Has anyone removed their landline on BT

apb123

I am coming to the annual shenanigans with BT's line rental saver. I have a joint Broadband Mobile deal with 5 mobiles with BT. I notice that they are offering a landline free option and are actually planning of turning off landlines in 2025. (yippee... I have been asking for this for years).

The BT website is quite confusing, I may have to phone which I hate doing. Has anyone removed the landline option on their broadband with BT. Did it go smoothly ? Is it much cheaper?

JJ_Egan

Turning off in 2025 is  moving calling to Internet provided .

Suggest you ask the question on your BT Members community forum .

southsidergs

apb123 said:

Is it much cheaper?

The line rental also covers the rental of the line to deliver the broadband so you'll be in for a shock if you think taking the ability to make calls away will save loads of money, I believe there's actually an extra charge now (£5 if you look at the website) to leave the line open to make/receive calls but the standard pricing isn't reduced any

iniltous

AFAIK, with FTTP you can have a no phone service ( no dialtone  provided, no incoming or outgoing calls possible) broadband only service , referring to it as ‘no line rental’ is ( IMHO) misleading, there is still a ‘line’ , so (obviously) there is rental to pay, calling it no line rental may get  the naive thinking there is going to be £20 off because ‘line rental’ is around £20 on telephony only plans, the saving is a few £’s, but probably not  available on broadband that uses a copper pair line,(ADSL or VDSL)  with those you probably cannot get this type of ‘no line rental’ as the copper pair is required , not least to enable the line to be tested.

poppasmurf_bewdley

I was tempted to remove my landline, but noticed there was no financial reduction from BT for doing so.  I fail to see why I should reduce BT's costs when they won't reduce mine.

So I've literally just pulled the plug on my landline, and I'll let BT continue to maintain it despite it not being in use. 

wongataa

poppasmurf_bewdley said:

I was tempted to remove my landline, but noticed there was no financial reduction from BT for doing so.  I fail to see why I should reduce BT's costs when they won't reduce mine.

So I've literally just pulled the plug on my landline, and I'll let BT continue to maintain it despite it not being in use. 

If your internet access comes over the phone line then your line is in use.  That is why there is no cost reduction for not using phone services.  Landlines are not just used for voice calls.

JenB79

poppasmurf_bewdley said:

I was tempted to remove my landline, but noticed there was no financial reduction from BT for doing so.  I fail to see why I should reduce BT's costs when they won't reduce mine.

So I've literally just pulled the plug on my landline, and I'll let BT continue to maintain it despite it not being in use. 

You are not reducing BT's costs, because a large chunk of 'line rental' is hidden in the costs irrespective of whether you take out a voice service or not. Contrary to popular opinion, line rental costs are also used to maintain broadband lines, whether copper or pure fibre. For example, if your line was cut during construction works or an O/H pole fell down during a storm, you wouldn't expect BT/Openreach to charge you separately for the repairs would you?

neilmcl

poppasmurf_bewdley said:

I was tempted to remove my landline, but noticed there was no financial reduction from BT for doing so.  I fail to see why I should reduce BT's costs when they won't reduce mine.

So I've literally just pulled the plug on my landline, and I'll let BT continue to maintain it despite it not being in use. 

As mentioned, line rental is for maintaining the whole infrastructure provided by BT/OR not just providing you with a working telephone line. Until you're completely off the Openreach network why should they not charge you (well your ISP) a rental fee for it's use.

iniltous

poppasmurf_bewdley said:

I was tempted to remove my landline, but noticed there was no financial reduction from BT for doing so.  I fail to see why I should reduce BT's costs when they won't reduce mine.

So I've literally just pulled the plug on my landline, and I'll let BT continue to maintain it despite it not being in use. 

Im not sure what you mean when you say you have ‘pulled the plug on your landline’, if you no longer use the Openreach line, ( it’s not BT ) by using an operator that doesn’t use OR , or gone mobile only, then no one is maintaining it as such, it could go faulty and no one would be the slightest bit interested , in fact there would be no mechanism for you to report it as faulty, unless part of some larger issue , if you mean you no longer use telephony but still use broadband delivered over it , then obviously it’s still ‘in use’ and obviously OR will maintain it.
It does seem entrenched with some people , that ‘line rental’ is purely a telephony expense, and if they have no telephony service then it follows that there should be no charge for line rental, but that is ridiculous , the ‘line’ is delivering a service , ( wether that’s phone, broadband, or both ) and needs to be paid for, there could be an argument made that if a line used to have the option to make and receive calls , is by choice , disconnected from the telephony side , then the line rental should decrease as it’s now got less functionality, and that does seem to be the case with OR FTTP , in that the no phone service option can be a little bit cheaper.

poppasmurf_bewdley

Interesting comments above to my remarks.

When I say 'pulled the plug on my landline, I literally mean just that.  I have disconnected the phone physically so I does not work.  It cannot make or receive calls.  I did this because I have unlimited mobile calls, and most of the calls received on the landline were either sales calls, accident claims lines, or telling me my internet service was about to be disconnected. 

When I comment on BT not reducing the cost for removing the landline facility, BT have a module for each landline number in their telephone exchanges throughout the country. Mine is just down the road from me.  It costs BT to maintain these modules, and they save money if no landline is connected.

BT are still trying to palm off their phones on me with their regular emails.  It doesn't seem to have dawned on them I haven't made or received a single call on my landline in more than a year! I have a smile on my face when I imagine BT warehouses stuffed full of these phones they cannot seem to sell.

And am I alone in thinking BT have a bloody cheek trying to sell me phones that they claim will reduce all these spam calls when they themselves should be doing that, not expecting customers to have to pay for the privilege of doing it themselves?

neilmcl

poppasmurf_bewdley said:

Interesting comments above to my remarks.

When I say 'pulled the plug on my landline, I literally mean just that.  I have disconnected the phone physically so I does not work.  It cannot make or receive calls.  I did this because I have unlimited mobile calls, and most of the calls received on the landline were either sales calls, accident claims lines, or telling me my internet service was about to be disconnected. 

When I comment on BT not reducing the cost for removing the landline facility, BT have a module for each landline number in their telephone exchanges throughout the country. Mine is just down the road from me.  It costs BT to maintain these modules, and they save money if no landline is connected.

BT are still trying to palm off their phones on me with their regular emails.  It doesn't seem to have dawned on them I haven't made or received a single call on my landline in more than a year! I have a smile on my face when I imagine BT warehouses stuffed full of these phones they cannot seem to sell.

And am I alone in thinking BT have a bloody cheek trying to sell me phones that they claim will reduce all these spam calls when they themselves should be doing that, not expecting customers to have to pay for the privilege of doing it themselves?

That really isn't how it works. You removing your telephone from it's socket does nothing in terms of any cost savings for them.