cheapest home/broadband & line rental

aly

Can someone help me understand the deals on offer with talk/talk and tiscali all of them seem to suggest that the package includes line rental all for £17.50 to £22.50 p/m however I am with tiscali at the moment and pay £19.99 p/m for phone/broadband (pay extra for daytime calls) but I also pay approx £10.50p/m to bt for line rental so I am paying well over £30 for this package so is it right that talk/talk or tiscali can give me all this for a lot less?any advice on cheapest/best combined package would be aprreciated.

patwa_2

Hi,

I don't have the relevant pages for Tiscali in front of me at the moment, but basically here's how the system works:

EVERYONE pays line rental for the phone line. It doesn't matter if this is included in your monthly fee or a separate payment, but everyone will be paying something for line rental. If you have your line with Bt, it's BT that you'll be paying. If you have your line with another provider, e.g. TalkTalk, you pay your line rental to TalkTalk. It's a mandetory charge that everyone with a telephone line pays.

Now to the 'deals'. You can pay a further monthly subscription that gives you, for example, free calls 24/7, for cheaper ones that offer only free weekend calls. Many providers offer this, you would pay the provider for the free calls (monthly charge) and either BT or the provider (depending on who has your line) the line rental.

To take it a step further there are providers, such as Tiscali and TalkTalk who are offering the broadband for free as an incentive, so you pay only your line rental and your call package charge.

This is the case for TalkTalk. You pay them your £10.50 line rental, then the extra £9.99 or whatever for the Talk3 plan (your free calls) and the broadband is free. As you're already paying TalkTalk your line rental there is no separate charge.

Information for whatever package you're going with should tell you that you're also paying your line rental to the same company. Others will be offering deals but will say you're paying your line rental to Bt. either way, there is only one line rental, so your monthly charges, for example, for a package with free calls (monthly subscription) and free broadband should not exceed £30 and will fall within the £18-£23 bracket you mentioned.

H.

MarkyMarkD

If you are at the right sort of exchange, you can get everything from TalkTalk for the £17.50 figures you are talking about. You no longer have to pay BT anything.