Primus has cut the price from £8.49/mth to £5.99/mth. if you sign up for a year via comparison site Broadbandchoices.The link below is their link.

You don't get any inclusive calls with this Primus deal, so it's best for low users. Weekend calls cost 5p/min, evening calls also cost 5p/min and daytime calls cost 7.4p/min. Every call will also incur a one-off 13.4p connection fee.

Depending on how service is delivered you may be able to use 18185 Indirect. But if it is blocked  you would  normally be able to use 18185 via its 0808 Freephone access number.

NOTE !!!   
Over the last few months I have seen a fair few  reports of customer service and billing problems. So, although it's the cheapest package, please bear this in mind.


http://www.primussaver.co.uk/agent/hpc01/line-rental-saver.html?__g=36515rn84g.1...

Not sure if this has been reported.. but seems the "advanced line rental from Primus is stopping...

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2014/02/uk-isp-primus-saver-joins-sky-broad...

CJT-80 wrote on Feb 20^th, 2014 at 11:47am:


It is high time that the wholly useless OfCoN stopped sitting on its big fat overpaid corporate backside and started an Own Initiative Investigation in to the whole repeated saga of massive increases in the cost of fixed phone line rental in tandem with ever increasing call Connection Fees aimed at blackmailing customers in to taking call packages.

Also the failure to launch Naked DSL on BT Openreach controlled lines where the customer only paid to maintain the line for broadband and did not have to pay for a call package (i.e. at least Weekend Calls) they did not want is again OfCon's fault because they agreed not to force the telcos to make it available.

OfCon is also so pathetically weak or completely in bed with the telcos that it has still not passed regulations preventing BT Openreach for charging from any of its network services that prevent customers being subject to caller abuse.  Namely Caller Display, Anonymous Call Rejection and Choose To Refuse.  It is quite outrageous that people subject to unwanted calls are expected to pay extra to the network operator to obtain services that help deal with the problem when those services are already inherently built in to the network and cost the network operator nothing extra to turn on.

bigjohn wrote on Feb 20^th, 2014 at 5:45pm:

bigjohn,

Surely the thread is one about cheap fixed phone line rental based on its Title and is not a thread only about Southern Electric's fixed phone line rental.   When a cheaper monthly fixed line phone rental than £10.75 per month also exists I would suggest that it is very much on topic to bring this in to the discussion about low cost phone line rental.

Also I don't see how you feel in a position to actively condemn the quality of Primus/New Call Telecom's phone line rental product without also offering us some firm evidence that Southern Electric's phone line rental product is of a superior quality.  Primus are clearly no angels but then nor, to be honest, are many of their main rivals like TalkTalk or Sky or indeed BT.

If you start recommending telecoms services to members of the forum you surely also have to be prepared to expect some questions about their reliability and reputation.  As things stand I still haven't been able to find out the real telecoms provider offering what is clearly just a shell rebadge product to Southern Electric customers on which they then take a percentage rakeoff.   This is even though I have come across a recent edition of their phone service code of practice at www.sse.co.uk/uploadedFiles/CoreMarketingSites/Assets/Documents/talkOurPhoneServ...

The only thing you can say in favour of Primus is that at least they are a telecoms provider in their own right rather than simply a rebadged version of one of the other well known high street telecoms brands.

bigjohn wrote on Feb 21^st, 2014 at 5:20am:


I would be interested to know where you read that?

For instance unlike TalkTalk they don't block use of Indirect Access at the current time.

Also their corporate history at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primus_Telecom makes no mention of TalkTalk's involvement with Primus but does mention their Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009 and their emergence from that.

In the UK New Call Telecom clearly hold a franchise for Primus where they provide the customer services and local product wrapper and it is really New Call's attitude to customer service rather than the reliability of Primus's backbone network or call making equipment that seem to be the UK operation's Achilles Heel.

I personally highly doubt they have any connection at all with TalkTalk or otherwise they would have been likely to have blocked use of the Indirect Access service on their phone lines a long time ago.  Instead it seems much more likely that they are using BT Wholesale to provide local telephone line access.

bigjohn wrote on Feb 21^st, 2014 at 10:36am:


You also reported that this is the case for PostOffice Homephone customers who are on TalkTalk LLU'ed exchanges.  Yet I am with PostOffice HomePhone on a TalkTalk LLU'ed exchange and still use 18185 with no problems whatsoever.

Are you sure that your day job is not perhaps with some part of the British Telecom empire?

NGMsGhost

I will treat your comments about me being involved with BT with the contempt they deserve.

1. Evidence Primus use Talk Talk

" Rather than placing their own equipment in telephone exchanges, Primus resells the network of TalkTalk, which has the most exchanges covered of any provider."

http://www.broadband.co.uk/broadband/providers/primus/

2. Evidence they appear to block indirect access

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4469783

(More threads like this one saying same thing on MSE)

and your notice i gave them a mention here http://www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1382063602/0#0  so i am not biase towards BT Products.

I was with Primus a while ago back when it was possible to have o2 broadband (which no longer exists) without having an o2 landline so I used Primus for line rental and o2 for broadband (via LLU).

The only problems I had with Primus was less than a months notice was given when they increased their line rental for which they sorted for me.

I also had problems when trying to leave my contract a little early.  Ofcom had previously stated that those wishing to leave contract early may do so without paying full line rental charges for any remaining months instead stating it should be a lot less because it no longer costs them once customer moves.  I quoted to Primus what Ofcom had stated and provided them a link to Ofcom's website where the likes of other main providers had agreed to reduce their prices accordingly for those wishing to pay off the remaining months and leave early.

Naturally, Primus said that Ofcom guidelines did not apply to them and only applied to the big providers and refused to enter into further correspondence or allow me to leave without paying FULL line rental for the remaining months.

I complained to the ombudsman and provided them with link to Ofcom website where Ofcom had put they expected other providers to follow suite as the big providers have. The ombudsman agreed in my favour and forced primus to reduce their early termination charges accordingly which they reluctlantly did.

What primus did and their responses I expected to be honest as most other landline providers probably would have tried it on as well.