Do I actually need my house phone now?

WOTSWOT

I currently pay Plusnet £29.99 a month for unlimited FTC broadband with PAYG calls, but free evenings and weekends. The charge for FTC broadband only is currently £23.99. My phone use is unusual, partly due to my free times. I rarely make any calls for my own need, but occasionally I am forced to call HSBC to clear alleged security issues and remove a block on my transactions. A friend says this are more likely to be Know your Customer or veiled Money Laundering Checks ! Some of these lasted well over 30 mins, but I was always able to phone after 7pm for free. HSBC have recently improved their payment security check scheme and I haven't had to call them since. I have also had similar long calls to Tesco Mobile and Chelsea Building Society, all of which I did for free. My FTC is giving me around 37Mbs which is quite adequate for my use. I was recently told I had been moved to EE, but I soon cancelled that as it was quite unsuitable for my phone use. In consequence I am moving over to full fibre with Plusnet. I will raise a new post around this as it is an ongoing saga and may be of interest to others contemplating this route.

flaneurs_lobster

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82026229#Comment_82026229

Unless I've misread the Plusnet blurb, their FTTP proffer has no facility for landline.

iniltous

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82026229#Comment_82026229

You realise that if you stay with Plusnet ( that’s on FTTC or move onto PN FTTP , full fibre ) , your landline telephone service will cease , that’s why you were offered a move to EE if you wanted to keep landline style telephony and have a relatively simple way to do so , Plusnet have made the commercial decision to leave the telephony business that’s why they offered you EE , so if you still have a need , however infrequent to use a ‘landline’ phone you won’t be able to do that via Plusnet , and need to make alternative arrangements, there are options , like a third party VoIP provider, requiring an ATA and a separate VoIP account, or use a mobile .

WOTSWOT

I have had several lengthy discussions with Plusnet regarding my phone use and it is so infrequent that I have decided to use my Tesco Mobile for future calls. There is no monthly charge, no minimum spend over any time period. Provided I just call 4488 every 6 months I keep my PAYG phone and pay 25p minute. The new Plusnet total broadband will be £24.99 month so I will save £5 month over my current payments which can go towards any future mobile calls.

If I move to EE I will lose my free calls and as far as I can see the EE digital phone call rates are even more expensive than Tesco, even if I had been allocated the lower PAYG call plan, (which I hadn't !).

iniltous

As far as I know anyone moving to EE from Plusnet , with Plusnet driving the migration because of their decision to leave the telephony business , maintains the PN calling plan and minimum PN term so the change should be almost imperceptible , no extra cost or contract length , it’s just a different router and ISP name on the bill , perhaps because you were on a legacy calls plan (Evenings and Weekends ) that was impossible to match to a current plan (TBH I’m surprised PN never moved you onto a PN current plan and allowed you to stay on that plan when PN were in the phone business, that’s why there is no match to the EE plans on offer )

You can’t really compare a mobile call plan to a landline call plan , what more even if PN were offering to continue a phone service the mobile call plan would still be a better financial bet .

FWIW , clearly in your situation a mobile for the occasional call is appropriate and was probably the thing you should have used for years .

WOTSWOT

Yes the spin on the transfer to EE implied it could be done at no extra cost, but when you look into the fine print they say they will do everything they can to make this happen. The free evenings and weekends was very attractive for me, so I did everything I could to keep it when my contract came up for periodic renewal. It was discontinued for new users some time ago.

Before I was moved over to EE, I had spent some time trying to find out what call plan would be offered and what it would cost me. But it was only when I had the email saying I had been moved that I discovered the real cost.

I had Tesco 2g phone for many years and just kept it in case of car breakdowns, then I was on a lite user plan at only 8p minute. I was forced to move to 4g last year when Tesco introduced their Essential scheme. This was a real pain and I have only just gained enough confidence that I can actually top up and use it ! I am tempted to do a post on that saga too ! I could have called Tesco mobile using my mobile for free, but chose to use the Plusnet free calls instead. As I had to eventually call Tesco from both 2g and 4g phones during my long landline call, for them to understand my problems, in retrospect it was the only way the issue could be (easily ?) resolved.

My Plusnet phone call rates are currently 23.34 p landline and 28p mobile, so still slightly lower than Tesco for landline calls.

I should perhaps mention that I was with EE before I moved to Plusnet and had problems with their Customer Service, especially when I had already requested to end their service and moved to Plusnet. They kept demanding payment for a service which I had already cancelled, so the prospect of moving to EE was not attractive for me. I am not sure if EE have any freephone contact facilities, as I find Plusnet invaluable in this regard.

iniltous

Calls to BT and EE customer service are ‘free’ .

horsewithnoname

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82025220#Comment_82025220

Well if you want to be pedantic, then it is included in the price I pay and I would pay no less if I got rid of the landline.
So patronise someone else. Of course I realise it is part of the total, but as the total would be the same if I had it or not, then effectively it is “free”, or at least it is no extra cost.

iniltous

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82026671#Comment_82026671

Can you get rid of the phone line ? If you can’t , then you are paying for it even if you don’t want it , if you can get rid of it does the price stay the same or reduce , the fact is you can’t get rid , so your claim it would be the same price if you could get rid can not be tested , so is nothing more than a not very convincing opinion.

Eco_Miser

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82026020#Comment_82026020

Most of those costs have been spent already, they are the sunk costs I mentioned before. The router with ATA already exists, the billing software already exists, the cost of bad debt may be new, but may well be less than "a few pence per customer per month" since it will apply to very few customers.

My assertion was that there are "no measurable monthly costs from a phone line that is not used".