BT Digital Voice and line rental

arjar

My line rental contract expires soon.  I have BT Digital Voice.  Can I now simply abandon/cancel the line rental contract and continue to use the digital voice service using Broadband?  Is there any obvious downside to this?  Thanks in advance.

littleboo

What do you mean by "line rental"? You should have a charge for broadband and a charge for Digital Voice. 

iniltous

It’s not clear ( to me at least ) what you mean ,  your contract doesn’t expire, the minimum term may expire, but the contract doesn’t , if you have BT Digital Voice you must also have BT Broadband , and you don’t pay separate line rental with BT broadband, the monthly fee you pay for BT Broadband has included ‘line rental ‘ for many years …you can’t ‘cancel’ line rental separately from broadband, if you cancel your payment (for broadband) obviously you will have no service at all , broadband or phone , your bill isn’t broken down into two parts , line rental and broadband, it’s just a single amount for service.

A phone service ( BT DV ) is not necessary with  BT broadband , BT Broadband can be a standalone product ( no phone number , no incoming or outgoing calls ,even 999 calls ) , but what you seem to want is to not pay line rental but and continue to use the phone service.

Because you don’t pay line rental separately with BT broadband, how can you stop paying for it , ( when you don’t really pay line rental anyway , it’s included with the broadband fee ) but keep the broadband ?  If your bill is ( as an example) £30 , it’s not LR £20+BB £10 , it’s just £30 for broadband, you cannot separate out the ‘line rental’ portion because it’s not separate in the first place , you cannot assume that if line rental for a BT phone only service is £22 , then that means your bill is really £22 LR and £8 BB , it’s not like that , your bill isn’t in two parts, just one.

…..if you question was can I stop paying for the phone and keep broadband, the answer is yes , doing that saves £2-£5 depending on what BT charge you for DV , but you cannot keep DV and expect the price you pay for broadband to be reduced.

EssexExile

iniltous said:

It’s not clear ( to me at least ) what you mean ,  your contract doesn’t expire, the minimum term may expire, but the contract doesn’t , if you have BT Digital Voice you must also have BT Broadband , and you don’t pay separate line rental with BT broadband, the monthly fee you pay for BT Broadband has included ‘line rental ‘ for many years …you can’t ‘cancel’ line rental separately from broadband, if you cancel your payment (for broadband) obviously you will have no service at all , broadband or phone , your bill isn’t broken down into two parts , line rental and broadband, it’s just a single amount for service.

A phone service ( BT DV ) is not necessary with  BT broadband , BT Broadband can be a standalone product ( no phone number , no incoming or outgoing calls ,even 999 calls ) , but what you seem to want is to not pay line rental but and continue to use the phone service.

Because you don’t pay line rental separately with BT broadband, how can you stop paying for it , ( when you don’t really pay line rental anyway , it’s included with the broadband fee ) but keep the broadband ?  If your bill is ( as an example) £30 , it’s not LR £20+BB £10 , it’s just £30 for broadband, you cannot separate out the ‘line rental’ portion because it’s not separate in the first place , you cannot assume that if line rental for a BT phone only service is £22 , then that means your bill is really £22 LR and £8 BB , it’s not like that , your bill isn’t in two parts, just one.

…..if you question was can I stop paying for the phone and keep broadband, the answer is yes , doing that saves £2-£5 depending on what BT charge you for DV , but you cannot keep DV and expect the price you pay for broadband to be reduced.

Mine was separate until last month.

arjar

Thank you both: - it helps me to (almost) understand BT's labyrinthine pricing. Like everyone else, I suppose I shall simply end up paying more for the same - another incentive to cut free from the bonds of btinternet web addresses.

iniltous

EssexExile said:

iniltous said:

It’s not clear ( to me at least ) what you mean ,  your contract doesn’t expire, the minimum term may expire, but the contract doesn’t , if you have BT Digital Voice you must also have BT Broadband , and you don’t pay separate line rental with BT broadband, the monthly fee you pay for BT Broadband has included ‘line rental ‘ for many years …you can’t ‘cancel’ line rental separately from broadband, if you cancel your payment (for broadband) obviously you will have no service at all , broadband or phone , your bill isn’t broken down into two parts , line rental and broadband, it’s just a single amount for service.

A phone service ( BT DV ) is not necessary with  BT broadband , BT Broadband can be a standalone product ( no phone number , no incoming or outgoing calls ,even 999 calls ) , but what you seem to want is to not pay line rental but and continue to use the phone service.

Because you don’t pay line rental separately with BT broadband, how can you stop paying for it , ( when you don’t really pay line rental anyway , it’s included with the broadband fee ) but keep the broadband ?  If your bill is ( as an example) £30 , it’s not LR £20+BB £10 , it’s just £30 for broadband, you cannot separate out the ‘line rental’ portion because it’s not separate in the first place , you cannot assume that if line rental for a BT phone only service is £22 , then that means your bill is really £22 LR and £8 BB , it’s not like that , your bill isn’t in two parts, just one.

…..if you question was can I stop paying for the phone and keep broadband, the answer is yes , doing that saves £2-£5 depending on what BT charge you for DV , but you cannot keep DV and expect the price you pay for broadband to be reduced.

Mine was separate until last month.

If you pay one provider ( possibly BT for line rental ) and another provider ( not BT ) for your broadband then chances are through your own intransigence you have been paying more than necessary for what will now be decades….years ago it was commonplace to have separate providers ( it’s called SMPF , shared metallic path facility ) but when TT and Sky became full MPF providers ( they didn’t use BT for telephony) it became a niche product, so if you do pay separately for line rental and broadband ( and the OP doesn’t ) then you are one of a very rare subset of customers that has been paying way more than is necessary , as far as the OP is concerned the chances are that they have ( incorrectly ) apportioned the current £30 bill as line rental £20 , broadband £10 so think if telephony is over broadband then the bill should be £10 …unfortunately this is an after  effect of when providers would pay ‘BT’ ( Openreach ) , £7 for line rental , charge the customer £20  for line rental, ( so make a £13 margin ) and use it to subsidise the cost of broadband, its effects linger on 

Rycck

I have a BT landline number. I have broadband. I paid for the landline upfront each year and the broadband monthly. Now BT have switched my line to digital landline. And the upfront landline is being charged monthly so now my bill is about £20 or so higher. The question is do I still need a landline? If I cancel everything with BT and switch to say Virgin do I need a landline number at all? Can I just get Virgin broadband and fall back on my mobile number(s). So why have I been paying for a BT landline number that I never use?  Or should I transfer my BT landline number to a VOIP service? 

iniltous

Lots of different things mixed  together , Line Rental Saver ( LRS ) was removed a while ago , so you pay around £20 more a month but you don’t pay £220 upfront either ….., if you are on digital voice it makes no difference, people not on digital voice can have stand a lone broadband from BT , that’s been available for a while …you don’t have to have  a phone  service with BT if you don’t want , however don’t think that means you save the cost of  ’line Rental’ , you save around £2-£5 a month , you still ‘rent’ the line for broadband, it just doesn’t have a phone number anymore .

You could save the £2 or £5 by going for no BT telephone on BT broadband , but the days of ‘free’ VoIP from traditional VoIP providers are over , the chances are you will have to pay something for a basic VoIP service, possibly no saving on the BT price.

Only you can decide if you need a landline number or not , but if you do remove it and rely on your mobiles , you don’t have a landline number at all , so no incoming calls or access to 999 etc