Cheapest Home Phones Article Discussion

legalfreak22

I have to disagree with you was7310, just because the call centre is in the UK does not mean that the service is better.

As a matter of fact I had a horrendous experience with O2 when I signed up for their Sim and broadband package. The isssue took 2 weeks to resolve, only thanks to their dedicated customer compaints team.

Since I posted about this before, I'm not going to repeat the details.

Witchy31

We had a phonecall from BT today offering us £4.99 per month for their anytime package which includes free calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers.We are with Pipex Homecall at present and pay around £12 for our monthly package but we still get charged for 0845 & 0870 numbers. This was a good deal at the time we took it out ages ago as our monthly phone bills with BT at that time were astronomical ! £4.99 per month seems too good to be true, is anyone else on this package for phone only and are there any catches to it like rising prices? You have to sign a contract for 12 months.

Heinz

Welcome to the MSE forums Witchy31.

Before making a decision, make sure you are not tied to a contract which will cost you a penalty charge to get out of if your existing Pipex deal includes line rental.

BT's cold call did not make you a special offer, the £4.99 Unlimited Anytime Plan it's BT's standard price for their top-of-the-range calls plan for residential customers (BTW, none of the calls would be free as such, they would be inclusive in the £4.99/month cost).

However, the £4.99 price is difficult to beat despite (like all such inclusive deals), not including calls to expensive 07, 0843, 0844, 0871, 0872, 0873 or 09 numbers.

If you just make 01/02/03 calls and make less than 100/month, using 18185 would be cheaper.

theloft

Witchy31 wrote: »

We had a phonecall from BT today offering us £4.99 per month for their anytime package which includes free calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers. You have to sign a contract for 12 months.

o2's home phone & broadband package offers line rental and anytime calls including calls to 20 International countries for £9,50 (line rental) & £3.00 (calls package). Total of £12.50 per month which is only a little more than BT's line rental alone. If you have a mobile with o2 the BB element which is reasonable at £7.50 per month,(you can get it cheaper if you have a contract with them on your mobile) £12,50 if not, but you have to be a Broadband customer to get these prices. The launch of o2's home phone service is delayed until next month. Most companies tie you up for 12 months these days, you have to bite the bullet if you want the package!

Witchy31

Thank you Heinz and theloft for your replies. I will certainly do more research before we commit to anything. Does seem a good deal though, a lot less than we are presently paying with Pipex Homecall. It is only for the phone line as we have broadband with another company. Back to my research! Thanks guys!

lomhlaba

Having read (through this site) about Primus' £8.99 line rental/evening & weekend call offer, I was fully intending to switch from BT (my contract with them is about to come up for renewal)
When I rang BT to let them know that I didn't want my contract renewed, because I would be switching to a (cheaper) new provider, I was pleasantly surprised - they offered to drop my line rental & free evening/weekend calls package to £8.54 / month - making it cheaper than a switch to Primus! As cost was my only reason for switching provider, I was happy to stay with BT at this new price for another 12 months.

Just thought I'd let people who may be considering a similar switch know about this!

GeCon

Hi,

I was hoping to change my provider to save some money. At my previous house, I used to have a BT line rental and I think a Primus package on top for the calls and I would use 18185 for mobiles and another number for international calls.

I have had a look at Martin's guide, but don't find it as straightforward as it was before.

Well, I was hoping to switch my line rental to Primus, but they charge you an early termination fee when you move, so I think I'd rather stay with BT for that.

This is how my last bill looked:

• Unlimited Weekend Plan (includes line rental and calling plan) £38.37 per quarter
• Phone usage: £30 to a UK phone line, £8 other calls (I am assuming they are 0844 numbers for my cheap international calls).

Can anyone recommend the best plan for me based on this?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Heinz

It depends on when you make your calls.

You're making roughly £10 worth of chargeable calls per month and, if they're 01/02/03/0845/0870 calls, you'd be better off simply changing to BT's pretty much unbeatable £4.99/month Unlimited Anytime Plan.

Paying by Direct Debit and opting for paper-free billing will keep your charges as low as possible.

I opted for Monthly Whole Bill Direct Debit a while ago so that I now only lend BT one month's line rental interest free in advance, instead of the three months' I was lending them when I was on quarterly billing.

Changing to another provider for line rental always means risk, such as that you have identified although, IMHO, the biggest risk is the new provider barring access to override providers like 18185. BT must allow such access. Other providers can bar access. Having said that, Primus gave Martin a written undertaking in January that they would continue to allow access at least until the end of 2010 (that wording has an ominous ring to me).

derrick

"Unlimited Weekend Plan (includes line rental and calling plan) £38.37 per quarter", = £12.91 per month, this could be reduced to £11.54, (£34.62 per quarter) by going DD and paperless;- "Unlimited Weekend Plan. Only £11.54 a month line rental with Direct Debit and paper-free billing, for new and existing residential customers."

BT calling plans.


Written and posted whilst Heinz edited his.

GeCon

Thanks. Can you just make these changed to your account online? Also, the Monthly Whole Bill Direct Debit sounds interesting. Can you change to that online and I am assuing that means you get monthly bills instead of quarterly? I do agree that the Primus "promise" does sound a little fishy.