Horrific service, scam billing, monopoly ripoff, costs more by +$100 for SAME BUNDLE I had in California with 1 less premium cable channel. And here I sit in the dark lighting candles for tje 2nd time this week, 3rd time in 6 weeks with NO INCREMENT WEATHER ISSUES (NOT even high Temps this summer)and ZERO EXPLANATION from this AMATEUR 2-bit company. They are out of their league AND have the nerve to price-gouge when they have no business in this BUSINESS. Really disgraceful. M. Preston P.s. my home phone thru BTES has had another person's outgoing voice msg recording for 2 years and BTES keeps saying 'you must be mistaken'. I thought 'party lines ' were a thing of the 1960s! I need te landline so I'm forced to just NOT ENGAGE the voice-mail option. These people are pathetic. ​ read more

We have had BTES internet since January, 2024. Excellent service without interruption.

Y'all, I hate this company with a true passion. I was FORCED to take them as my provider due to a contract between my apartment complex and the company. Their internet is crap. I am a mother to a two year old and an 11 year old. There is no help for us poor people. I can't stand the company. I had an issue being connected but no internet, called the 24/7 technical HELLp desk. He said a person would have to come look at it. Person comes and looks at it.....could've been reset from the headquarters. Jesse, your tech guy....is dumb. There are never any phone calls to offer assistance or anything. My husband is disabled and cares for our kids. But y'all shut us off. And then the reconnect fees, all the $25 charges....if I didn't have 149 to pay my bill.....what makes you think I have 249 for the fees and bill and etc..? Hate BTES. Awful company. 10/10 WOULD NOT RECOMMEND!! read more

i have lived at my current address for over 40+ years, and before that my family lived here since the place was built, with inflation my electric for the past 10 years has been around $90-150.00 monthly, last month that jumped to 400 for 1 month and 1 month only, and my KW usage is back on track this month...... they perclaimed i used double the electricity for the month of January 2025 due to it being 7 degrees outside, excluding all the years when we had 6 foot of snow and i had to run heat pump and emergency heaters, but last month i somehow surpassed that! here is the best part, when they bill was 100+ i was actually living at property, so to say my electric bill tripled last month when absolutly nothing changed except the weather is preposterous!!!! but you know as i know either pay them or buy you a good generator!!!! i thought this was america? but apparently @TVA has something to say about that and personal debt they need to pay......so i suppose we will all pay until someone takes the next step on price gouging with electricity!!!! NO EXCUSE! REDICULOUS!!!!! read more

Our service is pathetic. We are supposed to be getting 90Mbps and are lucky if we get 7~42 Mbps....bounces around continuously day and night... I am so sick of hearing "maybe you need to reset your router" I could puke. 3 different machines here, Windows 10, Linux, and MacOS. Old router was no different, new router is one of the best you can get, same thing..."maybe you need to reset your router"... Customer service on the internet side is non-existent, after 45 minutes on hold they act as if they are doing you a favor by even talking to you. I've worked in IT and can safely say that every connection in Bristol doesn't have a problem, BTES has some bad problems and needs to hire some employees that actually know how to identify issues within their system and what corrections need to take place. Maybe, just maybe, BTES needs to reset their systems every once in a while and help our community out just a little for all the revenue they are receiving..... read more

We're going on 30 hours with no digital cable. Our phones were down for ~3 hours and the internet has been off and on, all day. We live in the middle of Bristol, within walking distance of State Street, and there have been no recent storms or trees falling. I've tried to call their support line, several times, today. First, I was on hold for almost an hour, then they hung up on me. Then, I called back and got a busy tone. I called the other number to report a cable TV and phone outage, then got back to the support line to sit on hold for another hour, then I was disconnected, again. They robo-called me back saying that the issue was resolved, but it wasn't. I pressed #2 to tell them that the issue was still ongoing, then called the number to re-report the TV outage. Our ticked had been cleared and marked, "resolved," despite still not having the digital cable that we're paying for. As much as I hate Charter for not having a location in Bristol, I never had problems like this with them. We're seriously considering dropping BTES and going back to Charter, knowing full and well that Charter constantly raises prices on a seemingly yearly basis. They might charge more, but their service was reliable and you could actually get through when you called for customer support. BTES has the worst customer support service of any cable provider that I've ever had, in my entire life. They are funded by our local government, so they absolutely do not care about their customers, as they'll always manage to stay in business. Oh, and if you do move to Bristol and have to have your power turned on, expect to be charged $1,000.00 or more for a deposit to even have the power turned on. I would rate this callous and exploitative company lower than 1 star if this site allowed me. I do not recommend their service to my worst enemy, let alone my friends and neighbors. read more

Without a doubt the poorest cable service and Internet connection I have ever seen customer service is absolutely pitiful $65 an hour because I can't get half of my channels just gave them $485 yesterday I could sit on my router and would not get service I hate to have to buy my electricity from the place I hope Mike Browder is proud of what he's built read more

The water heater that BTES installed 15 years ago wasnt getting hot enough. Within an hour the friendly service technician was here replacing outdated parts. I feel like I have a brand new water heater and it didn't cost a thing because I am on the BTES water heater program. I just took the hottest bath I've had in ages and it was marvelous! read more

Just a mess all around. old outdated service center. Horrible internet rates (best connection is 12mbs/2mbs for 60dollars!) Network is very unstable, constant issues with service including complete interruptions. even their cable pricing is high. To top it all off, customer service has got to be one of the worst. They simply do not have people skills (with the exception of maybe one or two receptionists.) I even had the main manager of their internet department tell me that if i was not happy about not getting the full bandwidth i was paying for he could just disconnect my service. Everything about this place shows what it really is; A local government funded/managed monopoly there to strip you of cash and nothing else. we are just lucky there are federal gov. guidelines on energy or they would be even worse in that area. i am sure. Avoid Bristol Tennessee Essential Services at all costs! read more

Stay away from this business for Internet and cable TV services. The cable service is absolutely horrendous with half of the channels having such poor reception they are not worth viewing. Besides the horrible service quality, customer service is atrocious. I had service for less than a month and was charged a $500 installation fee. This was charged after cancelling service due to not fulfilling a 1 year contract term that I was never made aware of. I contacted the company for information on the contract I had supposedly signed to be told that their imaging service had no record of the item but I was "probably" verbally told about the contract. I activated online and even after going through the online activation steps again found no documentation regarding an installation fee or any contractual requirements. No one even had to come to my residence to install anything, everything was done remotely. Company scams people for $500 for basically pushing a button to activate service. read more

TV, Internet, phone bundle price is about the same or a little more than competitor Charter. Does not offer automatic billing via credit card. If you want to use credit card to pay on their website, a charge is assessed. read more