why do you have to pay line rental?

spaceboy

Why do you always have to pay line rental even if you dont want to use a landline?

jaybeetoo

You are using the landline - for your broadband.

spaceboy

jaybeetoo wrote: »

You are using the landline - for your broadband.

So why does it cost so much?

onomatopoeia99

This should be a sticky / FAQ as it gets asked so much.

The wholesale line rental cost is set by OFCOM at about £9/month (don't know if that includes VAT or not and it's not a completely up to date figure) which reflects the cost of maintaining the network to which your line is connected so the signal, including the broadband signal, can traverse it.

At the moment the wholesale cost is attached to rental for voice telephony services because that's the way the market was structured when it was created. I can't find the link, but I believe OFCOM is consulting on splitting this out so you can have a "broadband only" line and have the line rental go on that. Expect your broadband cost to go up by about £12/month if that happens. So you could save a couple of quid a month in that case.

spaceboy

Who maintains the network? Openreach?

Also it seems we can only get between 1.5 and 3Mb speed on our line, which is far short of "up to 17Mb". So why do we have to pay the same rate for line rantal?

onomatopoeia99

Yes, Openreach do maintenance, new installs etc.

Buzby

Because the data on a voice line is deemed suitable for Group 3 fax at 9600 using analogue modems. xDSL is a kludge to try and squirt data at a faster rate - but this of course is all shared with your neighbours. None of this affects the minimum speed the native voice line so your line rental is based on that. BB down a phone line is a compromise - and won't improve much even with the mis-named 'fibre' services. You don't get any fibre - it just gets a little closer to you.

The 'up to' is there for a reason - don't expect to get any more, but you will get less. Until they change this to a minimum, nothing will change.

spaceboy

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

Yes, Openreach do maintenance, new installs etc.

So I guess with no competition they have an easy ride.

spaceboy

Buzby wrote: »

Because the data on a voice line is deemed suitable for Group 3 fax at 9600 using analogue modems. xDSL is a kludge to try and squirt data at a faster rate - but this of course is all shared with your neighbours. None of this affects the minimum speed the native voice line so your line rental is based on that. BB down a phone line is a compromise - and won't improve much even with the mis-named 'fibre' services. You don't get any fibre - it just gets a little closer to you.

Well apparently with "fibre" we would get 34Mb which is about 10 times faster. I'm trying to weigh up whether to go for Plusnet fibre or not.

Fibre broadband

Download speed
34Mb


Broadband

Download speed
3Mb


Broadband: Download speed could vary between 1.5Mb and 5Mb.

Buzby

spaceboy wrote: »

So I guess with no competition they have an easy ride.

Go to Kingston (Hull) or Virgin. The competition is there - you just need to be in the right area.

Buzby

spaceboy wrote: »

Well apparently with "fibre" we would get 34Mb which is about 10 times faster.

Er, no. You would get 'up to'. You're falling into the same trap. I'm on Virgin and they offer 152Mb. Yes, this it 'up to' as well, but on average I'm happy with 130Mb outwith peak times.