Landline only

J_B

iniltous said:

 I think what was being implied is that £26.50 for telephony isn’t particularly good as another BT customer gets phone , calls and upper tier FTTC (80/20) broadband for a similar price.

Sorry - my bad - we pay £22.25 for line and calls and £3.54 for 1571 voicemail = 25.79

iniltous

Obviously £3.54 for 1571 may be worth it for voicemail to some, but quite a while ago ( when 1571 became a chargeable service ) I bought a cordless BT phone with built in answer machine , the voice sample is the same person who provides the exchange based 1571 announcements, so it sounds similar, obviously there is less functionality, but a year paying for 1571 more than covered  the cost of purchasing it.

alco_pop

I'm in a similar situation, looking for a landline only with calls included for my mum. Currently I have her on NowTv as it was £25 a month with broadband, which has never been used. I couldn't see anything cheaper at the time. That deal is about to end. Whilst a mobile contract would probably be cheaper I have never been able to get her to use a mobile phone.

JJ_Egan

Check out BT Basic etc .

alco_pop

JJ_Egan said:

Check out BT Basic etc .

Thanks, but don't you have to be on benefits for that?

molerat

Home Phone Saver 2020 is the cheapest open to all BT tariff at £21.99 pm calls included. https://www.bt.com/help/landline/learn-about-home-phone-saver-2020

alco_pop

molerat said:

Home Phone Saver 2020 is the cheapest open to all BT tariff at £21.99 pm calls included. https://www.bt.com/help/landline/learn-about-home-phone-saver-2020

Shame that it's nearly as much as offers on phone and broadband. 

MKB

I am another wanting to transfer my landline-only package from The Post Office to a cheaper provider.  (I want to retain a landline since it has proved to be more reliable and better quality than mobile or internet calling over the past few years, and has even worked during a power cut.  I regard it as a sensible back-up device until the impending shut-down of the copper network happens.)

What I hadn't appreciated until now was that Open Reach makes a one-off charge of £47.50 for assigning the line from one non-BT provider to another.  I'm even more surprised to learn that this involves a visit to the local cabinet to make a physical change, and isn't merely someone updating computer records.  For switching to BT, the fee was even higher.

The cheapest providers (e.g. www.simpletelecoms.co.uk) pass on this charge as a non-refundable upfront fee that wipes out any monthly savings for the first two years.  Other providers (e.g. www.directsavetelecom.co.uk) are only competitive when pre-paying for a full year upfront.  In both cases, it seems that your rights to cancel during the 14-day cooling-off period may not cover these "non-refundable" fees.

I have recollection of Ofcom, in the past, pushing the portability of home phone numbers to ensure a fair and competitive market place.  Clearly the cost of re-assigning phone numbers has to be funded somehow, but Ofcom could have mandated that this be by a general levy on the domestic phone market.  By permitting Open Reach to charge as they do, this effectively operates as a barrier to competition: a high switching cost is always going to wipe out any potential savings from a cheaper provider.  It also means there are no incentives for the industry to make the switching process more efficient and less costly.

Does anyone know of any other landline-only providers out there who offer a good deal, even when factoring in any upfront costs?

The Post Office won't offer me any meaningful retention deal, and the impression I formed is that they only do this once they have received the request to switch from the new provider.  Anyone any experience of this happening, and any success in then getting a refund of the upfront costs from the new provider?

I also explored the option of adding the landline on to my broadband-only package with Virgin, and was surprised that the increment was no cheaper than what I currently pay to The Post Office.