Landline costs for vulnerable

janine9

What is being done for vulnerable people who rely on the landline and don’t use a mobile phone. The broadband prices are also making having a landline expensive. 

Browntoa

Look up social tariff, there is such a thing 

iniltous

Not all vulnerable people are ‘poor’ , those that are in a group that qualify (in receipt of pension credit , in some cases universal credit etc.  ) can get a social tariff from various providers, that is cheaper than the regular consumer price .
I don’t understand your point that broadband prices are making having a landline expensive, BT for example charge £2 extra on top of broadband for having a phone service,( or put the other way those that don’t want a phone service can get broadband £2 cheaper ) and although not minimising the cost , it’s a stretch to call £2 ‘expensive’ .

Brie

iniltous said:

Not all vulnerable people are ‘poor’ , those that are in a group that qualify (in receipt of pension credit , in some cases universal credit etc.  ) can get a social tariff from various providers, that is cheaper than the regular consumer price .
I don’t understand your point that broadband prices are making having a landline expensive, BT for example charge £2 extra on top of broadband for having a phone service,( or put the other way those that don’t want a phone service can get broadband £2 cheaper ) and although not minimising the cost , it’s a stretch to call £2 ‘expensive’ .

But if someone doesn't use broadband (increasingly rare but not non existent) BT charges £28+ a month plus potentially a set up charge for a 12 month contract.  It's one of those dumb things where it's almost cheaper to get things you don't need as it will decrease your costs.  

iniltous

If someone doesn’t have broadband from any provider , so is genuinely a telephone only customer, and takes a phine  only product from BT , they qualify for a phone only discount on the normal price , that discount takes the price down to around £16 , it’s not clear that’s what the OP is getting at.

Neil_Jones

janine9 said:

What is being done for vulnerable people who rely on the landline and don’t use a mobile phone. The broadband prices are also making having a landline expensive. 

Are they?

These days the broadband itself is practically free, you pay one amount for line and broadband.

Back in the day it was two separate charges.  Now it isn't.

iniltous

Even back in the day it was misleading pricing by ISP’s  , if a typical broadband and phone bill was £25 the ISP was charged £7 a month for the landline / phone by BT and after the Zopenreach separation , OR , so they had a £18 to allocate on their customer bill however they saw fit , they all chose to charge  the ‘line rental’ element as £20 , so a £13 mark up on what they actually paid , and then used that margin to disguise the cost of adding broadband, so typically charged £5 for broadband ( LR=£20, BB=£5 ) which served two purposes, in the publics mind they assumed the £20 went to ‘BT’ , it didn’t , £7 did , and the ISP was lauded as providing the ‘internet’ for £5 instead of £18 , £5 was always less that cost ….you still see posts from the odd naive punter asking why if  line rental  isn’t taken anymore ( because it’s not compulsory ) , why broadband costs so much .

JSmithy45AD

iniltous said:

Not all vulnerable people are ‘poor’ , those that are in a group that qualify (in receipt of pension credit , in some cases universal credit etc.  ) can get a social tariff from various providers, that is cheaper than the regular consumer price .
I don’t understand your point that broadband prices are making having a landline expensive, BT for example charge £2 extra on top of broadband for having a phone service,( or put the other way those that don’t want a phone service can get broadband £2 cheaper ) and although not minimising the cost , it’s a stretch to call £2 ‘expensive’ .

It's actually cheaper to get broadband with a landline with Virgin than without.
No idea why that is.

Magenta

Just to say that I have my "landline " phone via the internet connection with Virgin. Before this I paid £16 per month for my phone line, plus call charges. Now I am charged £24 per month for my "landline/ Internet  phone. On top of that  there is an access charge of about £2 per call and then the actual cost of the call on top. This makes expensive compared to before. Having a mobile phone is definitely better value. Perhaps this is what the OP means when they say it's expensive.