MSE News: BT reveals price rises - but you can escape the hikes

gwapenut

mattyprice4004 wrote: »

Force of a landline? Do you know how broadband works?
ADSL and Fibre broadband both NEED a phone line for the transmission of data. You don't have to have a line, but if you don't you're restricted to a 3G dongle or Virgin Media style cable. No one is forcing you to have a landline.

It's not BT's (or anyone else's) fault - it's the way broadband works.

Except that Virgin Media also need to run cable to the house to supply broadband, and yet they are capable of splitting line rental and broadband rental into two separate products.

It's a scam by BT.

jrawle

gwapenut wrote: »

Except that Virgin Media also need to run cable to the house to supply broadband, and yet they are capable of splitting line rental and broadband rental into two separate products.

It's a scam by BT.

If you only take broadband from Virgin with no phoneline, the broadband costs much more, e.g. the most basic broadband is £14.50 per month with a phoneline, but £22.50 without. So you effectively pay £8 for line rental. So while BT could offer a broadband only line, the saving over line rental (currently £11.75 for line rental saver) would be small.

jrawle

I realise we don't know the details of the price increases yet, but I wondered if people could advise me whether I'm likely to be able to escape from my BT contract if I'm unhappy. While under other circumstances I'd just absorb the BT price increases until the end of the contracts, I'm already unhappy with the prices and begrudge effectively subsidising BT Sport, which I have no interest in.

• I have BT Infinity 2 with Evening/Weekend calls at £26/month, ending September 2014.
• Line rental saver, ending January 2014. If I stick with BT, I'll have to renew this to avoid rip-off line rental, so I'm effectively tied to BT until January 2015.
• I have free caller display, but will cancel this if I stick with BT.
• I don't have 1571 as I hate voicemail.

If they increase my broadband cost by around 6% as some articles suggest, will I be able to jump ship without penalty? I realise I'll probably lose a couple of months' line rental saver, but I'll soon recover this cost.

Also, if I take up the chance to leave within 10 days of the letter, can I still have a MAC code to move to a different FTTC product without interruption? I don't want to be without broadband for any period (other than on the day of the switch, obviously).

Uxb

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

Being in the EU, why cannot we get a naked DSL service from one of the French or German providers? Or is the 'Union' only for the favoured few?

Any provider offering this would have their hands bitten off - I'd be first in the queue!

Because you don't understand.
To explain.
In reality your "phone" bill is made up of 3 components
1 Rent payment for the physical line to your address and the maintenance and upgrades of all types on it.
2. Payment for receiving a voice service on that line plus cost of calls
3. Payment for receiving a data (ie broadband) service on that line plus cost of data.

Now in the UK items (1) and (2) are bundled together and called phone line rental.
Item (3) is paid for as a seperate item and can be bought from other suppliers.

We could equally lump (1) and (3) together and pay for (2) as a seperate item. This would be naked DSL if you chose not to have the item (2) service.
BUT your broadband charges would be huge as the entire cost of item (1) is now lumped in with item (3).

Furthermore as there are more pure phone lines than broadband activated phone lines in the country your broadband costs are actually being subsidised by those people who only use the voice service. This is nice for you and me.
Remove that cross subsidy and your broadband charges will go up even more if you have to bear the full cost of item (1)

If you think naked DSL means would be able to just pay the broadband charge and not have to contribute to the line maintenance/upgrade part then you are living on a different planet.

It ain't as simple as it looks!

NittyGritty

i suspect this is their way of recouping all the money they spent on adertising/launching BT sport, even tho they deny this lol, yeah right of course its not!! lol

NittyGritty

neil40 wrote: »

Switch provider.I am with Sky and can always threaten to leave to get 6 or 12 months half price line rental..Thats what i always do once promotion has come to an end.

agreed, i do this every year, dont settle and pay the same rate, no matter who your with, always check whats best out there and ask them to match or better it, most/some of the time you will get a better deal

poppasmurf_bewdley

Uxb wrote: »

It ain't as simple as it looks!

If the French and Germans (plus a few assorted other countries) can do it, then I'm sure the English can.

It's nothing more than a method of extracting a few extra pounds from us the way it is. Typical of Ofcom not to do anything about it.

Imagine the outrage if all those with a mobile broadband dongle only were told that they also had to have a mobile phone to go with it!

jrawle

User paddy09 on the BT community forums has posted this interesting link that suggests BT are going to offer 12 months' free caller display to customers already signed up to BT Privacy. Naturally, it will mean signing up for a 12 month contract, but for those already with contracts for broadband/line rental saver it could be a viable option.

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumer/edw/freecallerdisplay/

It shows how it's best to wait for the letter and see the full picture, rather than get information from leaked reports in the press (which contradict each other on some points).

tommy45

Well for a start i wouldn't belive anything that the Daily Fail publishes they IMO are worse than rupert murdoch for BS and policital properganda ,when the press are suposed to be neutral are they not? But they have an agenda i don't like, just as i don't like this CON-Dim AKA Tory government we didn't elect

Yes it would appear that the telecoms Monopoly BT is saying that they will keep caller display free for those who already have BT privacy, in fact the way i read it, they are offering BT privacy FREE for 12mths if you sign up for another 12mths line rental, so by taking LRS you should qualify for this automatically?

The only thing that they did mention was if the free voice mail 1571 is part of BT privacy, i'm fairly sure it is ,certainly for legacy customers, if not I would drop it without a second thought, as £1.75 pm is a joke,

The press are reporting that LRS isn't being increased on 4th Jan 13 , i should hope it isn't as that would be the 2nd price rise for LRS in 12mths it was increased only a few months ago , so it hasn'r escaped a increase in reality, they just assume we all have very short memories i think,

As for BT basics LRS and free 1571 , As yet BT haven't announced anything regarding the 2 free features, BT privacy, unless the announcement covers BT basic also, which i may do,
But finding out via their customer support won't be easy,(it should be) but in pratise it isn't 99% of the time thank's to their outsourced script reading monkeys that are based in bangalore or some other far away place

Pincher

Has anyone actually managed to qualify for BT Basic?

My mother is just not poor enough.