Post Office Home Phone Service merged

Hunnymonster

Steve_xx wrote:

It's a bizarre affair. BT and the Post Office were once as one!

Why are people so anti BT.

Poor customer service, high prices, forcing me to take "Option 1" when I was happy with line rental only - and that's just the domestic retail division.

Moving to the business retail division - high prices, poor reliability (circuits that went off at the first sign of rain), poor change management (please cease circuit X, and they cease circuit Y because they had mislabelled them at the local exchange - then tell me it's 30 days lead time to reinstate it), poor customer relationship management, serious billing errors, missed appointments for installations.

So all in all they provide a great service

DonnyDave

s.c. wrote:

e.g. 0870 numbers are 9p a minute ...

0870 numbers cost 10p/min in the daytime with PO Homephone, 5p/min in the evening and 4p/min at the weekend. Compare this to BT Together's rates of 7.51p/min (daytime - 6am to 6pm), 3.75p/min (evening) and 1.50p/min (weekend).

0845 cost slightly more with the PO than BT.

You should also take into account the variations in mobile rates aswell.

ginger_nuts

Rex_Mundi wrote:

lol..................

If the Post Office telephone service turns out anything like their delivery service, it could spell trouble!

Your friend would phone you, you wouldn't get the call, then two days later you'll get a call from the PO with a recorded message saying.........sorry, we tried to deliver your call but you were not in. :rotfl:

(sorry, coudn't help myself)

if you are not at home will the post office deliver your call next door .

ginger_nuts

I cant see the post office being a serious contender in the phone business .Ther rates are just not good enought which is a pity .As the post office is owned by the government I would have thought someone could have come up with a better pricing plan .Surely someone should have looked at there competitors deals first .

lizzieb_3

The only time I ever got value for money with B T was back in the early 60s when the old 4 pence public phone boxes existed. (You had button 'A' to press to successfully connect your call and button 'B' to press to get your money back if there was no reply). If your call was successful I believe that you could have speak for as long as you like for 4 old p.

Steve_xx

lizzieb wrote:

I am anti B T because they had the monopoly of the telephone service for many years. Each year we heard of the profits that B T had successfully made but they never appeared to give back to their customers in any way by reducing our bills. The customers were loyal because they had to be and if you didn't like it the only choice was not to have a phone.(I am going back to the dark ages when there were no mobiles) I know that they dug up all the roads and paths etc and did all the donkey work setting up the system but they should have given a little back before the monopolies commission stepped in and allowed others to profit from the B T network.

BT was once a public owned utility, joined to the Post Office. Both of these were then state-run industries, and both were grey lumbering cash consuming monsters. Both were unprofitable with the resultant effect that the taxpayer had to prop them both up. The implication of this was higher taxes.

Nowadays, both of these industries are profitable and as such they actually contribute to the corporate tax coffers and they no longer rely on the public purse to support them. They are businesses, run for profit, and that's how they are best run. Because that way they don't need taxpayers money to prop them up.

BT are shackled up to the eyeballs in regulation. They can neither higher nor lower their main basket of prices without due notice to their customers. By contrast, lesser service providers can move their prices at will, and often do. BT are actually prevented from undercutting competitor prices so as not to stifle competition. The UK has a fairly well regulated and mature telecoms industry. BT is an integral part of that industry and as a company it is far better customer focussed today than ever it has been.

Don't be too harsh on BT; it's quite unjustified to be so. We don't want BT to go down the pan and in doing so kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Or maybe, that's what you do want to happen?

ginger_nuts

Steve_xx wrote:

BT was once a public owned utility, joined to the Post Office. Both of these were then state-run industries, and both were grey lumbering cash consuming monsters. Both were unprofitable with the resultant effect that the taxpayer had to prop them both up. The implication of this was higher taxes.

Nowadays, both of these industries are profitable and as such they actually contribute to the corporate tax coffers and they no longer rely on the public purse to support them. They are businesses, run for profit, and that's how they are best run. Because that way they don't need taxpayers money to prop them up.

BT are shackled up to the eyeballs in regulation. They can neither higher nor lower their main basket of prices without due notice to their customers. By contrast, lesser service providers can move their prices at will, and often do. BT are actually prevented from undercutting competitor prices so as not to stifle competition. The UK has a fairly well regulated and mature telecoms industry. BT is an integral part of that industry and as a company it is far better customer focussed today than ever it has been.

Don't be too harsh on BT; it's quite unjustified to be so. We don't want BT to go down the pan and in doing so kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Or maybe, that's what you do want to happen?

BT do have sneaky back door charges my pet hate is 1471 3 .
Remember when BT decided everyone should be on option 1 ,the competitors all cried foul .But here we are over a year later getting free evening and weekend calls .Yes I had to pay BT an extra £1 a month and I lost my £2.15 of free calls form BT, but with free evening and weekend calls and 18866 /1899 I am no worse off . I live in Northern Ireland and BT where the first providor to charge local rate for calls to southern Ireland 30 miles away.It might have taken them 50 years to do it but most of there competitors ( Onetel /JDS /18866 /1899 /18185 /post office)still charge international rate for these calls .Only Talk Talk and UTV have followed BT on this and even allow then in there free calls .
As for customer service you cant phone BT on a Sunday ,but BT are not the worst for customer service .Have you tried Onetel customer service ? JDS /18866/1899 /18185 cant even be phoned .I actualy left Onetel and returned to BT because there customer service was so bad .
Yes we do need BT but not for my calls now I use Talk Talk .

Steve_xx

"Yes we do need BT but not for my calls now I use Talk Talk"

But you do need BT if you use TalkTalk, because TalkTalk use BT's exchange lines. What you have today is choice and competition to a greater degree, and that has to be good for the consumer.

sanchosser

Has anyone any experience of the Post Office's £9.95 line rental, charging-per-second telephone service?

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/jump1?catId=19300215&mediaId=19300217

Many thanks!

:money:

pricefighter

sanchosser wrote:

Has anyone any experience of the Post Office's £9.95 line rental, charging-per-second telephone service?

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/jump1?catId=19300215&mediaId=19300217

Many thanks!

:money:

Have you read post no 2 in this thread?