BT landline-only customers could save £5 a month due to Ofcom price cut

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in Phones & TV
The telecoms regulator may step in to protect elderly and vulnerable customers from line rental price hikes...
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'BT landline-only customers could save £5 a month due to Ofcom price cut'

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'BT landline-only customers could save £5 a month due to Ofcom price cut'

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http://btplc.com/inclusion/ProductsAndServices/BTBasic/index.htm
How much does it cost?
Subject to the benefits being confirmed by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
- Low monthly line rental of £5.10 that comes with a call allowance of £1.50. You also get free weekend calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers (up to 60 minutes).
- Monthly ‘Price Cap’ of £10 for calls starting 01, 02, 03 and UK mobiles starting 07 and to 08 numbers. Which means, after you have used your £1.50 call allowance, you pay a maximum of £10 a month for calls to the above numbers
you can also add broadbandBT Basic + Broadband will cost £9.95 in total a month (which includes your BT Basic line rental).
I've got my late mother's bills and a couple of years ago,she was paying upwards of £150 per quarter for rental and calls:eek:
All the arguments for reducing the cost of a single line without broadband also hold good for a single line with broadband. Even more so, in fact, as BT make even more money with the latter.
Once again, Ofcom have avoided the main issue and produced a fudge.
Also why is it just BT being forced to charge less. Why not Sky, Virgin etc?
What's to stop someone having cheaper BT line rental and the Virgin only Broadband with no virgin voice line?
Hopefully it will make having a landline then an ISP service with a smaller ISP more viable and stop market domination. Smaller ISPs are often seen expensive but offer quality customer support with British based call centres with experts. AAISP is one such example.
BT already offers "Home Phone Saver" including line rental and unlimited anytime calls, costing £21.99 per month, so what exactly is new here?
The real issue is not the line rental. It's all the people with a "weekend" or "evening and weekend" call plan making expensive calls (19p per call plus 11p per minute) during the week and spending more than if they has signed up for an "anytime" deal.
Additionally, BT is now just about the only landline provider to NOT offer inclusive calls to mobile numbers. Given the reductions in mobile termination rates in the last few years, there is now no excuse for this.
The issue seems to be now, where can you get broadband over a phone line at a reasonable price, unless you have calls with that provider too?
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/cheap-broadband
Virgin stopped their broadband service over a BT line sometime ago (sold it to Talktalk). I don't think Talktalk allow it to new customers (i.e. without also taking their telephone package too), only to the customers they acquired from Virgin
I thought us MSE'ers (who are not gassing non-stop all day on the phone) use an alternative call provider e.g. Finarea SA for calls.
Even so, I do begrudge paying £18.99 per month, just to have access to broadband for which I have to pay additionally for.
Actually I get 10% off that line rental by paying 12 months in advance, but the price is still shocking.