Line Rental Rip-Off

MyDogMuppet

So the Internet tells me that all ISPs pay BT OpenReach some £84 PA for residential phone lines bought in bulk to provision ISP - broadband & telephony charges.

Wouldn't it be great if some enterprising company sold cheap line rental to the UK public....wait the Post Office. Yes the Post Office's mark up is only 43%. Yes £120 PA. The cheapest I can find for landlines that we've all paid ten times over for.

Can you find ANY ISP who will provision broadband & telephony services over a landline rental contract they have not sold you ?

I cannot.

So you get screwed over for price inflated line rental saver packages whilst they advertise a headline grabbing low data and call prices.

What do those people at OfCom do ? They are so behind the curve on ISP marketing & sales scams its criminal.

LazyTyper

Communication providers pay Openreach £86.11 per year (plus connection charges) for "metallic path facility", which is literally just the pair of copper cables that run from the exchange to your phone socket. This is not a "phone line". This system is more commonly known as LLU - Local Loop Unbundling.

Ofcom set this charge and review this price every 1 or 2 years. Over the past few years it has come DOWN every year, but for some reason pretty much all retail communication providers have been increasing what they charge you for line rental.

Not all providers use LLU though, so they may buy WLR3 (Wholesale Line Rental) from Openreach. This facility includes the copper cable and the telephone service on top on a wholesale level and this costs £91.05 per year.

Usually only large retail communication providers will purchase directly from Openreach. It is quite common for retail CPs to buy from a wholesale CP who have the required infrastructure set up already.

The Post Office are now partnered up with TalkTalk to provide their services. I'm not entirely sure if this is fully unbundled (line rental and broadband) or just the broadband part. But there is much more involved than simply marking up the Openreach MPF or WLR3 annual charge.

kwikbreaks

LazyTyper wrote: »

Ofcom set this charge and review this price every 1 or 2 years. Over the past few years it has come DOWN every year, but for some reason pretty much all retail communication providers have been increasing what they charge you for line rental.

No real mystery - it's simple marketing. Publish a low BB price but still maintain an overall package price that provides some profit.

I really have no issue with that; it's just a matter of looking at the overall package price. You also need to renegotiate once the minimum term is done or move provider taking advantage of new customer and cashback deals.

I haven't checked recently but there never used to be a problem with having a BT provided line and getting the ADSL elsewhere except when chosing an LLU provider who typically charged more if you didn't take their phone - Sky certainly used to want you to have their TV too and probably still do. Same selection criteria apply - compare the overall deals and don't take something such as TV or call package unless you are going to use it or even with it that provider looks to be the best deal.

MyDogMuppet

LazyTyper wrote: »

Communication providers pay Openreach £86.11 per year (plus connection charges) for "metallic path facility", which is literally just the pair of copper cables that run from the exchange to your phone socket. This is not a "phone line". This system is more commonly known as LLU - Local Loop Unbundling.

Ofcom set this charge and review this price every 1 or 2 years. Over the past few years it has come DOWN every year, but for some reason pretty much all retail communication providers have been increasing what they charge you for line rental.

Not all providers use LLU though, so they may buy WLR3 (Wholesale Line Rental) from Openreach. This facility includes the copper cable and the telephone service on top on a wholesale level and this costs £91.05 per year.

Usually only large retail communication providers will purchase directly from Openreach. It is quite common for retail CPs to buy from a wholesale CP who have the required infrastructure set up already.

The Post Office are now partnered up with TalkTalk to provide their services. I'm not entirely sure if this is fully unbundled (line rental and broadband) or just the broadband part. But there is much more involved than simply marking up the Openreach MPF or WLR3 annual charge.

Thanks for the reply:yes, my annual rental figure was £7 too low.

I do not understand why wholesale costs come down and retail prices go up. You confirm what I suspected that the Retailers are permitted to market & cross-subsidise any combination of services. Usually with specious initial service prices and of course contract lengths that exceed a year. You still will NOT find anyone to provide you with Broadband\Telephony if they do not provide the Line Rental contract.

ISP's have to make a profit. I just wish there was much more transparency.

Mikey.Lea

Could anyone please inform me if I have to pay a connection fee or line installation fee, if my home already has a BT openreach phone line already installed as some companies are requested a fee, and others aren't. Many thanks.

LazyTyper

MyDogMuppet wrote: »

... You still will NOT find anyone to provide you with Broadband\Telephony if they do not provide the Line Rental contract.

ISP's have to make a profit. I just wish there was much more transparency.

The Line Rental generally is the same thing as the telephony service, but some of our favourite retailers make inclusive minute bundles part of the broadband service.

There are plenty of broadband providers that do not require you to take their line rental, but they usually focus on better service than trying to make headlines on how cheap they are.

But some have taken to charging you a 'penalty' for not taking their line rental or satellite TV service... in some cases you end up paying the same whether you take their services or not...

onomatopoeia99

LazyTyper wrote: »

The Line Rental generally is the same thing as the telephony service, but some of our favourite retailers make inclusive minute bundles part of the broadband service.

Have not OFCOM recently said they are considering splitting the "line rental" part away from the telephony service? They are, AFAIK, tied together at the moment, so in order to get a line to your house that's connected to anything, which you need to get broadband, you have to get a telephony service as well.

If done this would potentially enable ISPs to provision a genuine "broadband only" line.

kwikbreaks

Mikey.Lea wrote: »

Could anyone please inform me if I have to pay a connection fee or line installation fee, if my home already has a BT openreach phone line already installed as some companies are requested a fee, and others aren't. Many thanks.

You'd have done better starting your own thread.

It depends on what you mean by "phone line already installed". To get ADSL or FTTC installed you need to have an active phone service registered to you. Just having a phone socket in the propery is not enough.

Whether or notyou have to pay for a line installation or get it done "free" as part of the deal depends on who you get the broadband from. A "free" install usually means an extended minimum term.

Pincher

We get free e-mail accounts, free apps, free Twitter, free YouTube, when are they going to give us FREE broadband?

In fact, when are we going to get a free internet canteen, so I can get free food and drinks while I surf.

spud17

Pincher wrote: »

We get free e-mail accounts, free apps, free Twitter, free YouTube, when are they going to give us FREE broadband?

In fact, when are we going to get a free internet canteen, so I can get free food and drinks while I surf.

Line rental and unlimited broadband seems cheap to me, compared to what some people will pay, to be seen with the latest 'status symbol' smartphone.

Pincher

spud17 wrote: »

Line rental and unlimited broadband seems cheap to me, compared to what some people will pay, to be seen with the latest 'status symbol' smartphone.

I agree broadband is cheap, and I get much more value from it than my gym membership. I was of course being ironic about the expectation of freebies.

If you sign a long deal, you do get a "free" smartphone, though.