Living without a landline

ButtersUK

Yes, of course you're right. I was wrong in my assertion - I was simply thinking out loud that, as you rightly say, the old style landline/phone system, with its 50 volts supplied from the exchange, will be done away with - but not the physical copper pairs themselves. My error.

iniltous

If someone doesn’t want a phone service with an Openreach provider then they don’t have to , and it doesn’t have to be FTTP , but consumers on FTTC as well , historically broadband was an additional service to the phone , now it isn’t , anyone who has phone and broadband hasn’t had separate amounts on their bill for many years , if someone pays £30/month , it isn’t broken down into £20 line and £10 broadband, it’s just £30 for the service, it was never a true reflection of the individual costs anyway , most made line rental the majority of the cost ( even if it wasn’t ) so that the broadband element looked ( deceptively ) cheap.
Now it’s possible to have a broadband service without any telephony at all associated with it , so you don’t have a phone number , no incoming or outgoing calls are possible, including 999 calls , if this is what a consumer wants , with BT it’s £5 a month cheaper than the same broadband speed but with an inclusive phone service.

If someone wanted to use a traditional VoIP supplier over their standalone broadband, they could arrange that themselves, but the days of ‘free’ VoIP are gone , chances are a monthly fee would be charged , but the call rates may be better that using the broadband providers phone service 

ButtersUK

......historically broadband was an additional service to the phone , now it isn’t , anyone who has phone and broadband hasn’t had separate amounts on their bill for many years , if someone pays £30/month , it isn’t broken down into £20 line and £10 broadband, it’s just £30 for the service, it was never a true reflection of the individual costs anyway , most made line rental the majority of the cost ( even if it wasn’t ) so that the broadband element looked ( deceptively ) cheap............

You seem pretty sure about no-one having their bills being split into (a) broadband and (b) line rental, iniltous. Are you absolutely certain about that?  I acknowledge you've been extremely generous in offering your expertise to so very many questions and discussions relating to this sort of thing but  I'm uncertain how you can speak for everyone when it comes to how their bills are prepared.

I wouldn't have mentioned it but I just received my own  annual invoice(s) from IDNet so it's fresh in my mind - and for some seemingly odd reason the broadband service has it's own invoice (headed ADSL Unlimited) and amounts to £271.19p for the year ...... and the telephone service, (headed Standard Line Rental & Anytime Calls) unsurprisingly details the individual cost of the line rental and the cost of the telephone calls  [which, being almost entirely included in the plan, is a negligible figure but is nevertheless shown and the total for the telephone service is £183. 60p

Maybe it's the exception that proves the rule? 

hareng

"......historically broadband was an additional service to the phone , now it isn’t , anyone who has phone and broadband hasn’t had separate amounts on their bill for many years , if someone pays £30/month , it isn’t broken down into £20 line and £10 broadband, it’s just £30 for the service, it was never a true reflection of the individual costs anyway , most made line rental the majority of the cost ( even if it wasn’t ) so that the broadband element looked ( deceptively ) cheap............

You seem pretty sure about no-one having their bills being split into (a) broadband and (b) line rental, iniltous. Are you absolutely certain about that? "

I got away from BT on FTTC for 11 years 14 Feb never looked back. Just checked Januarys invoice its not broken down just gives a total cost plus any extras such as Sim card.

£39.96 Broadband Package
> Your regular charges are £39.96 see page 3 for details
£5.70 BT Mobile
> Your regular charges are £5.70

New FTTP provider Octaplus on Cityfibre network lists as £30 for 500meg, you read right and no extra charge for any phone.

iniltous

It was an Ofcom stipulation that the total fee for broadband had to be prominently displayed on adverts and bills , (at the time broadband couldn’t be bought without a line to host it ) , so to stop the unscrupulous ISP from advertising ‘£5 for broadband’ , then once the punter enquires finding out that the compulsory line rental on the deal was £25 , so the total was a unremarkable £30 , potentially leaving the consumer somewhat misled, typically ISP would ‘charge’ £20 /month LR , yet the wholesale cost ( what OR charge ) is £7/ month.
Can I speak to every single ISP and categorically state they don’t split the bill into two parts , no , but I can safely state that they have to prominently display the total cost  , making having it broken down into two parts pointless, yes I absolutely can.
There may be some customers that are legacy SMPF (shared metallic path facility) customers, where they had broadband and phone from a different company’s , they obviously have a separate line rental figure , but SMPF is now a rarity 
Perhaps you can provide an example of an ISP not charging a single fee for broadband, and advertising (and billing ) for broadband and line rental separately 

ButtersUK

Perhaps you can provide an example of an ISP not charging a single fee for broadband, and advertising (and billing ) for broadband and line rental separately 

Quite honestly I don't propose to spend time looking for one. I have no need to in order to prove my point because I've already told you my own invoice seperates the two ... something you said never happens.. All I was saying, and am happy to reiterate here, is that your assertion that ....anyone who has phone and broadband hasn’t had separate amounts on their bill for many years ... was, and is, wrong. But you're unlikely to agree with me and I wouldn't expect you to.

Earlier on in this very thread thread on here I made an incorrect statement and someone pointed out to me that I was wrong. I admitted I was wrong, why wouldn't I? It didn't hurt. Sometimes even the best informed of us are wrong.

iniltous

Currently it appears the only phone and broadband package available on IDnet is ADSL2+ and the fee asked for this product is not subdivided into two parts , line rental and broadband, but is a single fee of £36.60 (or £42.60 with anytime calls) , perhaps if someone took this package the bill produced would show an not advertised figure for line rental and a not advertised figure for broadband but collectively are £36.60 , or perhaps it wouldn’t show two amounts , but simply the same figure shown on the website 

ButtersUK

You're determined to be proved right aren't you?
For a start the figures you see don't show the free month that you get if you pay up front for the year. They don't show the flexibility shown to existing customers regarding increase in price. They don't show all old plans no longer available. So the website doesn't show everything. 
If you can't accept that I receive separate invoices for broadband and telephone then so be it. It won't keep me awake tonight. 

twopenny

I've hung onto my land line and my very old plug and play phone because they will work in a power cut. My newer cordless must have power.

Living rurally it's important. It's a worry that they said they would get rid of these as when small communities have been cut off and mobiles didn't work in the area the elderly mainly relied totally on them to call for help.

But yes, my company squashed my free phone time to weekends only which is impossible to use for any contact with businesses.

Also I had to have a new number on moving and it was someone in debt so collectors calling, friends worried about her along with a bunch of spam calls.

So a cheap mobile package works well.

iniltous

I absolutely accept that you as an individual receive separate invoices for line rental and broadband and even posted as such earlier,  I stated that I couldn’t categorically state no ISP invoices customer this way , subdividing the  bill into two amounts , one for LR and one for BB , but taking a single amount that equals both items on the invoice remains a somewhat pointless exercise if you cannot have one without the other.
I’d wager it is simply a legacy of an old , no longer current IDNet product, and either you were offered a more upto date equivalent package , but wanted to remain on this current package, or perhaps the ( relatively small ) ISP decided to simply maintain customers on a package they no longer sell.
Your experience in this is not particularly relevant to the majority of users , and  anyone  taking a broadband service today that requires a phone line to host it , which is no increasingly no longer necessary, then the ISP shouldn’t and almost certainly won’t be breaking down the monthly fee into two arbitrary figures.

If there are many consumers on historical packages  like this , then they may get a somewhat misleading idea of what the individual parts of the service costs , especially if their  ISP loads all the incidental costs , like bill production, customer service etc , onto the line rental side of the invoice to artificially make the broadband side look cheap.
Your ISP seems well regarded, and I’ve no idea if your ever did  this , but part of the reason for moving away from that style of billing was , with a typical bill of  a £30  it was often subdivided into £20 line rental and £10 broadband, when the wholesale sale cost of line rental was £7, and some naive enough concluded that getting rid of line rental , especially when they had a ‘line’ they didn’t want , would reduce the bill from £30 to £10.

Anyway , no doubt you will be pleased to know it’s my last comment on this , as you say , it’s not likely to keep anyone awake at night