Business Landline Comparison sites?

Swish

Hi all!

I am a new company that is now looking to go ahead and set up a business landline for my premises. The line is already on BT but I know that I can save a small fortune in this rather overlooked costcutting exercise.

I'm rather meticulous in the way I do things and I am just really wondering if there is a website out there that can give me an idea of what the majority of companies out there charge for line rental per month, minimum contract information, capped rates on local and mobile calls etc., just so I can have in my hand, a very simple list of who charges what.

I've tried to go on a few different provider websites and it is nigh on impossible just to find out rates and line rental charges for business telecoms. Is there an easier way to find out other than having someone call me up and try to pitch to me?

The closest sites I have found so far are ones who will do the legwork to find me the 'cheapest' deal. But in the minefield that is Business Telecoms, lower line rental charges does not equate to cheaper bills over the course of the contract. Is it too hard just to ask for some information on rates and charges to be laid bare by business telecom providers and their packages?

If anyone knows of any particular website that can lead me to this apparent Holy Grail or at least point me in the direction of easier ways to find out other than giving my contact details and being hassled to sign a contract I don't want, would be extremely appreciated.

Thanks in advance money savers.

:j

Going_Digital

Be very careful, I recently went through this process and found that what is on offer varies enormously. Most have very restrictive contracts that renew for long periods or have quite high call set-up charges. Here is what I found ...

http://www.primusbusinesstalk.co.uk/business_capped.html
This is the cheapest line rental at £9.49 per month and pretty good if you average call time is quite long as they charge 2p per minute with a cap of 8.8p for calls up to an hour. Calls to mobiles are 8.8p per min with a cap of 22p. So the caps are good if your calls typically last over 5 min. The big downside to this one is it is a 36 months initial contract with an auto renewal of 12 months at a time. You must give notice at the end of a contract period to coincide with the last day of the contract period, that can be quite tricky. Having looked at their reputation it is not great but not one of the worst.

http://www.xlntelecom.co.uk/business-phone/line-rental.aspx
Xltelecom on the face of it looks like a good deal with line rental of £9.99 and call charges of 1.5p landlines and 9.95p for mobiles. These guys however seem to do everything they can to lock you in with an auto renewing 12 month contract and minimum of 2 years service. They require a 42 day notice period in writing or will charge £200 for early termination. There are lots of complaints about this company even at one point investigated by ofcom. Personally I would advise steer well clear.

http://www.talkforless.co.uk/
These guys seemed quite good, when I contacted them they offered line rental of £11.75 and really good call rates of 0.89p for landlines and i think it was 9p for mobiles. No call set-up charges and per second billing so if you called a mobile for 20 sec you would be charged 3p. They seemed a fairly straight company that were willing to offer a 3 month trial period and when I pushed them a bit they were happy not to tie us into a contract so we could leave easily with 30 day notice. I nearly went with these guys.

http://www.heart-telecom.com/business-calls/
These guys looked OK to start with they are offering line rental at £11.49 and call rates of 1.5p and mobiles of 9.75p they also offer a 30 day rolling contract so you can easily cancel at any time. The problem I found when digging a bit deeper however is they charge a call set-up fee for each call, 3p for a landline making a 1 min call 4.5p and 5p for a mobile making a 1 min call 14.75p, calls are rounded up to the nearest minute as well.

http://www.o2.co.uk/sme/businessservices/landline/prices
o2 do a landline service that if you are an o2 mobile customer is £11.50 per month for line rental and calls are 0.85p landlines and 6p mobiles except 3. It includes caller ID in the line rental however I found their website confusing as seems the case for o2 generally, it seems their mission in life is to confuse you into submission.

http://www.idnet.net/solutions/business/phone/
In the end I chose IDNet, because their line rental is £12 per month or £11 of you pay for a year in advance but that includes caller ID that all the others charge approximately £1.50 extra for. Their call rate is not the best at 5p for landlines and 10p for mobiles, although you can reduce costs if you commit to 30 hours per month calls. What really swung it for us though is the no minimum contract period, just 30 days notice required to cancel and that they allow the use of override provider numbers. They just seemed completely up front with their charging and didn't seem to try and lock you in, to me that is a sign that they are confident of the quality of their service. This worked out best for us as primarily the line is used for incoming calls and for the broadband connection. We can use call 18185 or similar for low cost calls or can use sipgate VoIP service at 1.19p for outgoing calls.

If you make a large volume of calls all of the providers offer an all inclusive landline package for somewhere between £6 & £8.

OldGreyFox

Small Business Telecom has its own discussion area
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2103025

Lanc_2

I read an earlier reply which seemed to recommend that you bought a higher priced line and paid more for your calls! Beware - this is clearly an ad by the supplier concerned! Try xlntelecom.co.uk - lowest line price and cheap calls and bundle deals (unlimited works really well for me and my office. £9.99 for the line and £7.99 for unlimited calls. I reckon its a bargain compared with BT. And my contract is 12 months - hardly a long term deal when my O2 contract is 2 years and costs far more!!