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

Former_MSE_Faye

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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Browntoa

BT actually already do a basic package if you are on low income or receipt of certain benefits for £5.10


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 broadband


BT Basic + Broadband will cost £9.95 in total a month (which includes your BT Basic line rental).

boatman

Bt Basic doesn't help the vast majority of people who only have a landline and who are being ripped off by the telecom companies. Just a shame it has taken this long, and sadly it still has some time to go before the results of the consultion come in to effect.

A_Flock_Of_Sheep

Suspect BT line rental is a football tax for their TV service. Glad ofcom have stepped in

brewerdave

A_Flock_Of_Sheep wrote: »

Suspect BT line rental is a football tax for their TV service. Glad ofcom have stepped in

Personally I suspect that the cost of daytime calls is subsidising the footy! It's amazing how many people haven't got Anytime call packages and are paying literally hundreds of ££ for calls!
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:

poppasmurf_bewdley

Although I can understand Ofcom's reasoning with this, I would take issue with them NOT taking up the issue of customers being required to have a landline to have broadband. These people are not being helped one iota by these proposals.

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.

A_Flock_Of_Sheep

So is this for a line with no ADSL provision? Whereby you can choose whoever you want as an ISP.

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?

A_Flock_Of_Sheep

Hmm reading the article it seems to be a way of smashing the triple or quad play schemes so people can have separate contracts for broadband and TV.

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.

Ian011

BT line rental currently costs £18.99 per month and unlimited anytime calls costs £8.50 per month for a total of £27.49 per month.

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.

footyguy

A_Flock_Of_Sheep wrote: »

So is this for a line with no ADSL provision? Whereby you can choose whoever you want as an ISP.

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?

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

footyguy

Ian011 wrote: »

BT line rental currently costs £18.99 per month and unlimited anytime calls costs £8.50 per month for a total of £27.49 per month.

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.

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.