Cancelling BT Broadband forces a new 12 month line rental?

andyca

I've just had a really weird conversation with BT on behalf of a friend. Here are the relevant details:

• Long time out of contract, she has been paying the standard rate for line rental and Infinity 1 for several years
• She no longer uses the broadband at all and does everything she needs to on her mobile phone.
• She decided to just cancel the broadband and try to lower the line rental as much as possible as she never uses that either. Emergencies only.
• I advised her to not cut off the phone completely as when I did this they charged me £130 to reconnect it!
• She will probably be moving out in a few months and doesn't want to be tied to a new contract.

BT said in order to cancel the broadband she would need to sign up for a new 12 month telephone contract, and couldn't just keep the line rental she has until she decides if it's needed or not.

Wasn't line rental and Broadband supposed to be completely separate to avoid such situations?
She was also told if she tried to switch broadband supplier it would automatically renew her line rental contract with BT!

I'm thinking this can't be right. Any advice?

mac.d

Usually when you make any changes to your service, it does start a new minimum contract term.

Change or Cancel BT Phone, TV or Broadband package

"If you want to change or reduce the number of services in your package, then you may need to start a new contract with a new minimum period for your new package."

As long as she doesn't go ahead with making any changes to her BT service, and is sure she's at the end of the minimum term she can move to another provider if she wishes, but will then start a new 12 or 18-month contract with the new provider.

If she is planning on moving soon, she might be as well just leaving things as they are so she can just cancel when she moves free of charge. She needs to work out how much she'll pay until she moves by just leaving things as they are, and how much line rental only + possible cancellation charges will cost her.

andyca

Thanks mac.d, it just really surprised me. I didn't think BT could force a renewal of the phone contract when changing the Broadband, I thought they were separate.

I'm now wondering if she switched Broadband and cancelled within the 14 day cooling off period or switched to Zen/SSE internet on a 1 month contract, could BT really enforce a 12 term on the line rental?

steveE2

If she switched Broadband and cancelled within the 14 day cooling off period the order would be cancelled and she would stay with BT.

I would transfer the phone first to someone like pulse8 or zen(monthly contracts)then cease the BT broadband,she will have to pay a cease fee to stop broadband around £30

andyca

Oh wow, so you think the BT broadband would resume if the new contract was cancelled?

All this is making me think the best solution is just to cancel completely.

She doesn't use either, it was only an "in case of emergency" situation and to prevent the ridiculous £130 connection charge.

Just looking at other switching options there is Freeola Silent Line Rental which seems to offer everything she needs for £9.98 on a 30 day contract. Anyone used them?

Edit: They do charge £11.99 a month to transfer from BT. But still you can transfer, have line rental for a year with emergency/freephone and incoming calling for less than the BT re-connection charge!

steveE2

The cooling off is from the time of order not activation,so by the time the bb is switched and activated the cooling off is over.
The freeola line rental looks good

iniltous

It may be that the current line and broadband were supplied as a bundle ( both on the same bill) and cannot be split , so what BT have in effect offered is to cease the broadband and line, but immediately reinstate the landline , this would appear as a 'new' line contract and start a new minimum term.

It's nonsense about moving broadband to another supplier would start a 'new' BT line contract, unless the new broadband provider wasn't also providing the line rental part of the connection, most broadband providers also want to supply the line rental element, in fact most providers wont offer you broadband unless you take both broadband and line rental from them.

Your friend is unusual in wanting to keep the phone and lose the broadband, it's normally people who want to keep broadband but not have to pay line rental

The answer seems quite straight forward, cancel line and broadband, and as she is going to rely on a mobile phone for 'internet' , rely on the same mobile for telephony

macman

You can't lower the line rental price just by using it less, and with BT it has always included a calls component.
Is this perhaps due to OFCOM requiring providers to bundle the line rental into the quoted price, so that cancelling the broadband also cancels the line rental, unless a new contract is taken?

Buzby

Anyone planning to cease BB without transferring to another provider will be charged to remove BB from the line - so bear this in mind.

andyca

Yeah i'm getting used to the random charges BT add... When I moved in to my house I had a dial tone on my line, a few days later when I went to sort out a phone line and broadband I didn't have one.

BT then charged me £130 for the privilege of reconnecting me, all I was trying to do in this thread was prevent her from having excessive charges imposed later on.

What should actually happen is BT should be compelled to charge a reasonable amount for line rental and services then we wouldn't be in this situation.

Thanks all for the replies, I think she will just cancel everything. She is planning to rent the place in a few months if all goes well, so the tenant will probably just have to pay that £130.

macman

The problem with that is BT's Universal Service obligation. The £130 charge is the same for a reconnection or an entirely new line provision, so the former subsidises the latter. If BT made a 'realistic' charge for each new provision, the cost would be vastly higher, in some cases amounting to several thousand pounds for properties with difficult or remote access.