or know they'll make use of, the additional services. So, let's look at each in turn.

Home Tech Experts

BT customers on Halo 3 and 3+ plans have access to BT Home Tech Experts at no extra cost. These can be booked in 2-hour slots across every day of the week.

Examples of assistance provided by these experts include:

• Help set up a new service
• Fix a broadband problem
• Help customers get the best out of their tech
• Annual broadband assessment

While these examples include support engineers coming to the home, BT also offer a contactless support service to help customers set up new products.

Standard prices for BT Home Tech Expert visits run from £40 to £60 depending on how much equipment a customer needs help with. So just two visits could cost from £80.

Keep Connected Promise

BT Halo 3 customers can let BT know if they are having any broadband troubles or if they're moving home and need an interim broadband connection.

BT will then provide a 4G Mini Hub (on the EE mobile network) to help customers stay connected. This includes unlimited mobile data while a customer needs it.

For those customers on BT Mobile, reporting a fault with their broadband will also result in unlimited data being turned on until the problem is solved.

This Keep Connected Promise for Halo 3 isn't as comprehensive as the one for Halo 3+ (see below), and it does mean there's likely to be a gap between reporting an issue and getting a 4G Mini Hub as back-up option. Nevertheless, it could prove useful to some.

An unlimited data SIM on EE currently costs from £15 per month on contract, so we could value this extra around that for the times it's needed.

Price promise

As part of Halo 3 and Halo 3+, BT promise existing customers they will never pay more than new customers when they renew their contract.

Touting this as a benefit of Halo is slightly disingenuous from BT as they agreed with Ofcom to give renewing customers a window when prices would be the same as they would be for new customers. This promise came into force in March 2020.

This is only a limited-time offer, so customers will need to act when they receive their end-of-contract notification, but it is available to all renewing customers.

BT's tariff guide says that customers will never pay more than £6 more per month if they move on to a rolling contract, but this can change, so it's worth renewing promptly if customers are willing to commit to another minimum term contract.

Double mobile data

Customers with Halo 3 or Halo 3+ will have the data allowance of all BT Mobile and EE mobile plans within their household doubled.

These mobile plans can have contracts that run separately to the BT Broadband plan, and customers only need to live in the same household as the BT Broadband customer to benefit.

Moving up a data plan on EE costs approximately £3 per month, but that saving could add up with multiple plans within a home.

Hybrid Connect

Available with BT Halo 3+ only, Hybrid Connect is one of the flagship features of the upgraded add-on.

Hybrid Connect is a smart mobile broadband device that works with the BT Smart Hub 2. It automatically detects when the fixed-line broadband becomes unavailable, and provides the BT Smart Hub 2 with a replacement mobile broadband connection instead.

Once the fixed-line broadband comes back up again, the BT Smart Hub 2 reverts to providing customers a connection through their standard fixed-line service.

BT call this an 'unbreakable home connection' because it's an automatic back-up using a mobile network with great 4G coverage, and it's certainly a good selling point for the service.

However, if a home doesn't already have good EE coverage, Hybrid Connect won't be a useful back-up and the speeds are likely to be slower while customers are hooked up to mobile broadband instead of the fixed line fibre.

That said, for those who work from home or need a constant online connection for other reasons, this could be an excellent reason to upgrade to BT Halo 3+.

Customers who don't sign up to Halo 3+ can take the Hybrid Connect service on its own for £7 per month. This is available during the checkout process.

Complete WiFi

Complete WiFi is another major feature included in the premium BT Halo 3+ service.

This is another device which works with the BT Smart Hub 2, and using intelligent mesh it seamlessly extends the wireless coverage around a customer's home.

In addition to providing this WiFi disc however, Complete WiFi also offers a whole home WiFi guarantee with a £100 money-back offer if customer's don't get a strong signal in every room.

BT will provide up to three WiFi booster discs in total, as well as an engineer visit to help ensure correct placement of the discs. However, if a customer still doesn't get a strong signal according to the MyBT app in every room, they can claim £100 back.

We cover Complete WiFi in more depth in our guide to broadband speed guarantees, but it should also be noted Complete WiFi is also available separately for £10 per month. If this is the only part of Halo 3+ customers are interested in, it's cheaper to take it on its own.

BT Smart Hub 2

The BT Smart Hub 2 is included in BT Halo 3+ because it's the router needed to use the Hybrid Connect and Complete WiFi add-on services.

However, since BT Halo 3+ was launched in 2021, the Smart Hub 2 has now replaced the previous Smart Hub for all new customers, so it's only going to be a benefit to existing customers with an older router.

It's a good piece of kit, one that features in our guide to the best wireless routers offered by broadband providers, but is now looking slightly dated compared to newer WiFi 6 models.

Full Fibre promise

Lastly, BT Halo 3+ customers are promised a free upgrade to Full Fibre 100 as soon as full fibre becomes enabled in their area.

The cost difference between BT Full Fibre 100 and their part-fibre deals for new customers is only between £1 and £3 per month however, so the savings here are potentially small.

So far, over 11.5 million premises can now access BT full fibre broadband, with a total of 25 million targeted for service by the end of 2026.

However, the benefit or value of this benefit is potentially small, as it's hard to imagine BT turning down an existing customer request to upgrade to full fibre as long as they were willing to take out a new contract.

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BT Halo 1 and Halo 2

As the names suggest, BT Halo 3 and Halo 3+ are not the first versions of this premium service from BT.

BT Halo was first launched in late 2019 with the option of choosing between Halo 1 and Halo 2, but these packages were removed from sale in February 2021 when the provider launched their latest offer.

The basics of the original Halo service were similar to what we see with the latest versions, including the option to upgrade to Complete Wi-Fi to add extra connectivity around the home alongside unlimited mobile data.

BT Halo 3 and Halo 3+ arguably make it easier to understand what's available with each package and the addition of Hybrid Connect is a definite upgrade, and customers on existing BT Halo plans can upgrade to these new deals.

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Verdict: Is BT Halo 3 worth it?

BT say Halo 3+ is worth £488 to customers over the length of a 24-month contract. They break down that total in the following way:

• Hybrid Connect costs £7 per month (£168 over 24 months)
• Complete Wi-Fi costs £10 per month (£240 over 24 months)
• Home Tech Experts cost £40 per visit (£80 estimated over 24 months)

Along with this, there are benefits that customers can't necessarily put a price tag on, such as the potential upgrade to full fibre services when they reach their area and a price promise to match new customer deals when it comes around to renewal time.

There's a lot to unpack in BT Halo 3+, but is worth over £30 extra per month? As usual, the answer is that it depends on your personal circumstances. It may be useful for:

• People who work from home and need the added security of an automatic back-up option for their broadband
• Anyone with a larger home who has difficulty making the wi-fi signal travel to every room
• Those who aren't too sure about setting up new tech or services and would prefer to have BT do it for them

On the other hand, it's an expensive addition if a customer only wants one or two of the elements and isn't fussed about the rest.

As we've mentioned, Complete Wi-Fi can be purchased on its own for £10 per month, so if the signal boosters are the main attraction, it's cheaper to get them without Halo 3+. Equally, Hybrid Connect can be added separately for £7 per month.

There's also a note of caution to be sounded on the price promises mentioned: prices for customers will still rise in line with inflation each year. BT's current formula is CPI + 3.9% and this rise is applied to customer bills from March each year.

Depending on the quote customers get to upgrade to BT Halo 3 when they checkout on the BT website, we'd suggest the limited premium options in that package are worth it for many customers, particularly those who want help setting up their products.

However, upgrading further to Halo 3+ is probably only something those who absolutely can't function without home internet should consider. In many cases, it will double a household's broadband bills and there may be cheaper ways to ensure connectivity around the home.

Read more in our BT broadband review.