One should always be mindful that it is easy to get carried away, seeing something could be regarded as too good to be true.

This is calls to BT Mobiles – which is of course what you state – but I think that it is worth emphasising. At first glance, I did interpret as being free calls to mobiles in general.

It begs questions as to how useful in practice this might be and how the caller might know whether the number they are calling is with BT Mobile.

How many people do you ask for their telephone number and the provider of the service they use? Not many, I would think.

Other providers have similar offerings, although these can be as standard with their service. This includes Plusnet and Utility Warehouse, which offer free calls to phones provided by themselves, for example.

These might be useful for calls to other family members whom are called often (free frequent inter-family calls), although to calls these numbers will be free anyway where the subscriber has an inclusive calls option in place. Where no inclusive package is in operation, such as with someone uses the telephone very little, then this will come into its own – so long as no one called switches provider, and fails to notify the caller of this.

If a particular person has been known to subscribe to a particular provider and moves away, the caller will be lumbered with a potentially big bill. This does act to the advantage of the provider who has lost a customer. Quite how profitable across all customers this might be, I'm not at all sure, but I feel it is worth noting nonetheless. The customer complaints department is certainly likely to receive communications from people in this position, particularly where the unexpected call charge is large.

Thus, "how useful in practice" offerings of this nature are can apply not only to the customer but to his/her call provider too, cynics might say.

Since the fairly recent drop in mobile termination charges, more landline phone providers are offering calls to mobiles as part of a package. For example Plusnet offer 24/7 calls to 01/02/03 and UK mobiles for (I think) £8 per month. As is common, calls that exceed 60 minutes get charged but you can hang up and redial.

I think the PN package still includes calls to 0845 and 0870 though this surely can't go on much longer.

allegro wrote on Feb 5^th, 2017 at 8:53am:

 
Plusnet Call Bundles also  restrict the amount of mobile calls you can make as.mentioned in the original post.

bigjohn wrote on Feb 5^th, 2017 at 10:53am:


Because they are BT and they do as they please.  Ever since they decided to get involved in Sport their prices rose and rose... long gone are they days of inexpensive line rental charges (now nearly £20)... because someone has to make a profit somewhere....

bigjohn wrote on Feb 5^th, 2017 at 10:51am:


The number of calls is unlimited. The only restriction is on call length. I think is true of most, if not all, landline packages which offer inclusive calls. This is unlike mobile call packages where the restriction is normally total number of minutes per month with no restriction on individual calls. So if you want to natter for 3 hours on a single call you can do so without problems. Except for for your ear, throat and brain

Heinz wrote on Feb 8^th, 2017 at 2:10pm:

It all depends as to how many minutes one is likely to use. If it is under the limit, and especially when under by quite a margin, then the limit is not an issue, other than being mindful if there is exceptionally high usage one month.

There seems to be some confusion, although I am sure that contributors have researched the matter properly.

According to the BT Consumer Price Guide - Effective from 1st February 2017, the free calls to BT Mobiles only applies to Unlimited Anytime (and Home Phone Saver). It seems that the actual feature has a limit of 1000 minutes per month and does not apply to Unlimited Weekends or Unlimited Evenings and Weekends.

I also understand this covers only calls to (branded) "BT Mobile" lines, as "BT Business Mobile" lines are excluded. One must surely assume that calls to mobile lines provided by other members of "BT Group Plc" (e.g. EE) are also excluded.

Some of the information on the BT website appears to have been published before this benefit was actually introduced, and so should be read with caution.

It would obviously help the discussion if we can agree on what we are talking about. Alternative understandings provide a fair, if challenging, basis for discussion; there is no such thing as an "alternative fact", this term is a euphemism for a "lie".