Cheapest Home Phones Article Discussion

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  • Bufflowbill
    Bufflowbill Posts: 381 Forumite
    Hoodsfanx wrote: »
    Read the article. Just contacted Tiscali, and they're only willing to offer me Option 2 @ £14.99 for 3 months then £19.99 thereafter PROVIDED I pay 75% line rental charges in addition.
    Is this typical of Tiscali, or am I just out on a limb? Incidently it took 25 minutes waiting to have my call answered. Good service?


    Its estimated over twelve million people live outside Tiscali LLU network coverage area, and therefore would be expected to pay extra for the deal MSE is recommending.
    http://www.broadband-finder.co.uk/blog/?s=moneysupermarket

    If your use to makeing long regular peak/evening geographical calls for no more then 5p a shot,the price of calls will soon fly up even at 6p connection and half a pence a minute via an override number.Plus you pay even if they dont answer.
  • I'm with TalkTalk now and have just tried to tranfer... Apparently they can't do it. I'd have to cancel first and then get a new Tiscali account. What's that about? :mad:
  • billsavings
    billsavings Posts: 2,015 Forumite
    Amethyst24 wrote: »
    I'm with TalkTalk now and have just tried to tranfer... Apparently they can't do it. I'd have to cancel first and then get a new Tiscali account. What's that about? :mad:

    The offer says: BT line required. Subject to local availability, terms and conditions, 12 month contract and fair use policy.
  • Canucklehead
    Canucklehead Posts: 6,254 Forumite
    Good evening: Paying less for broadband isn't always the best money saving option. Before you contract with an ISP consider the cost of contacting them in the event of problems (and if you sign up with Tiscali the problems will eventually come your way...I've posted elsewhere on MSE about my experiences with Tiscali:eek: ). Research, research and more research is the key:the frequent advice on the DIY forum, i.e. always get 3 quotes and compare like for like, is just as relevant when choosing an ISP/phone provider. Don't be seduced by the cheapest deals as they don't always offer the greatest vaue.

    HTH

    Canucklehead
    Ask to see CIPHE (Chartered Institute of Plumbing & Heating Engineering)
  • bendabomb
    bendabomb Posts: 62 Forumite
    Primus 2 is recommended in 'the ones not to miss' but before signing up look at the cost of dialling 1471: £4.00 :eek:
    If you make sure you never use that feature then it is a good deal. But just dialling it once a month will turn any gain into a loss.
  • Heinz
    Heinz Posts: 11,191
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    edited 25 October 2014 at 2:02PM
    Please DUMP 1571!

    The reason I say that is because, even if your landline provider still gives you this service 'free' (BT now charges £1.85/month or £22.20/year*), 1571 services are, IMHO, nothing less than a clever con by call provider companies.

    That's because calling someone who has the 'service' when they happen to be engaged on a call already, gets straight through to the 1571 'machine' (the caller has no option, the decision is out of their hands), the call is deemed to have been connected and charges ensue.

    Without an inclusive call package, such a call on a weekday on BT would cost 15.97p connection (their 'Call Set-up fee') plus a minimum of 9.58p - the unavoidable charge for the first minute. So, even when not leaving a message, that call would, rounded up to the next whole penny, cost 26p and, considering that trying again (and again, and again) might have the same result too, it starts getting very expensive for your callers.

    If the person you called didn't have 1571, you'd have heard an engaged tone, would have realised they were busy on a call, would not have been charged anything and probably would have decided to try again after a few minutes.

    In any case, an answering machine set to answer after 8 or 9 rings is a far more 'friends and family friendly' device for when you're out. F&F quickly learn that, if you haven't answered by, say, the fifth ring, you're not going to - so they have the option of hanging on until the answering machine kicks in and leaving a message (at their expense) or hanging up before that happens (at no expense) and trying later.
    DUMP IT. DUMP IT. DUMP IT.

    Please don't be taken in by BT's 1st October 2010 'upgrade' of its 1571 service - to include a personaised greeting at no extra cost. Ignoring the obvious paradox that it was not possible to add something "at no extra cost" when there was no cost for the service at that time, that was clearly just an attempt to make the service more closely resemble a standard answering machine.

    To save the 'press this, press that' experience of trying to phone BT driving you to distraction, send your cancellation instructions on THIS FORM - yes, it's technicaly a complaint form but who cares?

    * At that price, retail purchase of a 'proper' answering machine must be viable. I dumped 1571 some time ago and picked up a very nice brand new BT Decor corded phone with built-in answering machine for about £10. This 'campaign' must be working - the prices can be a little higher now!:o

    N.B. This is really an extension/resurrection of Martin's 2005 "Do the 5 ring slam" thread.
    Time has moved on (much quicker than it used to - or so it seems at my age) and my previous advice on residential telephony has been or is now gradually being overtaken by changes in the retail market. Hence, I have now deleted links to my previous 'pearls of wisdom'. I sincerely hope they helped save some of you money.
  • We have Euphony's £19 a month mobile package which gives us 240 minutes of calls. I learned today that Euphony have changed the way that they tot up these minutes - they round them up, whereas they used to count the seconds. That means, if you make a call lasting 2 mins 1 sec, it is now rounded up to 3 mins (180 secs) whereas before it would have been 121 secs. Obviously it's more likely that customers will now exceed the 240 minute limit & be charged separately for these calls. An advisor told me that customers were informed in 'customer news' on the front of their April bill.

    I wasn't.

    I also learned recently that they don't include calls to Hutchison 3G, a relatively new network apparently, in their mobile package. I only realised this when I was charged separately for calls made to 07832 nos. Has anyone else experienced problems like this with Euphony?
  • billsavings
    billsavings Posts: 2,015 Forumite
    spam48 wrote: »
    We have Euphony's £19 a month mobile package which gives us 240 minutes of calls. I learned today that Euphony have changed the way that they tot up these minutes - they round them up, whereas they used to count the seconds. That means, if you make a call lasting 2 mins 1 sec, it is now rounded up to 3 mins (180 secs) whereas before it would have been 121 secs. Obviously it's more likely that customers will now exceed the 240 minute limit & be charged separately for these calls. An advisor told me that customers were informed in 'customer news' on the front of their April bill.

    I wasn't.

    I also learned recently that they don't include calls to Hutchison 3G, a relatively new network apparently, in their mobile package. I only realised this when I was charged separately for calls made to 07832 nos. Has anyone else experienced problems like this with Euphony?

    They still continue to show a 2005 rate card on their site.:eek:
    http://www.euphony.co.uk/euTalk.html

    Primus Saver Free Evening and Weekend Geographical Calls ,with the Penny Mobile bolt on where mobile calls are capped to 20p for up to 20 minutes might be worth considering.

    http://www.primussaver.co.uk/calls.html

    You have to ask for the free mobile bolt on when you order.
  • billsavings
    billsavings Posts: 2,015 Forumite
    If your thinking of taking the Tiscali offer this recent thread is worth a read.

    http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1036385
  • Marty_J
    Marty_J Posts: 6,594 Forumite
    bendabomb wrote: »
    Primus 2 is recommended in 'the ones not to miss' but before signing up look at the cost of dialling 1471: £4.00 :eek:

    According to Primus's website, the 1471 service is free.

    As for Tiscali, I had the same problem as twhitehead. Tiscali moved me to their LLU service, and my broadband disappeared. Apparently there had been some problem and it needed to be done manually. My internet was down for almost three months. I complained enough that they gave me a MAC and let me leave before my 12 month contract was up. Even though they stopped my service, they continued to help themselves to the contents of my bank account. I duly cancelled the direct debit and let them know about what had happened, and they assured me they would send me a cheque. This was about a year or so ago, and my refund is still not forthcoming. I was with Wanado/Orange before this, and they were just as bad. I've learnt to stop looking for the cheapest ISP.

    I'm with IDNet now, and though they are relatively expensive (£24.99 a month) they have a set download limit of 30 GB, so I know how much I can download every month without having to worry about having my speed crippled for downloading too much on an "unlimited download" package. Any time I have had to contact them, the phone has been answered within 3 rings by a person in the UK who either dealt with my query immediately or put me through to the person I needed to speak to.

    If you just potter around on the internet for a few hours a week, than a cheap or free provider might be for you. But if you're using it every day, getting a cheap provider is a false economy in my opinion. All those hours spent on the phone to customer services, the poor download speeds, and not to mention the months without the internet, weren't worth the few pounds a month I was saving.

    Caveat emptor.
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