Many thanks for the info, F-elix. If you can use broadband on a line with incoming calls only, that makes me pretty confident that broadband would also work if you barred all calls except the free ones (999, 0800) using the Call Barring feature on the BT line. This costs £1.75 a month but is probably worthwhile to avoid arguments about who made which call.

As I wasn't convinced by the reply I got over the phone from BT (see first post in this thread) I sent them an email query too.

I asked if you could continue to use ADSL broadband from a non-BT supplier on a BT line where all but free calls had been blocked using their Call Barring facility.

They replied today saying: "The call barring service should have no affect on your ADSL Broadband connection. The reason for this is that the call barring facility blocks number you attempt to dial however your Broadband service is permanently on so will not be affected. "

Quote:


This sounds like good ammunition for a complaint to BT High Level Complaints and then on to Otelo and then Ofcom.

The two issues which BT hasn't a leg to stand on are (a) refusing to allow those on the Light User Scheme or In Contact Plus to have a broadband connection on their line and (b) refusing to allow indirect prefix codes like 1899 etc to be used on Call Diversion setups using *21*.  I'm sure if Ofcom were backed into a corner and forced to rule on both these things they would have to rule against the current BT practices.

How do you account for BT not being able to block existing customers on In Contact Plus or Light User from getting broadband even though they won't transfer your line rental packages to these tariffs if you have broadband.  Presumably its because the broadband setup system is blind to line rental status but to get Light User or In Contact Plus you have to speak to a human operator who can manually check broadband status?

What do you do for BT?  Just work in customer services or customer sales or what exactly?

But if get IncontactPlus when I don't have broaband on the line and then sign up for a non BT ADSL service it does work because the automated ADSL sign up process doesn't care what BT line rental package you have?  Ditto with subsequent broadband migration between non BT providers.

Am I correct on this?