This topic

Re: Broadband and landline

hubbys — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 12:06:28 GMT

I noticed a reply from Distinguished Sage stating that it depends on what ”call package” you are on in reference to Broadband and landline deals. Mentioning pay as you go at £5 a month. I am on Halo3 broadband and “pay as you go” landline. Yet for the past two years I have been paying £219 for the landline.Last year managing to get renewal of line rental before it finished. So why have I been paying that amount of money instead of £5 a month?

Re: Broadband and landline

imjolly — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 12:12:59 GMT

i moved your post as previous post was a year old and marked solved. this way you can get replies to your question

the £5 reduction in cost of package is due to no longer having ability to make/receive calls and nothing to do with line rental which is included in package. you obviously are one of the last to pay up front for LRS which really has nothing to do with line rental anymore. LRS is covered in numerous post on the forum found using search

Re: Broadband and landline

iniltous — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 12:33:45 GMT

LRS ( line rental saver ) was a mechanism to save around £20 a year from your bill , basically for an upfront payment of around £220 , you had 12 x £20 credits applied to your bill ( one per month ) so worth £240 in total, and although originally based on the fact that £20 was around the price of ‘line rental’ of a standalone phone line for a month , this predated when it was required to sell broadband with the line rental included in the price .

When the rules changed around advertising the total cost of broadband, including rental, LRS became a discount unrelated to ‘line rental’ , just a discount for an upfront payment , unfortunately some still think of line rental and broadband as separate items and allocate ( for example ) a typical £30 monthly bill as £20 line rental and £10 broadband, but it isn’t , it’s £30, there is no subdivision , it’s a single price.

What BT now do is offer the option to remove telephony from broadband, to save £5 , unfortunately those that still think in line rental terms ask , if line rental is £20 ( but it isn’t ) why if I remove line rental does the bill only go down £5 and not £20 , presumably expecting broadband for £10 per month .

Line rental and telephony are not the same but are fixed in some minds are interchangeable terms , it doesn’t help when ISP refer to line rental either , like ‘broadband without line rental’ , there is still a ‘line’ and it’s still rented , even if it only delivers broadband and not telephony.

For those that want to keep telephony with their BT broadband, you need a calls package, the basic calls package is PAYG and is £5 ( although frequently discounted to £2 ) , so typically, broadband on its own £30 , with telephone on a PAYG basis , £32-35 a month , if you paid £219 upfront, your next 12 bills each had a £20 discount, irrespective of what you thought it was for , but it’s no longer sold anyway.