BT line or onetel line

harryk_3

At the moment i have a bt line and i use onetel for my calls plus 18866
Does it cause aproblem if i change to onetel for my line rental i vaguely remembering something about this with regards using 18866
any advice would be apreciated
regards Harryk

bbb_uk

This was discussed several times before (here and other threads) and for the sake of 50p per month cheaper then you are better off with BT.

OneTel (or any other company doing line rental instead of BT) can, if they wanted, block calls to 18866 and any other provider. It is only BT that have to allow access to other call providers and no one else and in fact in OneTel's t&c they actually state that they may block or charge an extra fee for calls made via other providers.

As well, BT offer free caller display where was no other company (as yet) provide free caller display and was discussed here.

harryk_3

thanksbbb-uk for the advice
iwill stay with bt
harryk

lympus48

Be very careful-if you have line problems you have to deal with two parties One-Tel and BT. There has been stories of people waiting a long time for faulty lines to be corrected as your new line rental provider has to go back to BT. I am with one-tel but I would never switch line rental. Last time I had a fault the BT engineer was great sorting out problems.

paul_h

I have my line rental with onetel and have not had any problems, and I have found their email CS excellent - but the telephone CS less so. However, I have had problems in the past with BT anyway, and found their customer services appalling at times.

Note that as part of a deal with Ofcom to widen the gap between BT line rental and third party offerings, BT will be increasing the price of its line rental before the end of the year and has already reduced the cost to third party operators.

I have been in contact with onetel about the free caller id on BT and they have said that they are looking at pricing structures, but I feel they will wait to see what transpires with the Ofcom ruling...

If you're happy with BT, I would say stay with them for the time being, at least until the prices rises are sorted out.

lympus48

my point is simple- when the day inevitably comes and you have a telephone line problem onetel or whoever will have to contact BT engineers etc., and arrange diagnosis and visits etc., - inevitably it will be more drawn out as two rather than one party will be involved. Its all untried territory. Best to wait and see how things settle down.

paul_h

As far as I am aware, onetel offer the same fault service as BT, through BT, i.e response by the end of the next working day.

pricefighter

At the present time if you use CLI your line rental with BT will be £10.50 a month(Providing you have regd for free CLI). The same service with Onetel is £11.49 (£9.99 lr +£1.50 cli).So therefore you are clearly better off cost wise with BT at this point in time.

Also another point that appears to have been overlooked is that BT do not charge for call barring to 090 numbers,but One tel charge £1.50p a month.
So if you wanted call barring, and cli,and you switched from Bt to Onetel at the present time you would find your rental charges increase by nearly £30 a year.

paul_h

I'm not trying to defend or promote onetel's line rental charges, it does indeed work out more expensive to have their line rental with caller id.

As I said earlier, I have been in touch with onetel regarding this and they have noted my concerns and say they are looking at their pricing.

The problem is that the third party operators currently make very little profit on the line rental due to the wholesale line rental costs imposed by BT. Offering free CLI was a very shrewd move by BT, the third party operators are simply unable to offer this currently as they would be operating the service at a loss, although this may change with the forthcoming WLR and BT retail price changes.

I say stay with your line rental provider, be it BT or whoever, until this is sorted out... then see who's cheapest. If BT is cheaper then, I'll go back to BT line rental and CPS.

By the way, I don't use CLI, so my line rental is £9.99 - I know, I know, a whole 51p cheaper... but my current deal with onetel gives me free weekend and evening calls until Feb '06 - this would cost £16.50 pm with BT.

This, coupled with the fact that they gave me £20 account credit free and £12 cashback to switch, makes me think it was a pretty good deal... and I've had a further £20 credit for referring someone else

paul_h

With regard to the CLI issue, I think that Ofcom should force BT to provide ALL lines with CLI as is common in most other countries, whether they are provided by BT retail or via the WLR agreement to a third party operator.

This would at least ensure a level playing field.

bbb_uk

paul_h wrote:

...By the way, I don't use CLI, so my line rental is £9.99 - I know, I know, a whole 51p cheaper... but my current deal with onetel gives me free weekend and evening calls until Feb '06 - this would cost £16.50 pm with BT....

I also have free evening & weekend calls with OneTel but pay BT line rental direct. I do this not just because of the savings when using CLI (as mentioned by pricefighter) but for the added peace of mind that we can choose whoever and whatever provider for calls whether it be via CPS or ANY indirect access numbers like Call18866 we may want to use for any particular call. With other non BT providers this freedom and more choice may not be possible and if it is then these non BT providers can easily/quickly do a u turn and block or charge extra for using an alternative call provider which I suspect will happen once the likes of OneTel (and the rest) gain sufficient customers in their line rental section.

Remember, it's all a matter of preference. I like freedom of choice that BT (unfortunate for BT) have to provide to their customers and I know that any other provider that starts or suddenly becomes cheaper for certain calls then I can simply start using them without worrying over possibly being blocked, or an extra charge made, etc.