UK's biggest con

yangptangkipperbang

laudo wrote: »

Biggest con out there in UK,

laudo wrote: »

ok, maybe not con, but rip off UK

Not exactly the most cogent argument ..............:D

custardy

macman wrote: »

This is like objecting to paying for road tax because you've already paid for your car-the roads don't get built and maintained for free.

Don't get fixed via 'road tax' either

JSR

Agree with the OP that line rental is a con. Not because you have to pay for the maintenance of the wire, that's fair enough, but because of the inclusive, unwanted, and largely unavoidable call plans that come with it.

It's not true that Virgin Media broadband only is more expensive than broadband + phone. The 50 Mbit unlimited package is £26.50, with a phone it is £31.49. Essentially a £4.99 cost for the calls package.

You can get line rental only, no inclusive calls, for £8.75 from Primus. That's £4.25 cheaper than the cheapest calls inclusive mainstream line rental provider. But of course so many ADSL/FTTC providers insist you take your line rental from them!

I think there is a case for the regulator to step in and force ISPs to offer wire only line rental. There must be millions of people out there who never use the call plan they're being forced to pay for and probably don't even realise it.

custardy

JSR wrote: »

Agree with the OP that line rental is a con. Not because you have to pay for the maintenance of the wire, that's fair enough, but because of the inclusive, unwanted, and largely unavoidable call plans that come with it.

It's not true that Virgin Media broadband only is more expensive than broadband + phone. The 50 Mbit unlimited package is £26.50, with a phone it is £31.49. Essentially a £4.99 cost for the calls package.

You can get line rental only, no inclusive calls, for £8.75 from Primus. That's £4.25 cheaper than the cheapest calls inclusive mainstream line rental provider. But of course so many ADSL/FTTC providers insist you take your line rental from them!

I think there is a case for the regulator to step in and force ISPs to offer wire only line rental. There must be millions of people out there who never use the call plan they're being forced to pay for and probably don't even realise it.

Maybe for you. I can assure you it works out cheaper for me to have a phone line on my package.
We dont even have a phone plugged in

JSR

It is cheaper to have a phone if you have TV as well but we are talking about broadband only customers here. If you don't have TV maybe you have some special deal but it's not something available as standard.

Nodding_Donkey

It's not the fact that you have to have a landline that is a ripoff IMO, it's the fact that when you complain about !!!! poor broadband speed the answer is 'It's because your line is rubbish'

Well hello, you are charging me the full price for a rubbish landline. 'It's not rubbish sir, you can make phone calls'

Doh!

So, I have to have a landline to get broadband but the landline I pay for doesn't have to be good enough to get a decent broadband service!

Timalay

One of the only ways you can get broadband without a landline (other than Satellite) is to go via 4G. Not many mobile networks offer unlimited 4G, apart from Relish (very limited area at the moment).

mije1983

Nodding_Donkey wrote: »

It's not the fact that you have to have a landline that is a ripoff IMO, it's the fact that when you complain about !!!! poor broadband speed the answer is 'It's because your line is rubbish'

Well hello, you are charging me the full price for a rubbish landline. 'It's not rubbish sir, you can make phone calls'

Doh!

So, I have to have a landline to get broadband but the landline I pay for doesn't have to be good enough to get a decent broadband service!

Surely that's down to the physical limitations of the copper wiring rather than 'it's rubbish'? Not a lot your ISP can do about it.

iniltous

JSR wrote: »

Agree with the OP that line rental is a con. Not because you have to pay for the maintenance of the wire, that's fair enough, but because of the inclusive, unwanted, and largely unavoidable call plans that come with it.

It's not true that Virgin Media broadband only is more expensive than broadband + phone. The 50 Mbit unlimited package is £26.50, with a phone it is £31.49. Essentially a £4.99 cost for the calls package.

You can get line rental only, no inclusive calls, for £8.75 from Primus. That's £4.25 cheaper than the cheapest calls inclusive mainstream line rental provider. But of course so many ADSL/FTTC providers insist you take your line rental from them!

I think there is a case for the regulator to step in and force ISPs to offer wire only line rental. There must be millions of people out there who never use the call plan they're being forced to pay for and probably don't even realise it.

If there is a provider offering what you want, line rental without any call plan ,and you have already quoted the company, why don't you use them ?, why would the regulator get involved when what you want is already offered ?
what you really want is to pay £2 to £3 for broadband because some company's advertise that price, but it's a con (obviously) they don't make money on that, they make money on the difference between the wholesale rental price and their retail price ( wholesale about £8, retail about £16).
Call plans tend to be 'anytime' which can save some people money if they use the phone a lot, or evenings or evening and weekends and that tends to be free or nearly free with the line rental anyway.

It's quite simple, don't want to use the line for calls?, don't plug a phone in, and don't have an anytime call plan

It's very naive to think that by offering 'naked' broadband the total cost would reduce at all
Using Virgin as a comparison isn't helpfully, they don't have to allow competition on their network, so don't have a wholesale price that is published, and it's quite easy to get line and broadband for less that £26.50, even if it has an unwanted inclusive calls element, doesn't that make it better value rather than worse ?

Retrogamer

I've worked with ADSL broadband providers for the last 8 years or so, but never had the product myself.

The prices with broadband are drove down so low to be competitive there's not a lot of profit to be made on it anymore. Often ISP's will operate at a loss and get their funding from somewhere else and keep it running as an incentive for other products.

People want stuff like freephone numbers, UK based support but aren't willing to pay the price to have these features most of the time. They choose the lowest costing product then moan about how it doesn't perform as good or how the after sales service is poor compared to another ISP who charge twice the price.

Technically you can provide broadband service only on a phone line but it's only be leaving a few feet of cable unplugged at the exchange side. The rest uses the same cabling, so it makes sense to just have the phone service at the same time. Without the phone service these companies would be operating at a much higher loss and broadband prices would need to increase as well fill that gap.

As mentioned, maintainance of the lines and equipment has to be factored in as well. BT Openreach engineers will repair some faults for free, but not all.

If you want Broadband without a phone line you can do it if you live in a Virgin Media cable area. It only works out about £4 cheaper or so, due to the reasons mentioned above.
It's something like BB only for £15 (not the real price but an example) or phone line only for £15, or both together for £19.