Full Fibre with Free calls?

shiraz99

Are there any Fibre broadband providers offering a free calls service? I'm currently on a VDSL service with Now Broadband which did offer free anytime calls but now is just PAYG but if moving to  full fibre don't you also have to pay an extra monthly charge just to have a calls service, whether you make calls or not?

I'd like to be able to keep my landline number.

littleboo

Vodafone give you the voice service with full fibre for no additional cost, calls are  PAYG or you can get a calls package

iniltous

Strange the way this has turned around , not that long ago , the argument was ‘why do I have to take an unwanted phone service just to get broadband’ the implication ( quite correctly ) that broadband must be cheaper than phone and broadband, so broadband only was required to be provided by ISPs , now we have those looking for a phone service included ( exactly as it was before , an included phone service that cost nothing unless you used it ) , so Vodafone , if they include a PAYG phone service with broadband regardless of if you want it or not , must be taking advantage of customers that don’t want a phone service, because but have to take a phone service and pay for it ( we established lone broadband must be cheaper to provide) so VF customers pay for telephone even if they never make a call 

Timalay

iniltous said:

Strange the way this has turned around , not that long ago , the argument was ‘why do I have to take an unwanted phone service just to get broadband’ the implication ( quite correctly ) that broadband must be cheaper than phone and broadband, so broadband only was required to be provided by ISPs , now we have those looking for a phone service included ( exactly as it was before , an included phone service that cost nothing unless you used it ) , so Vodafone , if they include a PAYG phone service with broadband regardless of if you want it or not , must be taking advantage of customers that don’t want a phone service, because but have to take a phone service and pay for it ( we established lone broadband must be cheaper to provide) so VF customers pay for telephone even if they never make a call 

Not all ISPs offer a phoneline with their FTTP packages, Plusnet don't.

iniltous

I never said they did , the previous post referenced Vodafone and their presumably compulsory phone service and the the OP asks about free calls with full fibre , mentioning ISP that don’t offer a phone service given the OP’s question is a little pointless 

AndyPK

Vodafone prices are cheap though, so they aren’t making money on having phone. 

Agent was a little grumpy as he had to post the phone adaptor out. RJ11 to BT thing which they call SOGEA

iniltous

AndyPK said:

Vodafone prices are cheap though, so they aren’t making money on having phone. 

Agent was a little grumpy as he had to post the phone adaptor out. RJ11 to BT thing which they call SOGEA

How do you know this , what evidence can you supply to justify your statement that VF ‘ aren’t making money on having a phone ‘ , that is nothing more than your opinion,

what can’t really be contradicted though is there must be a cost to providing telephony , therefore it follows there is a cost saving by not providing telephony, as stated that was the exact argument against BT years ago when you had to take telephony even if you didn’t  want it ….it’s unarguable that if it was true for BT it must also be true for any provider that does provide telephony with their broadband …and it’s irrelevant that ‘ VF are cheap’ so it doesn’t matter if the phone can’t be removed, if VF are cheap with broadband and phone , only a fool would think it couldn’t be even cheaper if they took the phone part away , even if the saving were small it would be cheaper .

shiraz99

iniltous said:

I never said they did , the previous post referenced Vodafone and their presumably compulsory phone service and the the OP asks about free calls with full fibre , mentioning ISP that don’t offer a phone service given the OP’s question is a little pointless 

To be clear, I could've worded my post better, whilst it would be nice to get free calls that's not that's important, I'm more interested in being able to retain the landline number without having to pay for a calls "service" which is what I believe Vodafone allows for.

iniltous

TBH , Sky as well as VF bundle a PAYG phone service with their broadband irrespective of wanting it , that’s great for those that want a phone service , but not so great for customers that don’t want a phone service , if the price VF  ask is the same or even lower than other competitors charge for standalone broadband it’s not really relevant. 

All I was pointing out how the times have changed , a decade ago there was much complaining around  BT , having to take a phone service with broadband even if you didn’t want a phone service , BT were ‘forced’ to change and offer broadband only and it had to be cheaper because there must be a cost to telephony , and therefore a saving if you don’t want it , it seems weird that others can still bundle telephony without having a no telephone option ,

if VF had two offers ,  one with telephone and a cheaper one without , then you could see how much the ‘free’ telephone service was actually costing, because there is no such thing as ‘free’ , it just means it’s included in the price , if telephony wasn’t there the broadband price must  be less using the same rules applied to BT  , but I appreciate if you want a phone service it doesn’t really affect you …I’m pointing out the change in attitude towards this compulsory need to take telephony , with no way to remove it and save a few ££ ,  that seemed to be consigned to the past, but only it seems for the company’s that Ofcom go after and apparently customers that may have complained when BT did it , don’t complain when Sky and VF still do it .

shiraz99

iniltous said:

TBH , Sky as well as VF bundle a PAYG phone service with their broadband irrespective of wanting it , that’s great for those that want a phone service , but not so great for customers that don’t want a phone service , if the price VF  ask is the same or even lower than other competitors charge for standalone broadband it’s not really relevant. 

All I was pointing out how the times have changed , a decade ago there was much complaining around  BT , having to take a phone service with broadband even if you didn’t want a phone service , BT were ‘forced’ to change and offer broadband only , it seems weird that others can still bundle telephony without having a no telephone option , if VF had two offers ,  one with telephone and one without , then you could see how much the ‘free’ telephone service was actually costing, because there is no such thing as ‘free’ , it’s included in the price , if it wasn’t there the price would be less , but appreciate you want a phone service so it doesn’t really affect you …I’m pointing out the change in attitude 

There's not really an attitude change, customers just balked at having to pay an increasingly high line rental charge for a service they didn't or only occasionally used, often being 60% or more than the overall price of their broadband offering. Moving to fibre was supposed to bring prices down but we've not seen that at all and broadband prices are now higher than they have been in years with most charging extra on top just to retain an existing landline number whether you want to use a calls service or not.

iniltous

See you fallen into the trap , line rental and telephone service , line rental was never just the phone service , but it suited broadband providers that it was presented that way ,
As an example from that time , a £30 bill in total ( for line rental and broadband ) , was  presented as £20 line rental and £10 broadband,  ( those were never the true supplier costs )  , it suited the ISP to present it that way , hence the resentment then  ( false resentment in my opinion  )  that about 2/3rds of the bill was for the ‘landline’ ….if that’s the case why when telephony wasn’t compulsory anymore didn’t those ISP provide any £10 broadband offers ? , didn’t anyone wonder , why removing telephony only reduced the bill by £2 or £3 , and not by £15 to £20 .

As far as attitude changes , I think there has been at least one  ( you ) in the example I gave ( not unreasonable figures  I hope you accept that ) , the true figure Openreach got from the ISP for the ‘line’ so in effect the true ‘line rental’ was £7 ‘ so a £30 bill was really £23 broadband or at least that’s how much the ISP  kept out from the payment, they passed on £7 line rental to Openreach not £20  , there never was a requirement to show the supplier costs on the bill  , so the ISP was allowed to load an extra £13 onto the LR part of the bill and artificially reduce the broadband side by that £13 and it shows it works because even now , some people still believe line rental is a rip off , thinking it’s the telephone charge , but weirdly some are only  upset when  it’s BT doing it , but OK with Sky and VF are doing it .

TBH the change to IP telephony is pretty insignificant in this , line rental hasn’t been a separate item on bills for a decade, it’s part of the broadband charge and as far as OR are concerned, if it’s an OR based service they still get around the same amount they got 10 years ago for the ‘line’ , if it’s OR FTTC broadband, OR  get a little more ££ for that as well .

As I said , this isn’t about VF , or Sky , just the fact they are not obliged to remove telephony and reduce the bill for those that don’t want telephony with their broadband,  and that’s OK with some of their customers