some advice please

ysoskint

I am with BT. I am a bad person and haven't changed or bothered looking at changing!

Money has now become very tight. My BT, I pay £49 monthly on direct debit, but we don't excessivly use the phone.

Cost of calls £24.51
Service charges £65.10
VAT £15.62

Total this period £105.24
brought forward £48.17
payents £147.00
Debit balance £6.41

I don't really understand the whole line rental with BT and going with another provider. Can someone give me some advice. How to cut my bill by as much as possible. I am also on broadband with AOL, would this effect me changing telephone supplier??

THANKS SO MUCH for your time

Dan29

Have you read Martin's article?

I use Primus, 1899 and 18185 for calls and Metronet for broadband - but read the article to see which is best for you.

Browntoa

this is your other thread

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=218532

I've copied my stuff from the other one

if you dropped AOL there is much cheaper broadband out there for a start !!

some come with bundled free off peak calls like

btbroadbands option 1

http://www.bt.com/broadband/bb_info.jsp?obsNoSee=Y&vStore=1322&obsPage=/broa dband%2fbb_info.jsp%3ftargetSection%3dbroadband_fr om_bt&obsType=LINK&obsOID=89065&targetSection=prod _page_2000R_G&presalesProduct=2000R_G

FREE Evening and Weekend Broadband Talk UK2 calls
250 FREE WiFi minutes per month
FREE connection and 220V wired router**
FREE Videocalls4 until 31st January 2007

but there are other suppliers out there with similar offers, that one is £17.99 a month, £9.95 for the first 6 months

Heinz

ysoskint wrote:

I am with BT. I am a bad person and haven't changed or bothered looking at changing!

Money has now become very tight. My BT, I pay £49 monthly on direct debit, but we don't excessivly use the phone.

Cost of calls £24.51
Service charges £65.10
VAT £15.62

Total this period £105.24
brought forward £48.17
payents £147.00
Debit balance £6.41

I don't really understand the whole line rental with BT and going with another provider. Can someone give me some advice. How to cut my bill by as much as possible. I am also on broadband with AOL, would this effect me changing telephone supplier??

THANKS SO MUCH for your time

That £65.10 is for your line rental on BT Together Option 3 (it's £25.50 per month when you've added VAT) - so you should not have any call charges on your bill for calls to UK 01 or 02 numbers.

That means you are spending £24.51 per quarter calling international, mobile, non-geographic and Premium Rate numbers.

Martin's article covers the various ways to save money but my (personal but very similar) recommended plan of action is:

Stick with BT for your line rental but change to BT Together Option 1 as soon as Primus CPS (see below) is activated. Then, don't inflate BT's profits by unnecessarily making many (or any if you can avoid it) calls via them.

Free evening and weekend UK 01/02 calls are just a freephone call away with Primus Saver Option 2 and weekday UK 01/02 calls for 3p each - regardless of duration - are a few mouse clicks away with call1899.co.uk.

And don't overlook the MSE Callcheckers - there's money to be saved there too on calls to international, non-geographic and mobile numbers.

macminiuser

Switching your line rental to an independent telephone company is much like changing your Gas or Electricity supplier. When you transfer your line rental to another company, it doesn't magically become a new or different type of phone line in the same way that when you change Gas supplier you don't get a different flavour of Gas! All that changes is the letterheaded paper on which your bill is sent to you (and the price, obviously!)

The only exceptions to this rule are cable companies - cable phone lines are not standard telephone lines, they operate on a different network.

HOWEVER - many telecoms companies who offer line rental will block your ability to choose a CPS or indirect access carrier (like 18866 etc) so make sure you do your due diligence if you're really keen to save a pound or two a month on line rental. It is possible to get line rental for £9.99 with no contract and still be able to call 18866, 1899, 18185 and use access numbers like Telediscount for international calling.

Another thing about switching line rental I read about a lot on here here is where people are concerned that if they change their telephone supplier their existing broadband service will stop working or that they will be tied to using a particular company's broadband, or are worried that if they have line rental with anyone other than BT they won't be able to get broadband at all. This is not the case!

When a broadband provider says that you need to have a "BT line" in order to use their service, what they mean is you need to have a "standard residential phone line." The only circumstances under which your broadband choices are limited is if you fall into any of the following categories:

1. You are a cable customer (like NTL/Telewest) as these companies operate on a completely different network.
2. You pay your line rental to an LLU provider like Bulldog or TalkTalk as these companies install their own equipment in the exchanges and you are usually tied into using their broadband.
3. You live in Hull and pay your line rental to Kingston Communications.

If you do not fall into any of the above categories, your existing broadband will continue to work as normal, and you can choose any broadband provider of your choice who operate on standard residential telephone lines (i.e. not cable).

AGAIN - some providers will try and make you take their broadband; avoid these. You should be free to choose where you want to get your broadband from and how you want to route your calls.