Does BT Line = BT Line rental (To Infinfity and Beyond..?)

bob6000bob

I am currently with Sky for unlimited BB and anytime calls but pay line rental to BT because I saw that a lot of other deals start out with the requirement that you have a BT Line and I wanted to be able to switch in the future.

Now I can't figure out if "BT Line" ="BT Line Rental" or if it just means an Openreach line where the line rental could be paid to Talk Talk, Tesco or whoever. Thoughts??

On a related note (but possibly a different answer) we can only muster 3Mbps line speed out of the copper wire but our area is now on the BT Infinity FTTC network and I was thinkning of switching. I don't mind the 40Gb download limit on the BB Option 1 but I find the "weekend" only calls on BB & Calls a bit miserly. One moneysaving option might be to take the BB only Option 1 (at £20/month with 40Gb cap) and then go to Primus for line rental + anytime calls at £10.99 a month. This would bring the total/month to £30.99. Much better than Infinity Option 2 with calls £28 + BT Line rental at £13.60 =£41.60/month. Is this a viable option or do BT demand "BT Line Rental" when taking Infinity?

Keep saving the pennies...

Bob

whitegoods_engineer

I've been wondering this meself!

bob6000bob

But even adding calls, if my start point is BT Line Rental £13.60 + Infinity £20 = £33.60 then unless someone out there is offering anytime calls where they pay me £5/month then the whole package is not quite hitting the spot.

Why the need to pay line rental to BT? Sky don't require me to pay line rental to them to take their BB product. Sounds like a rum do to me.

iniltous

bob6000bob wrote: »

But even adding calls, if my start point is BT Line Rental £13.60 + Infinity £20 = £33.60 then unless someone out there is offering anytime calls where they pay me £5/month then the whole package is not quite hitting the spot.

Why the need to pay line rental to BT? Sky don't require me to pay line rental to them to take their BB product. Sounds like a rum do to me.

Not sure what you are getting at, Infinity is a BT Retail offering and requires you to have line rental with BTR,
BT (wholesale) are offering access to other ISP's to resell FTTC so other ISP's can offer FTTC services, and they will probably require their customers to have line rental with them also...
Its not BTR fault, if other large ISPs are not yet offering FTTC services.
At least with BTR you have access to other call providers, ..if/when other ISPs start offering FTTC they probably will make having your calls and line rental a condition of having the FTTC broadband, with BTR you may have to take line rental, but you can still chose someone else for your calls

bob6000bob

I take the point that, come the time other providers start to offer FTTC products they may also require that you pay line rental to them, I supopse we won't know until the deals become available. I think that my problem of understanding is this. I don't understand if the requirement to pay Line Rental to BT (BT Retail requirement) is a technical requirement or merely a marketing/revenue based requirement. It seems to me that if the underlying physical line is a "BT Line"; (by which I mean an Openreach line) then the preson to whom line rental is paid should be irrelevant in terms of technical ability to deliver a service. I appear to be able to receive Sky broadband despite paying BT for my line rental, whilst Sky do offer line rental there does not seem to be any technical reason for me to choose to pay Sky, only economic reasons. Are the only reasons that BT want me to pay my line rental to BT for an Infinity product economic reasons, or are there technical reasons? I appreciate that this will not alter the real world requirement but it will help me to understand the basis for the charges (also would go some way towards my first question, i.e. does "BT Line" = "BT Line Rental"? Thanks

iniltous

bob6000bob wrote: »

I take the point that, come the time other providers start to offer FTTC products they may also require that you pay line rental to them, I supopse we won't know until the deals become available. I think that my problem of understanding is this. I don't understand if the requirement to pay Line Rental to BT (BT Retail requirement) is a technical requirement or merely a marketing/revenue based requirement. It seems to me that if the underlying physical line is a "BT Line"; (by which I mean an Openreach line) then the preson to whom line rental is paid should be irrelevant in terms of technical ability to deliver a service. I appear to be able to receive Sky broadband despite paying BT for my line rental, whilst Sky do offer line rental there does not seem to be any technical reason for me to choose to pay Sky, only economic reasons. Are the only reasons that BT want me to pay my line rental to BT for an Infinity product economic reasons, or are there technical reasons? I appreciate that this will not alter the real world requirement but it will help me to understand the basis for the charges (also would go some way towards my first question, i.e. does "BT Line" = "BT Line Rental"? Thanks

You say Sky can give you broadband without the need to have line rental with them, this is more to do with the way they became a Telco , they bought Easynet, and offered broadband on a lineshare basis only (you had to have line rental with BT becuase they didnt have the ability to offer line rental), as something called Wholesale Line Rental was introduced, Sky could then offer line rental but all this is them sending out the line rental bill to you, they pay BT on your behalf, WLR is available everywhere, then Sky introduced their own network telephony & broadband (full LLU) where dialtone comes from there own equipment rather than BT dialtone resold under Skys brand, this isnt available everywhere, but, if you are a Sky full LLU customer you couldnt have broadband from anyone else,this obviously doesnt affect you as you pay BT for LR.
Most Telcos that can offer line rental,calls and broadband are obviously going to try and sell you all 3, only BT have to offer access to others for calls and or broadband, but I dont see anthing unfair in BT broadband (ADSL or FTTC) being conditional on having BT line rental....after all Sky reserve their best deals to people who take their TV