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lisyloo

Have you any idea how many minutes of peak national calls that would be worth per month?

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National calls are 8p per minute (from BT call pricer on BT website).
Call allowance is £2.15 per month.
Therefore I reckon, just under 27 minutes per month.

sylblake

Thanks for that, most helpful.

colin_tomlinson

New to this board, but to correct one or two misconceptions about One.Tel.

They do charge 4p/min or 8p/min for 0845 and 0870 numbers (respectively), which is BT's daytime rate for these calls (regardless of which "Together" option you may have) , but One.Tel charge this rate 24/7. They also charge a 3p connection charge and in whole minutes (so you may be paying for up to 59 seconds after you hang up) - so it's ALWAYS cheaper to route 08 numbers through BT (than One.Tel).

Therefore, if you have CPS (or a PhonePal plug in box) with One.Tel, just dial 1280 before the number to route through BT or any of the other 1xxx numbers for other carriers.

Remember too that if you're using CPS to route you calls through ANY other company to change your line rental back to the basic package (ie not Together etc plans). Not only does this save you at least £2/month on line rental, but you'll get a further call allowance of £2.15/month - which means the first £2.15/month (or £6.45/quarter) of 08 calls are free!

mistral_2

Save another £3 and change to direct debit as well.
I am really running out out of money saving ideas scapping the barrel now !

lisyloo

but you'll get a further call allowance of £2.15/month - which means the first £2.15/month (or £6.45/quarter) of 08 calls are free!
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I do not believe this is true.

If you read this price list in details you will see that the numbers in section2 (part 12) cannot be set against the call allowance.

I appreciate this is a complete minefield.

http://www.serviceview.bt.com/list/current/docs/Exch_Lines.boo/12641.htm

payless

Have never been able to make sense from the BT pricing site.

On my bill (standard line)- call allowance of upto £11.40 per 1/4 (i have 2 lines)
includes loc, nat, internat, information and most interent calls

(Do not beleive it includes 0870)

System

The BT call allowance of £6.45 per quarter includes all direct-dialled local, 0845, national (not 0870) and even international calls. If any of the calls made within your allowance are also your Friends and Family numbers, you get the 10% discount on top of your allowance, which makes your call charge negative if you stay within your £6.45 limit.

I have a basic BT line and I also use a number of other providers for my calls as follows :-

1. All local and 0845 calls are made through BT to use up the £6.45 call allowance each quarter and I make sure that the most commonly dialled numbers are on my Friends and Family list to get the 10% discount. I also pay by quarterly whole-bill direct debit to get £3 discount per quarter on the line rental.

2. Daytime national calls are made through SuperLine (see: https://www.superline.co.uk) . They only charge 2.3p per minute for any geographical national calls with a minimum call charge of just 3p instead of the usual 5p. I pay by Credit Card Continuous Payment Authority with my Capital One Circle Rebate MasterCard (or American Express Blue Credit Card) to get 1% cashback from the credit card provider.

3. Evening and Weekend national calls are made through British Gas Communications using their smart socket. I was one of the first to sign up to their service as soon as it was launched and so I do not have to pay any monthly fee and get 1/3 off BT standard rate for local calls and 50% off BT standard rate for national calls. I pay by whole-bill direct debit to get an extra £1.50 discount per quarter.

4. I make international calls to Hong Kong and USA regularly.

Not surprisingly, I am using Telediscount 08453510035 local rate access number through BT for calls to Hong Kong (and any other local and national calls not on my Friends and Family list) with this number nominated as the 'Best Friend' number to get 20% discount on the call charges.

I noted that Telediscount has recently changed the access number for calls to USA from 2p per minute at all times to national rate. This in effect has made any weekend calls to the USA cheaper as the 08700990022 access number is only 1.5p per minute through BT though calls to 0870 numbers are not included in the call allowance. For daytime and weekday evening calls to the USA, there is still Superline which charges 2.5p per minute with a minimum call charge of 3p and billed per second. This is cheaper than One-Tel (3p per minute and billed per minute) and any other major providers.

5. I signed up with a One-Tel account years ago and use the 1877 prefix for any calls that I made through that their network. This means that I am now able to get free directory enquiries through One-Tel until 31 December 2003 by dialling 1877 followed by 118111 which would normally cost 35p per call for one search only.

6. Calls to mobile numbers are always made from my mobile phone to use up the free minutes available.

By making use of the various telecom providers as above, I find that there is no need for me to sign up to any of these newcomers like TalkTalk, Tesco, etc. If anyone has any suggestions for me as to further improve my current telephone 'package', I would be more than happy to follow any advice given.

System

Looks like TalkTalk have dropped the monthly cost of their unlimited tariff to £12.99. Is that the cheapest cost for this type of tariff does anyone know?

jack62uk

I've read most of the posts on this topic and maybe i'm the only person who is in the position of having a landline and never (or very rarely) use it to make calls :-X I always use my inclusive anytime/any network calls on my mobile.
I need the line for my dial-up connection to the internet and use the cheapest ISP i can find.

I am on the BT Light User Scheme (not sure if its still available) and get billed quarterly

This is a breakdown of my typical bill
Service Charges £26.80
Credits -£17.20
VAT £1.68
Total £11.28

For every £0.10 that my call charges are less than £15.95 they give me a rebate of £0.107 hence the £17.20 credit.

I'm not sure if there is a better/cheaper way for a person in my situation. But i'm sure someone here will let me know ;D

System

Talktalk will be announcing something big on thursday of this week.....

There has been speculation in the Times newspaper this week but they havent got it right...

I have the inside knowledge....i work for them !

All on-net calls will be free. No charge, no hidden exras, just free at all times. All existing customers will benefit from this as will new customers. Add to this a £10m advertising campaign, this will scare BT's shareholders me thinks.