Just read in the Mail on Sunday that Talk Talk are now charging less than BT for line rental. So you can at last only have one bill and not have a hundred numbers to press to get to a BT operative and wait days to have your service restored because you haven't paid BT in 2.3 microseconds from the bill falling on your door step.

wrote on Jul 25^th, 2005 at 9:44am:

Just read in the Mail on Sunday that Talk Talk are now charging less than BT for line rental. So you can at last only have one bill and not have a hundred numbers to press to get to a BT operative and wait days to have your service restored because you haven't paid BT in 2.3 microseconds from the bill falling on your door step.

Or you could set up DD payments and never have to worry about that sort of thing.

You could then safely stay with BT for your (£1 a month cheaper) line rental and not have to worry about being barred from using an alternative call provider like 18866, 1899 etc. for the sake of a saving of a few pence per month.

wrote on Jul 25^th, 2005 at 9:44am:

Just read in the Mail on Sunday that Talk Talk are now charging less than BT for line rental. So you can at last only have one bill and not have a hundred numbers to press to get to a BT operative and wait days to have your service restored because you haven't paid BT in 2.3 microseconds from the bill falling on your door step.

Dont always believe what you read in the papers.Talk Talk have not launched this service yet.When they do launch it it is expected to be £9.99p a month by dd.

But is such a good idea moving for such a small saving.As Bill points out you are likely to lose the ability to call an alternative supplier if you so desire.Also if you use caller display with BT it is free now,where as TT are likely to charge about £1.50p a month which cancels out any savings you might make on the line rental.

Well at least it's a start from getting away from the local loop monopoly and maybe other providers will come in and make it even more cheaper.

wrote on Jul 25^th, 2005 at 6:02pm:

Well at least it's a start from getting away from the local loop monopoly and maybe other providers will come in and make it even more cheaper.

But the wider implications should not be overlooked.

wrote on Jul 25^th, 2005 at 6:02pm:

Well at least it's a start from getting away from the local loop monopoly and maybe other providers will come in and make it even more cheaper.

You are locked in for 1 year minimum with TalkTalk (otherwise there are penalties for leaving early) and TalkTalk overcharge for 0870 and 0845 compared to BT.

Also speaking as a TalkTalk CPS customer routing almost no calls with them (mainly use 18866) their billing can't be trusted and is highly erratic and flakey.

They can bill for calls that never connected and for calls that you never even ever made on that phoneline.

And their customer service staff are dreadful.  They make even BT customer service staff look like they care! :o

No one can significantly improve on BT for Line Rental because the useless bas***ds at Ofcom allow BT to sell wholesale line rental at the same retail price more or less that they charge to their own customers.  The same useless bas***ds at Ofcom allow other telcos selling line rental to lock you into making all your calls with them.  This renders any potential savings on line rental massively offset by people like TalkTalk having ripoff prices for international mobiles and for 0845 and 0870.

Move to TalkTalk for cheap billing and line rental at your peril is all I can say.

wrote on Jul 25^th, 2005 at 7:45pm:

...Move to TalkTalk for cheap billing and line rental at your peril is all I can say.

I agree.  It is likely (but not at first) that these other line rental providers once they have significant customers will block the use of indirect access numbers (Call18866, etc).

The t&c of TalkTalk & I think OneTel state that you are locked into a minimum term of 3months if transferring your line rental from BT otherwise it is 12months.

Keeping BT as your line rental provider provides much greater choice for us customers and we now get free caller display.

wrote on Jul 25^th, 2005 at 7:52pm:

I agree.  It is likely (but not at first) that these other line rental providers once they have significant customers will block the use of indirect access numbers (Call18866, etc).

The companies who already do and who have in the past offered a Wholesale Line Rental product have all gone for a situation where the only people you can route your calls with are them.  That is that you can't route your calls with 18866, 1899 or even with BT. :o

My suspicion is that they have to do this because the only way they can afford to offer a lower line headline rental price than BT is by ripping you off with high call costs on which they make a decent profit margin subsequently.

Wholesale Line Rental is Ofcom's idea of competititon but sadly Its not Actually Real Competition as we know it Jim................

Cable companies also do the same trick.

A few years ago, we had a cable line, and Eurobell (now part of Telewest) would not allow you to connect to the internet via ISPs on a prefix code.  Only AOL on an 0800 number would be allowed.

Also Eurobell at the time didn't offer unmetered internet access, so I had to switch back to BT, just so I can have unmetered internet!!

At least Talk Talk, and OneTel allow you to connect to the net with whoever you want, even if they won't allow you to make phone calls from anyone else (unless you cheat and use a mobile with inclusive minutes lol)

wrote on Jul 26^th, 2005 at 6:34pm:

At least Talk Talk, and OneTel allow you to connect to the net with whoever you want, even if they won't allow you to make phone calls from anyone else (unless you cheat and use a mobile with inclusive minutes lol)

Yes agreed so quite soon you could go for a bargain basement line rental and then make all your outbound calls over broadband via Voip.  But at the moment convenient Voip equipment that can replace all your phones and is easy for all the family to use still isn't quite there yet.

Hi,

There is no minimum contract term for line rental with OneTel, which is £9.99 by direct debit or automatic credit card payment.

Dave

Many seem to be missing the fact that line rental by other than BT was actually available many years ago now.

I was one of the original subscribers to Localtel. That was something of a disaster (at least their billing and customer service was) and eventually they became effectively insolvent.

As others suggest here it is risky at this stage for such a small saving to move from BT for line rental. Hopefully with full unbundling of the LL the situation may eventually change and there could be real savings to be made when other providers are able to tap into the local loop with an external connection service.  

At the moment I wouldn't recommend using other providers for line rental.

Is it really worth the hassle/implications just so one company can bill you for line rental and calls.

I am happy to use BT for line rental with free Caller Display, TalkTalk for the free calls, 1899 and 18866 for other calls, seems silly to save 51p on line rental only to have to pay £1.50+ on Caller Display and possibly be prevented on using 18866 and 1899 and dial-throughs.

If you have a problem with your line you would then have to deal with your new provider who would then have to deal with BT, no thanks not when you are worse off cost wise.

Wasn't BT's latest 'Free Caller Display' move a clever ploy?  

There are no on-going costs because their equipment already produces the data anyway and the initial - probably automated - task of switching it on for particular lines is minimal or non-existent.

So they instantly caught the other LR providers out big time - the minimal cost savings on offer were instantly wiped out unless they could follow suit and, AFAIAA, none has (yet).

wrote on Aug 3^rd, 2005 at 9:09am:

Wasn't BT's latest 'Free Caller Display' move a clever ploy?

I believe it was.

It is presumably an anti competitive ploy aimed at stifling the business of competitors who offer total line rental and calls packages.  Because BT won't decide to give their customers on BT equipment Caller Display for free.

For years BT have ripped customers off with another £20 a year charge for a service that is free on a mobile and that has long ago been written off on their telephone exchange equipment.  But now they face the prospect of customers taking their line rental business elsewhere they come up with this.  How convenient.

Ofcom and the Competition Commission should spot what is going and stop it but I doubt they will.

I am surprised at Jeremy Clarkson doing advertising for what is more or less the Rover of the telecoms world.  And we know how much Jeremy always liked Rovers. ::)

I don't think that it's just a matter of saving a few pence,,, I agree with the initial title.  I just want to get away from B.T. We all know that the monopolised service is garbage & the operators are incapable of deviating from the 'script', so it's as well that we have to talk to automatons instead of what they laughingly call ‘people’ !  I’ve used a few re-routing companies over the years,,, & yes,,, I know that ultimately, most of the money goes to B.T at the moment,,, so roll on true competition.

I too would like to get away from BT, but at the moment there are no viable alternatives.

wrote on Aug 8^th, 2005 at 6:18am:

I too would like to get away from BT, but at the moment there are no viable alternatives.

Because the useless lazy industry regulator thinks competition in line rental is apparently achieved by letting BT charge its competitors less than 10% less for quarterly line rental than it charges its own retail customers.  Given all the costs their competitors then take on in sending out bills and customer phone calls it is clearly going to be impossible for anyone to significantly undercut BT on line rental at this wholesale price.

A case of Meek by name and Meek by nature as far as Ofcom's policy based ideas on regulating this area are concerned.