Cheapest Home Phones Discussion

Dinahmyte

Heinz wrote: »

I wish you'd come here first Dinahmyte

I'm sure we could've saved you a lot of money.

Whatever you do, don't use Sky Talk for non-Sky 0845/0870 calls from 15-4-08.

ThanQ for your reply. Yes, I know I spent much more than I needed; actually the advice about landline phones started after I'd asked BT to re-activate the line and it was my fault I missed the note about the penalty charge. But I'm still pleased with the end result.
But can you unpack what you said about not using Sky Talk for non-Sky 0845/0870 calls from 15-4-08. What are these calls and what is happening on 15 April?

Heinz

Dinahmyte wrote: »

But can you unpack what you said about not using Sky Talk for non-Sky 0845/0870 calls from 15-4-08. What are these calls and what is happening on 15 April?

I'm surprised you've not received Sky's letter yet.

Some dramatic price hikes are coming for those on Sky Talk calling non-Sky 0845/0870 numbers.

See HERE.

bzd

Hi,

I just signed up (well, spoke up) on the phone to the Primus Saver 2 with penny mobile 2. I've been a pretty basic BT user since forever and only changed over to BT Together Option 1 when they forced me to, and was shocked at the price changes they slip through in the small print (and the 6p connection fee? WTC is that all about???). I don't want to sign up to BT for 12 months so the Primus Saver 2 is ideal.

Anyway, whilst signing up, the guy at the end was trying to get me to pay line rental (at £10.49 a month) through Primus. I was a bit wary about this (I only pay BT £10.50 a month) in case it had implications on BB provider et c., so I was most insistent I wanted to continue to pay BT line rental. He said it wouldn't matter but was happy to let me carry on anyway!

Does anyone know anything about the Primus line rental and how that works?

Cheers,

Ben

Heinz

AFAIK, Primus don't do LLU line rental but just re-sell the BT WLR product.

IMHO, you've done the right thing because, although it may not be the case yet with Primus, handing over your line rental to any other company allows them to bar access to the likes of 1899 and 18185 and, like Sky has just done (see the post above), suddenly hike prices for particular calls like 0845 and 0870. The 'fallback access' to BT via 1280 is a real bonus if/when that happens.

In addition, you can choose from any of the ADSL broadband ISPs if you have a BT line. That may not be the case if you rent from another company.

balloo_2

Heinz wrote: »

Welcome to the MSE forums Ronalto.

I just checked what it would cost me (just out of interest, there's no way they're getting my custom).

My exchange isn't LLU'd so:

Landline rental -

---

£10.50
Up to 8Mb broadband -- £15.00
Talk 3 International - £ 9.99

---

£35.49

Even without the £29.99 'activation fee', I can beat those prices with BT, Primus Saver Option 2 and 18185.

Is it not a low download limit with BT tho and a high price thereafter??? my brothers bt's last bill was £85 and he does not phone much. feel free to correct me if you think i am wrong.

balloo_2

rissott wrote: »

I signed up to TalkTalk when the offer first came out. According to the papers at the time they were overloaded.

It was quite an experience - phone stopped working, they made a mess of my DD. They sent threatening letters out where they were going to call in a collection company - due to their mess up of the DD.

The Customer Services took about 1 hour to get through to, then they transfer you to another area (without asking) and back on hold for an hour.
This happened a number of times, sometimes being disconnected sometimes being routed back to the original number.
They asked for the MAC code, the transfer code from previous internet company, which was provided and confirmation recieved, then they lost the MAC code - I had to request another which can only be provided after the first expires (30 days). Requested the second but then they took so long the second expired before the transfer happened.

Internet never came through after months of waiting - during this time I was paying for the Phone plus I had to keep paying my existing broadband connection while I waited for the transfer. - This was very very very expensive.

Gave up in the end - and cancelled the contract - for which they even tried to charge me a cancellation fee.

Documented and highlighted all the problems, but never even recieved an apology.

Do not have an experience of the actual internet service but have heard its not upto much.


TalkTalk - ended up costing me more, wasted time on calls to CS, chasing up MAC codes (days rather than hours), grief and no idea if it had an affect on my credit rating.

TalkTalk = buyer beware.

Simular thing happened to me with talk talk cancelled in june took until september to actually transfer to another ISP then they billed me from the end of september (when i was not with them anymore) to end of october and threatened me with ccj. never ever go to talk talk again even if u paid me :mad:

Bobrobin_2

TalkTalk - ended up costing me more, wasted time on calls to CS, chasing up MAC codes (days rather than hours), grief and no idea if it had an affect on my credit rating.

TalkTalk = buyer beware.

balloo wrote: »

Simular thing happened to me with talk talk cancelled in june took until september to actually transfer to another ISP then they billed me from the end of september (when i was not with them anymore) to end of october and threatened me with ccj. never ever go to talk talk again even if u paid me :mad:

The times I've heard this story by many others. Do Offcom really do anything for us?

tawhilltony

pete99 wrote: »

Has anyone had any experience of SKY for phones or broadband.
If you pay BT rental of £10.50, SKY gives you free evening and weekend calls and free broadband up to 2Mb.
If you want free all week calls + free international, SKY charges £5.
To me that add up to £15.50 for ALL local and national and international calls and includes free broadband.
Thats cheaper than Talk Talk, of am I missing something. (I know you need SKY TV to qualify, but most people have that already).

Its fantastic i even reached 4mb during the day on this package

umami

Thanks bzd, I have only just noticed that BT is now charging 6p for every call when I used the 1280 to hop back thinking I would save money.Grr!
I am still with talk/talk/onetel and they at least warned me about the 6p connection charge.

Tony10

Hello
We have just signed up for the Tiscali phone and broadband package Option 1 at £14.99 per month with free evening and weekend calls. Can we set up specialist cheap call providers such as Primus or are we prevented from doing this?

Many thanks for your help.

Tony