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Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

Andrewpsw — Mon, 10 Apr 2023 11:38:54 GMT

I have a broadband and landline fibre package. I cancelled my 700 minutes call plan and have automatically been put on monthly pay as you go for landline calls. Do I get a monthly charge for the pay as you plan on top of any calls I may make? I rarely use my landline to make calls so I really don't want to pay anymore than the call charges. Are there any alternatives?

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

jac_95 — Mon, 10 Apr 2023 11:40:38 GMT

The other alternative is to go broadband only which will completely remove the voice service (which saves about £5 per month)

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

licquorice — Mon, 10 Apr 2023 11:42:31 GMT

It depends which way the wind is blowing. You might pay nothing, £2/m or £5/m on top of the call charges. As everything with BT, it is not straightforward!!

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

iniltous — Mon, 10 Apr 2023 13:02:47 GMT

The current difference between 700mins and PAYG is £8/month, if you have removed your 700mins , but kept the phone service ( which requires a phone plan , the cheapest being the ‘free’ PAYG ) your bill should reduce by £8 or whatever price you were paying for 700 mins, as stated , if you don’t need a phone service at all , so no incoming calls , you wouldn’t even have a phone number for others to call you on, no possibility of outgoing calls , including 999 etc, then a further saving is possible, the list price is £5 for telephony with a PAYG call plan , although as stated it can range between £0 and £5 .

If you have PAYG and don’t make a call then there is no charge for the PAYG call plan , but you do pay £2 to £5 for the phone service, some confuse this £2 to £5 charge for having the phone service as the charge for the call plan , so assume that PAYG plan is £2-£5 , but it isn’t, it’s not very clear , but PAYG is ‘free’ , having a phone service isn’t.

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

janets1 — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 16:39:52 GMT

I have just changed to pay as you go as i very rarely use the landline now, but why should we pay £2-£5 for the privilege of having a phone service when we already pay for the line rental?

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

licquorice — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 16:50:41 GMT

Here we go again, you don't pay line rental as a separate charge, it is included in the broadband contract and has absolutely nothing to do with telephony it is to maintain the 'line' regardless of what that line is carrying.

You pay extra for PAYG telephony in order to provide you with a phone number to receive incoming calls and the equipment to make calls if you require.

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

janets1 — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 17:16:57 GMT

Thanks for clearing that up for me, however could do without the sarcasm "here we go again".

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

licquorice — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 17:24:32 GMT

The subject has been discussed ad nauseum on the forum, I guess you have missed it

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

Grassmarket1 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 11:02:36 GMT

@licquorice Just seen this - quite agree with Janet; the sarcasm & digital yawns are unnecessary & unkind. If you no longer enjoy basking in the glittering title of Sage or Guru - why not resign?
It might be the umpteenth time you’ve answered the question - but 1st time for each of us. Ever heard of copy & paste?
If BT charges were clearer, we wouldn’t all be asking the forum - so you’re criticising the wrong people. And as for it being discussed ‘ad nauseam’ on the forum - what makes you think the rest of us (with real lives?) actually read any of it, unless we encounter a problem ourselves?
If you want to see real repetition on a forum - just visit a private parking charges forum - & think yourselves lucky!

As for your explanation of why the PAYG charge - I’m inclined to disagree with that too. Line rental on a bill may be ‘presented’ as if it’s part of the broadband contract, but its existence predates broadband by many decades & those without broadband still pay it. Hence Line Rental Saver is/was a separate entity with separate contract & end date from broadband. Before broadband, we paid line rental just for our phone number, so naturally people will continue to think their phone number is included in the line rental charge. Did BT ever tell us that they’d decided to remove telephony from line rental? (& reduce line rental charge accordingly!) - or announce that telephony charge was to be included in call packages? I think not!

This £2 charge is just a scam - to claw back £ from all those who still have a landline but only use their mobiles to make calls. And when BT’s Digital Voice (internet calls) replaces PSTN (current phone network), the same thing will happen. BT will still charge people extra - just for having an internet phone at home. Even though voice calls will all be on the same fibre network as broadband, so will cost them nothing!

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

imjolly — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 10:21:42 GMT

@Grassmarket1

when new members have a question surely the first thing would be to see if others have raised the same question and if answers had already been provided by using the forum search facility. if nothing found then raise the forum post.

Line rental has been discussed many times on the forum and again search would bring up many post some relatively recent

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

iniltous — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 10:51:06 GMT

Removing the landline phone service completely is available, and saves £2-£5 , presumably people who keep a landline phone service do so for a reason , possibly a long standing phone number that may receive the occasional incoming calls from friends / relatives , as well as this incoming calls facility, they make value the option to make calls , including emergency service calls , in case of the mobile being unavailable, those services are not free to provide so why complain about the relatively small sum to have access to them ?

In the past there was always the complaint, that ‘I have to pay for a phone service that I do not use , I only want broadband and that should be cheaper without a phone service’ , and that’s what you can now have it saves them £2-£5 , in many cases the same people now complain ‘why do I have to pay for a phone service , it should be included with my broadband rental’ , so what do they they want ? the discount for ‘no phone’ or an included phone service ?

If you have a mobile for your phone calls , and don’t want to pay for having a landline phone service for incoming calls , you don’t have to it , there isn’t a gun to your head , how is that a scam ?

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

Grassmarket1 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 10:50:43 GMT

In an ideal world - yes; but in reality - no.

People are busy, often alarmed by their bills & tend to think all their problems (not just BT) are unique. Forum searches are clunky & the real answers often hidden amongst a lot of ‘noise’. By contrast - if you even START to ask Google a question that has been asked before - it helpfully prompts likely questions & suggests answers. BT Forum certainly doesn’t match up to that!
So - it’s much easier & safer to ask again & be sure to get an up-to-date answer.

In short - just suck it up!

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

Grassmarket1 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 11:01:08 GMT

@iniltous the scam is that, in the past, if you didn’t make calls you just paid line rental. Line rental used to be phone line only. So why should we pay more now? If BT want to incentivise those who choose no voice line, why don’t they give them a discount off their line rental? PSTN or Digital Voice - it’s all the same wires - costs BT nothing. It’s a scam.

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

iniltous — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:48:18 GMT

the scam is that, in the past, if you didn’t make calls you just paid line rental. Line rental used to be phone line only. So why should we pay more now? ( you don’t , it’s £2 to £5 cheaper with no phone ) If BT want to incentivise those who choose no voice line, why don’t they give them a discount off their line rental? ( they do it’s £2 - £5 cheaper ) PSTN or Digital Voice - it’s all the same wires - costs BT nothing. It’s a scam.

You cannot have it both ways , when you had to have a ‘phoneline’ with broadband you cannot argue it’s unfair to charge for an unwanted phone line , then when a discount is given for not having a phone line , claim ‘well the line is there so a phone service should be included’ , that what you had to start with .

In your case , do you want a phone services for the incoming calls and access to emergency calls , even if you never intend to make chargeable calls , because you have a mobile for that ?

If the answer is yes , why do you think that should be free , why do you think it should be available to you but someone doesn’t want any telephony at all ( so they don’t have a phone number , no incoming, no 999 ) should have to pay the same as you , with your ability to access something they cannot .

If the answer is No , save £2-£5 by not having a phone number .

Im really struggling to see any logic in your argument

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

Grassmarket1 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 14:25:49 GMT

@iniltous the logic is simple: the £2 charge in my bill is labelled as PAYG - so clearly BT think they ARE charging me £2 for PAYG - even if you don’t! There’s no line entitled ‘phone service’ or telephony’ - just a simple ‘PAYG’.

The other part of the logic is precedent: in the past everyone paid BT ‘line rental’ just for the phone line - long before broadband ever existed. It’s still called ‘line rental’ now - so clearly it should still include the phone line. Unless BT ever announced that their definition of ‘line rental’ would no longer include phone lines, or that they were going to start giving a discount to customers who didn’t have one - which of course they didn’t- then ‘logically’ it should still include the phone line today.

And it IS a scam - because it’s a hidden charge. When I cancelled my own £8 call plan, they never even said they’d still be charging £2 anyway. Nowhere on the BT website or MyBT can I find the existence of this £2 charge even acknowledged - let alone explained. The fact that so many people here are making the same complaints about it (much to the irritation of the Gurus & Sages!) is more than adequate proof that it’s a scam.

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

licquorice — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 14:30:15 GMT

You clearly have no concept of the difference between a physical line which is required to carry either broadband, telephony or both and the exchange equipment required to provide a phone number and the ability to make calls.

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

Grassmarket1 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 14:59:22 GMT

@licquorice what I have no concept of is a ‘line rental’ charge that used to include phone line (& indeed used to be phone line only) - but all of a sudden it doesn’t.
Q - What’s changed? A - mass exodus of people from paying for landline calls & call plans, in favour of inclusive minutes on their mobiles. So BT hatch a new plan: miraculously separate phone line from ‘line rental’, don’t tell anyone about it & start penalising people for not using their landline.
Having worked in telephony myself - this kind of tactic is all too familiar!

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

licquorice — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 15:00:55 GMT

Whatever

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

Grassmarket1 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 15:30:32 GMT

👍

Re: Pay as you go landline monthly charges?

iniltous — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 15:58:18 GMT

You still haven’t answered the fundamental question , if both you and I had the same broadband profile /speed from BT , but you also have a phone service on a PAYG basis and I don’t , I don’t have a phone number , no telephony at all , so no incoming calls possible, no 999 access , should we pay the same ? or should I pay less than you , it’s irrelevant if its you paying a premium or myself getting a discount, you should pay more because you are getting something I don’t .

Historical references are a little pointless, FWIW , I’d agree in that it’s ludicrous to call a phone service aligned to a broadband service a ‘landline ‘ , but that’s where we are , it’s ludicrous because of the association some people ( like yourself have ) with what was historically called a landline or line rental , it seems too much of a leap for some to make , replacing the term landline with phone service.

Assuming you don’t disagree with the above ( and it’s pretty unarguable ) , then if a charge is raised for having a phone service ( not a landline ) and that charge is £2 -£5 , if thats a ‘scam’ price , what would you suggest is a reasonable figure is ?, it can’t be zero can it , otherwise you are getting something I don’t get , or I am forced to pay what you pay , by having to pay ‘extra’ for something I don’t want .

The £2 -£5 is only for PAYG , in respect that if you want a phone service it has to have a call plan , and the lowest ( cheapest ) call plan is PAYG , but telephony is also available for something like £9 for 700 mins or £18 for unlimited calls , that’s not £9 plus £2-£5 , it’s £9 , or it’s not £18 plus £2-£5 , it’s £18 .

If I wanted what you have ( telephony ) I’ll pay a bit more , if you want what I have ( no phone service) you can save a few ££ , we both have the option to have what the other has , you have never had that much choice before .

What is it about the above you can possibly argue with ?