New landline customer Help please!

carlw

Hi

Sorry if this post seems to ask silly questions but I have had no personal experience with landlines until now.

My situation is as follows: I moved into my house in December and have managed without a landline or broadband until now. i know the people that owed the house before us had a landline and there is a phone socket in the house.

I have been looking around and have decided that the best deal that is most suitable for me is talk talk, however as i do not currently have an active line i am not exactly sure what i have to do. I phoned talk talk who said that i need a phone number in order to sign up, so i then phoned BT who wouldn’t give me a number unless i signed up, firstly they said the previous line wasn’t with them, but they said they checked it and they could connect it free of charge, which would then lock me into a 12 month contract with them.

Can anyone advise me on what i actually have to do please??

Many thanks

Carl

Heinz

carlw wrote: »

My situation is as follows: I moved into my house in December and have managed without a landline or broadband until now. i know the people that owed the house before us had a landline and there is a phone socket in the house.

........ so i then phoned BT who wouldn’t give me a number unless i signed up, firstly they said the previous line wasn’t with them, but they said they checked it and they could connect it free of charge, which would then lock me into a 12 month contract with them.

Grab that offer with both hands!

Yes, you'll be tied in to a 12 month contract for line rental with BT but that won't stop you routing your calls via cheaper providers and neither will it stop you choosing whichever ADSL broadband provider you want.

As you'll see if you click the 'HERE' link in my signature below, there are ways of reducing voice telephony costs to a minimum without risking Talk Talk.

Farway

Agree, grab it quick

Whoever you go with will want to lock you in for 12 months or more so the BT offer is good and as stated you then get your own choice of BB / call provider etc

BritBrat

Make sure you take option 1 or at least look very closely on what the other options are and what suits you the best.

Heinz advice is based on BT option 1.

carlw

Much thanks for all the advice, although

Would it not be cheapest to go with talk talk rather than BT, as i could get unlimited national & international calls for 5.89 and broadband for free plus line rental for 10.50. Which is a total of £16.39 all inclusive.

Where as the BT package would be £11 for line rental, and i would have to pay additionally for broadband and calls (unless I routed calls through cheaper providers, which sounds quite complicated)

Am I understanding this all correctly? Or would BT be a cheaper better deal, im not worried about being tied into a contract, more what the best option for me is and how I go about signing up without currently having a number

Heinz

carlw wrote: »

Would it not be cheapest to go with talk talk rather than BT, as i could get unlimited national & international calls for 5.89 and broadband for free plus line rental for 10.50. Which is a total of £16.39 all inclusive.

Where as the BT package would be £11 for line rental, and i would have to pay additionally for broadband and calls (unless I routed calls through cheaper providers, which sounds quite complicated)

Am I understanding this all correctly? Or would BT be a cheaper better deal, im not worried about being tied into a contract, more what the best option for me is and how I go about signing up without currently having a number

Yes, if you can get it, Talk Talk would undoubtedly be cheaper.

Whether it works to your satisfaction or not may be another matter - but it's cheap, right?

I think you have overlooked that Talk Talk told you they didn't want to know unless you had a BT landline (it's not a number they want, it's a working BT landline - so they don't have to pay Openreach to get it working). It's called cherry picking, I believe.

You've also overlooked the fact that, if you 'grab the BT offer of free connection with both hands' as suggested, you'll then be tied to them for 12 months unless you pay £70 to get out of the contract (Talk Talk will not reimburse you).

As my wife says to me each time she hand me a credit card receipt, "If you want quality, you have to pay for it."

BritBrat

As my wife says to me each time she hand me a credit card receipt, "If you want quality, you have to pay for it."

I hope you tell her thats why you married her.

Sorry could not resist.

telephone_man

Take the BT offer and if you are going to use your landline in the evening/weekend then they have an offer of free eve/wend landline calls for £1.45/month on top of the line rental.

Bufflowbill

telephone_man wrote: »

Take the BT offer and if you are going to use your landline in the evening/weekend then they have an offer of free eve/wend landline calls for £1.45/month on top of the line rental.

Why pay for your Evening and Weekend calls when you can get them TRULY FREE !!! from Primus Saver 2.

See: http://www.planet-talk.co.uk/SaverProducts.aspx?source=saver

telephone_man

Bufflowbill wrote: »

Why pay for your Evening and Weekend calls when you can get them TRULY FREE !!! from Primus Saver 2.

See: http://www.planet-talk.co.uk/SaverProducts.aspx?source=saver

I agree but if you have services such as BT Answer 1571 and Caller Display that are currently free with BT and choose to route your calls through another service provider then you will find that these services become chargable so you wont be any better off.
Non Direct Debit is £5/month with Planet Talk.

Heinz

telephone_man wrote: »

I agree but if you have services such as BT Answer 1571 and Caller Display that are currently free with BT and choose to route your calls through another service provider then you will find that these services become chargable so you wont be any better off.

That's a bit of an overstatement IMHO because you can get 1571 (spit) and Caller Display 'almost free' from BT by making 6 chargeable calls per quarter (2 per month if you're billed monthly) using the 1280 prefix.

From 1/8/07, the cheapest way to do that will be to make those calls evening or weekend UK 01/02 calls of less than an hour (4½p each). Hence, BT line rental with 'free' 1571 (spit) and Caller Display would cost £10.59/month.