MSE News: Lack of home phone usage among under 65s fuels calls to end line rental cha

teddysmum

I'm amazed that MSE has brought up this old chestnut. Time and time again, the fact that getting non-mobile internet to the premises has to be paid for has been discussed.


You can't expect the people who do want to use their landline to pay for the rest to have free transmission.

giraffe69

Even if you never make a single call on your landline many still receive calls because, perhaps that is the number they used to give out so this change will mean not only a billing change but a culture change in,at least, the short term.

redux

I don't understand the argument.

A physical connection needs to be installed and maintained between house and network, and therefore paid for somehow, whether phone calls only or broadband only or calls and broadband are delivered along it.

Companies have tariff bundle options of line only, line plus inclusive calls, line and broadband, or all three together. That sounds ok to me. I really can't see the problem.

This house has line and broadband, and makes outgoing calls using VoIP, which I reckoned would be cheaper than an inclusive bundle for the expected level of use, and this has been correct.

Are you overpaying £330/yr on broadband, asks a recent MSE article.

No. Roughly £60 will be the total telecoms bill from this March to next March.

There are plenty of competitive offers. Don't feel obliged to stay when the minimum contract term is reached. Keep looking.

Ian011

The issue that people want to solve is ...

Adverts for broadband often say 'free for a year' or some other low price such as '£3 per month'.

When people go to sign up, they are then told they have to change their line provider and pay £18 per month line rental and choose a call plan.

They want to change the rules so that the advert says 'broadband and line rental for £21 per month', more reflecting the actual total price.

However, I still want to see a separate breakdown for line rental, call package, broadband and any other features or services.

Plus

Understand this: paying for a landline saves you money.

Sound backwards? Here's how it works:

If you have no landline phone service, you still have to pay for your line to be maintained. Broadband doesn't come for free, somebody still has to maintain the wires. Once you have a line, the actual cost of running a phone service over it additional to the broadband is pretty minimal (maybe a pound a month - the overheads are quite small).

If you have just broadband, the line maintenance will be rolled into the price of your broadband. No saving. The phone company has no other way of getting revenue out of you, so they won't cut you any slack in this pricing.

If you have phone service, you give the phone company the opportunity to make some extra revenue off that. The phone company would love it for you to make some calls at 10p/min. The phone company will thus reduce your line rental in the hope of getting the revenue back on calls - because people compare monthly costs but they don't tend to compare call prices.

So a canny MoneySaver will understand that, by having landline phone service, they entice the phone company into reducing their fixed costs in the hope of making it back on calls (on average over all their customers) - and then in your particular case they won't make it back on calls, because you don't make any.

edinburgher

VX5087 wrote: »

if you have broadband (not VM) then you won't see a difference

VM customer

JJ_Egan wrote: »

So why do you have a line ??
For broadband if so you have to pay the line note phone rental or use an alternative broadband source.

Because it was actually cheaper than broadband only!

JJ_Egan

edinburgher wrote: »

VM customer



Because it was actually cheaper than broadband only!

Yes line rental in some form is and will always be a fact .
Problem comes about from the mobile phone brigade who never use a phone via a landline .
Broadband has always been find a provider and pay them 1p per minute or whatever .
That service came down your BT line that you paid for . Then BT and other ISPs start up and eventually start offering all in one packages meanwhile the use of mobiles has grown .
Line Rental is taken by many to mean phone .Its not a phone line its a data line .
Thats not to say i would not prefer to see it packaged with broadband as an all in one price . Though that then makes complaints from those that have a line rental package and a broadband package with different providers .

davieg11

I'm moving from BT to Virgin. BT is going up to £18.99 for line rental. £26 for my fibre broadband. £8.50 for unlimited calls and £1.75 for caller display. £55.24 per month. I very rarely use phone for calls but with a 19p connection charge then your price per minute it's cheaper to have unlimited calls package. I will now be £30.25pm for 50 meg fibre with virgin. A £24.99pm saving or £300 per year saving.