MSE News: Clampdown on 'misleading' broadband ads as new rules come into force

teddysmum

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

I only keep a voice service on my landline phone for my parents to call. I could otherwise move the line from BT retail to my ISP, who provide line rental for broadband use only for £10/month (no voice service on the line). But with them it is optional, you don't have to take both so this rule on advertising is just silly, as are the people that wanted it.

Until last month my Sky line was only £8.70 with free broadband plus £8 for calls, but they wouldn't do a deal beyond free ADSL, so I moved to Plusnet and regret it as, even after day 11, my speed inwards is less than I was getting over wifi with Sky. (5.7 inwards compared to a regular 6-6.4 via wi fi))

littleboo

minislim wrote: »

what i mean is BT openreach being separated from BT. and thus not being able to siphon off moneys to fund their extravagant spending.

its funny. on the run up to brexit i noticed that BT had jumped on the remain band wagon. putting stickers on all their exchange boxes along the highstreets. Those stickers read that "high speed fibre broadband was in the area" and "that it had been funded by the EU".

if thats so, why are line rental changes still going up and up if the infrastructure is being funded by the EU. which ultimately means we're paying for it twice.

it just highlighted to how much the EU had gotten out of control. and how BT had been taking the Mick out of us all!

You are misinformed. BT's wholesale line rental price is not going up, it goes down year on year. It's currently around £8 to the ISP
WRT the stickers, I would imagine that is an EU requirement in the very few areas (Cornwall as far as I know) that have received EU money. This money is to build the network where it would otherwise not be commercially viable. In the same way you don't see Tesco's building supermarkets where they wont make a profit. As part of BDUK funding, if take up exceeds 20%, BT pays money back. £129 million was paid back last year.

Brand

Brand wrote: »

That looks to be what has happened, that a company will now offer only termly contracts, with terms of 12 month and, 18 month and so in effect everyone is on LRS with a harmonised broadband contract, and there could be two rates according to whether you pay upfront or pay monthly.. This means a comparison between companies for a given length of contract and a given method of payment might be quite easy.
Who knows, 6-month introductory rates to a 12/18 month term contract might disappear, and month-to month rates might also disappear, but a month-to-month rate or daily rate might be retained somewhere in the small print to handle transitions between contracts, or to strapline as e.g. "20% cheaper than the normal month-to-month rate" (even though a month-to-month rate might not actually be available(!).

I am a bit wrong on my first sentence. It looks to me that LRS is still available, but companies aren't allowed to headline the price showing the price using LRS, but can only headline the price with normal monthly line charge.
To see the price of the broadband, what you have to do, I think, is ignore the headline price on the websites, start an order as if a brand new customer, (inserting the postcode of a neighbour and click that you don't already have a phone line. An option page then appears, with LRS appears as an option. The price of the broadband, i.e. what the companies previously could show as a headline, is then shown separately.
In other words, the change is an advertisement price consolidation, not a contract price consolidation.
Whichever consumer organisation suggested this consolidation to the ASA as more transparent I think should get a ticking off.

teddysmum

Brand wrote: »

I am a bit wrong on my first sentence. It looks to me that LRS is still available, but companies aren't allowed to headline the price showing the price using LRS, but can only headline the price with normal monthly line charge.
To see the price of the broadband, what you have to do, I think, is ignore the headline price on the websites, start an order as if a brand new customer, (inserting the postcode of a neighbour and click that you don't already have a phone line. An option page then appears, with LRS appears as an option. The price of the broadband, i.e. what the companies previously could show as a headline, is then shown separately.
In other words, the change is an advertisement price consolidation, not a contract price consolidation.
Whichever consumer organisation suggested this consolidation to the ASA as more transparent I think should get a ticking off.

Just subtract the cost of line rental from the total price; simple, but they have used this legislation to increase prices by £5/month in some cases, so far more than the usual £1/month increase on line rental.

luckwudaveit

I'm not impressed with these changes. The LRS price is much harder to find on the various websites. I much preferred the old system.

Brand

teddysmum wrote: »

Just subtract the cost of line rental from the total price; simple, but they have used this legislation to increase prices by £5/month in some cases, so far more than the usual £1/month increase on line rental.

Yes, though my point was that without starting an order, you cannot see the price of the pay-monthly line rental either; all you see now is the pay-monthly price of the line+broadband.
With plusnet 12 month contract, this price used to be around £16 per month and is now £25 per month.
The change in the advertisement rules has simply given an excuse to raise prices.

Brand

A table for 18 month contracts and a table for 12 month contracts would be useful,
and to show also the promotional pricing
and, in particular, the pricing with LRS.
i.e better versions of this table http://www.postoffice.co.uk/broadband-mobile/premium-unlimited-broadband

Because a moneysaver person would usually buy LRSThat would be the real world, not the pretend world of someone who is oblivious to line rental and who pays the month-by-month rate.

teddysmum

Brand wrote: »

A table for 18 month contracts and a table for 12 month contracts would be useful,
and to show also the promotional pricing
and, in particular, the pricing with LRS.
i.e better versions of this table http://www.postoffice.co.uk/broadband-mobile/premium-unlimited-broadband

Because a moneysaver person would usually buy LRSThat would be the real world, not the pretend world of someone who is oblivious to line rental and who pays the month-by-month rate.

Some providers no longer offer saver. I'd prefer the old system, without the sneaky addition of £5 under the guise of being more open.

Ian011

Ofcom has recently started a consultation on landline line-rental and other charges.

It is open to responses for a few more weeks.

teddysmum

Ian011 wrote: »

Ofcom has recently started a consultation on landline line-rental and other charges.

It is open to responses for a few more weeks.

So we'll get something like 'line rental only £22 with free calls if you don't make any'. ie an increased charge for exactly the same service .