Home Telephone Tariff - discussion area

BigAde

Martin

Just wanted to say a big thank you for an excellent article.  I had been meaning to do something about it for a while now, but you have now spurred me into action! Thought I'd post my results here.

I had been trying to get on the TalkTalk - Talk 3 £6.50 a month offer, but looks like they've stoppped offering that now.
I've now signed up with TalkTalk - Talk1 (no monthly cost) and also 1899.com (also no monthly cost)

After a thoroughly checking my last couple of BT bills I've worked out that this should halve my present bill, a large component of which were landline daytime calls (2.25 hours each week) and calls to my ISP (0845).

I just wanted share a few things I discovered along the way which may or may not be useful to anyone else considering a move:

1. I had been originally intended to sign up with an unmetered anytime package such as OneTel (£10.99), TalkTalk3 (£12.99) or Euphony (£10.00), but worked out that with the savings offered by 1899.com I would have to make approximately 4.5 hours of daytime landline calls each week to make it worthwhile.  The 'hassle' of dialling 1899 before every daytime, mobile and international call doesn't bother me.  Obviously everyone's phone useage differs, but it is worth working it all out.

2. I presently have dial-up access to my ISP (no ADSL in my area) via an 0845 number (and it is not worth my while switching to an unmetered package).  This is the next most expensive item on my bill - and I suspect a lot of people will be in the same boat here.  It is interesting to note that TalkTalk will give you 33% off calls to one nominated 0845 number.  This is a big saving to me and well worth it.  
Update 19/5/04: See post below: 33% discount merely makes it the same cost as BT!

3. 1899 is not as cheap for international calls as 18866, but for the limited number of international calls I make (one or so a month) it doesn't make a great deal of difference.  

4.  For anyone presently with BT who like me couldn't find the paper copies of their bills - they are all available online at https://www.bt.com, you need to register first, but it makes it easy to see where your potential savings lie.

Many thanks once again.
Adrian

BigAde

For anyone interested, just did a quick comparison of cost of calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers:

This excludes any Friends and Family type discounts:
(sorry about the formatting :-[)

0845
day eve w/end
BT 3.95 1.00 1.00
OneTel 4.00 1.50 1.00
TalkTalk 4.50 1.50 1.50
18866 3.00 3.00 3.00
1899 3.00 3.00 3.00

0870
day eve w/end
BT 7.91 3.95 1.50
OneTel 8.00 8.00 8.00
TalkTalk 7.51 3.75 2.00
18866 7.00 7.00 7.00
1899 7.00 7.00 7.00

Unbelievably BT are actually cheaper most of the time!

Darryl

When do you mostly call 0870 and 0845 numbers?

As these are usually numbers for customer service centres, etc, your calls are likely to be between 8am and 6pm. So, given your price chart, it looks to me like BT are MORE expensive than most others, as it's the daytime call charge you need to look at!

So, I'd say use non-geo numbers (i.e. http://www.saynoto0870.com/) where you can, but if you have to dial a 0870/0845 number, use the 18866 service.

Darryl.

BigAde

When do you mostly call 0870 and 0845 numbers?

As these are usually numbers for customer service centres, etc, your calls are likely to be between 8am and 6pm. So, given your price chart, it looks to me like BT are MORE expensive than most others, as it's the daytime call charge you need to look at!

So, I'd say use non-geo numbers (i.e. http://www.saynoto0870.com/) where you can, but if you have to dial a 0870/0845 number, use the 18866 service.

Darryl.

Mostly I dial an 0845 for my ISP (Tiscali PAYG) - there isn't a landline alternative that I'm aware of...

18866/1899 are indeed cheaper for 0845 & 0870 during the day (by 0.95p), but as (like most folk) I work during the day, evenings and weekends are when most of my calls are made they are then more expensive by as much as 5.5p!

System

Martin, when I read this article it was like a breath of fresh air; of all my household bills my landline bill irks me the most as I pay so much and use it so little!

To everyone else:

I sense that there is definitely potential for savings for me here but I am not sure the best way to achieve them! Any advice gratefully appreciated...

I use my landline almost solely for connecting to the internet, which i do very infrequently. On average I would say I spend 2-4 hours a month dialled up and use my mobile for all other calls. I need to keep internet access from home as I use it solely for work purposes. VERY occasionally I make an international call from my landline - let's say I make a £5 call once a quarter. This is non-essential though.

For this privilege I have to pay on average £55 a quarter. This seems extortionate to me. I presume that a good chunk of this cost is taken up with line rental. My line provider is BT, my internet calls go through BT and my international calls go through OneTel (these are excluded from the £55 per month cost which is solely BT). I also have an Orange mobile with which I am very happy. I am much more worried about the cost of line rental than of the cost of calls as some of my calls can be charged to work.

It seems to me that itplc.com could save me a lot of money but:
1. I need to be certain before I switch if it's going to cost me £25
2. I do need a reasonable service level - has anyone tried this service for any length of time? Can anyone confirm that it's OK to use and won't cause me problems dialling up etc?
3. In general, do other readers think this is the right solution for me?

There is another option too which is to connect to the internet via my mobile which has BlueTooth and USB2 connection facilities... but I have heard that this is really slow and won't allow me to download attachments very easily so am presuming that this is not a good idea...

I'm new to this website and am really impressed - but this area in particular is so complex I would really appreciate some advice if anyone can help me!

System

Been on onetel for a while now & really happy, still have to use BT for line rental though.

BT have just sent me a letter stating that 'Standard Line Rental' will be withdrawn & replaced by 'BT Together Option 1' - this will increase my line rental to £10.30 (even using direct debit).

This 10% increase has obviously been introduced to get some more money from us punters who have to have BT line rental but route our calls through another provider.

Will register my initial dissatisfaction with them but what else can one do?

gt94sss2

Been on onetel for a while now & really happy, still have to use BT for line rental though.

BT have just sent me a letter stating that 'Standard Line Rental' will be withdrawn & replaced by 'BT Together Option 1' - this will increase my line rental to £10.30 (even using direct debit).

This 10% increase has obviously been introduced to get some more money from us punters who have to have BT line rental but route our calls through another provider.

Will register my initial dissatisfaction with them but what else can one do?

Nothing - and Ofcom have already approved BT's price changes.. BT were "losing money" on the old tariff - as it didn't cover their fixed costs/the wholesale price..

Regards
Sunil

System

An alternative to 0845 internet PAYG access is Onetel PAYG access which uses a 0808 freephone number and is charged at 1p per minute 24/7.

jiji

Can any one know how to override from NTL telephone line. I would like to make international call from NTL line using justdial etc. Thanks.

System

You can do this with companies such as; http://www.call18866.co.uk/ , http://www.firsttele.com/ etc