trevord wrote on Jan 6^th, 2006 at 5:45pm:


Mny tks, trevord.  Ain't done anything all day other than sort the **** computer out.  Guess it got a bug.  Quite serious - reformat of HD needed!  Thank goodness for backups!!

One assumes all who offer alternative line rental won't allow "other" providers so don't intend to waste time at the moment 'phoning round / delving through web sites.

Will be interesting to see what sort of response you get to the letter which is ". . coming on. . ."   When I jumped up and down about 18866 increasing connection fee from 2p to 3p to 4p, nobody was interested - it is a ". . . commercial decision within the terms of their T&C of service."

bigjohn wrote on Jan 5^th, 2006 at 11:28pm:


None of these have line rental that is more than a pound or two cheaper a quarter than BT's headline £33 a quarter after the price increase.  And all of these other companies bar you from using services like 1899 and 18185 and even good old BT on 1280 (BT being generally cheapest for 0845 in particular).  And all these companies have a charge for Caller Display that makes the total line rental higher than BT if you are on  BT Privacy which gives free Caller Display.  Once you are with one of these companies you can only get cheap call prices using dial through companies like www.dialaround.co.uk and www.bestminutes.co.uk but all of these charge you 5p each time you call the dial through number, even if your call is not connected through to your destination at the other end.

BT's line rental is a disgraceful scam as I am in a rural area and there is no alternative if you also need broadband.  The water company here only charges £5.50 a quarter for their pipe and meter so why does BT's copper wire cost £33.

In fact BT have a scheme called Light User at £9.50 a quarter for which I meet all their criteria except for having broadband on the line and having a mobile (I could possible be untruthful about the latter but not the former which their BT Wholesale clearly knows about even though my broadband is from Freedom2Surf).

Ofcom had a review of BT's valuation of its copper wire network a while ago which led to it signing off BT's disgraceful quarterly rental charges.  But why does BT not have a "no standing charge" option with higher unit costs as gas and electricity companies do?  Answer because the useless Ofcom lets BT get away with it.

Quote:


Thanks;  have already contacted Stephen C and got standard fob-off response number "21".

What about all of us sending a similar message, to all the guys you suggest, on the same day?  If you would be happy to prepare a suitable script and arrange a timing,  NonGeographicalMan, you can certainly count me in.
Does this board/site allow a facility to email contact all who have registered to the site to spread the idea?

bigjohn wrote on Jan 13^th, 2006 at 10:46am:


Yes I realised that bigjohn.  I was just keen to discourage rydaway from doing something he might regret.

rydaway wrote on Jan 13^th, 2006 at 10:39am:


Mr Carter does seem to think he is far too important to ever have any direct communication with the mere citizens and consumers he is there to represent as his no 1 obligation and who pay most of his salary.  I can't really recommend anything amounting to an email petition as those are usually seen to be the work of one individual and treated as such.  A steady drip.drip of indiviudal emails is more likely to wear them down.

I would recommend more of you lodging a complaint with BT Complaints Review Service (but you have to make complaint to customer services on 150 and then a supervisor first before you can go there) about the fact that BT Light User Scheme is not made available to those of you who make very few calls on your line with BT just because you have broadband too.  Ideally reach Deadlock on this with BT and escalate on to Otelo.

See www.bt.com/customerservices/cust_details.jsp?parentcat=cs_complaint_service&chil...

rydaway wrote on Jan 13^th, 2006 at 11:41am:


I suggest writing to your MP setting out why you think that Ofcom is failing in its duties under Section 3 (i) of the Communications Act 2003 to take action in the best interests of the uk citizen and uk consumer.   See www.ofcom.org.uk/about/sdrp/

Since the only people Ofcom are accountable to are Parliament as a whole (incredibly they are not accountable to either an Ombudsman or a Minister) your MP is the person who has the most power to call Ofcom to account.

I think pointing out that there is no cheap line rental scheme for people who only need their BT copper wire for broadband service and could make all their phone calls via voip is a very worthwhile point to make.  As is the fact that there is no cheap line rental scheme for people who are less well off but need to make a normal amount of phone calls (very likely with an unemployed or sick or elderly person based at home al the time who in fact constitute most of the least well off).

See www.writetothem.com to write to your MP online

Dave wrote on Jan 13^th, 2006 at 3:32pm:


Dave,

I am surprised to find that you of all people do not appear to understand how the BT Light User scheme works.

According to Page 5 of the PDF booklet you provided the link to you receive a discount of 11.9p for ever 10p your total quarterly call bill (before VAT) is below £17.10.  But if your total quarterly call bill before VAT is between £10.59 and £15.07 (before VAT) you receive a rebate of £7.04 (before VAT) and If your call bill before VAT per quarter is £15.08 or above you are charged the full rental of £36 (including VAT) even though you have paid BT Standard call charges.  So if one assumes a customer who  just wants the line rental for Voip on broadband and wants to make all calls using Voip then a total possible rebate of 171 x 11.9p = £20.35 + VAT saving of £3.56 = £23.91 is achievable if no calls are made on the line.  This leaves you with a residual line rental of £12.09 to pay compared to the full £36 without discount.  I'm not quite sure of the logic of how this discount works as I see the other line discount scheme (In Contact Plus) now costs £10.75 per quarter inc VAT ( see www.bt.com/customerservices/downloads/in_contact_plus.pdf ) and I thought BT Light User and IN Contact Plus both previously had the same quarterly cost of £9.50 inc VAT if no calls were made.  The point of In Contact Plus is that no outgoing calls can be dialled on the line in the normal way except for 999, 100, 112 and 150 and everything else has to be done through a speciall calling card with a PIN.  This allows the line owner to keep better control over the line not being used unnecessarily that Light User but the same ridiculous restrictions on not having broadband, owning a mobile, using another phone service and so on apply.

So Dave it seems your knowledge is incomplete as for anyone who just wants their line for broadband and to only use Voip the cost of Light User or In Contact Plus line rental is hugely lower if only BT allowed you to have these line rental schemes with broadband.

I am rather amazed to think you imagined that the Light User Scheme cost all its customers £36 a quarter in addition to higher call costs as I had rather come to think of you as our telecoms guru in this forum.