cancelling landline

[nialld]

I have asked to cancel my landline because as it moves to a digital platform and is internet dependent it will no longer bring me any  additional value. However, BT say I can only do this if I scrap my entire contract and take out a new 2 year deal which is ridiculous. I contracted on the basis  of an internet free landline service (i have had numerous failings with my broadband including BT having to make compensation payments)  and at the very least they should allow me to terminate my landline without affecting the rest of my contract which runs until April 2025.  Any thoughts?

[rbz5416]

Just stop using it, the saving (if any) from cancelling it will be minimal anyway.

[nialld]

it costs £13.15 a month  - it includes 700 minutes of free landline calls and phone answering service, so not an insubstantial amount  

[rbz5416]

You can switch that to PAYG.

[TimCurtis]

@nialld 

You should be able to switch to PAYG which is about £3pm if you don't use your home phone for outgoing calls.

I switched to DV , don't use the BT SmartHub 2 so cannot make or receive calls but set the BT answer phone to immediately answer calls and call it every day or so to pickup any messages and I pay the £3 pm to keep the number incase any of our contacts don't have our mobile numbers.

[iniltous]

You may think you took a phone service on the basis it wasn’t IP ( Internet Protocol ) , but you didn’t , you contracted on the basis of having a phone service irrespective of the method it’s delivered over , however many , when advised of the change to DV are offered the option to remove telephony at that point , without any extra contractual obligation, so are you preemptively calling and asking to remove telephony before the notification of the automated migration to DV , or have you been notified of the change to DV , but the option to drop telephony wasn’t offered ? , if you are simply asking to change the terms of your contract ( not because you have been advised of moving to DV ) then that’s a recontracting event.

If you pay for 700 minutes presumably you make enough calls per month to make that payment worthwhile, so you don’t seem to be the type of customer that doesn’t make or receive calls and therefore even the £2-£5 for telephony on a PAYG basis is an unnecessary expense, unless of course you are paying for 700 mins for no reason …..why does the change to DV mean you no longer need to make landline calls ?, presumably you still need to do that , otherwise why have you been paying for 700 mins ?

[PixieChaser]

It is worth it to keep it. it isn't much cheaper to get rid of it. 

[Jane2018]

Lots of people want to do this and given the move to CV you might have thought the last BY could do was let people get rid of a landline number and charges they don't want; but they don't. Anything that loses them money is hard to do. Anyway that makes them money is easy - a business model used by all kinds of providers as it works so well for profits. I could probably do without one of my landline numbers but as changing anything usually means it all goes wrong or costs more I will keep with both the landline numbers (one is used a lot anyway). Given one my landline bills has a £20 a month charge for the landline and the only free minutes are at the weekend when I don't make calls and I pay across the 2 accounts about £200 a month and have changed nothing actively since the 1990s (so not even sure I am on a "contract") perhaps I am their perfect mug of a customer!

[imjolly · Accepted solution]

@Jane2018 

the contract is for broadband and phone so terminating the phone ability terminates the contract and a new contract needs to be started for broadband only.  it is as simple as that

hopefully BT will eventually allow the termination of the phone capability without the need to terminate the existing contract - but not available just now

[nialld]

Thanks.  I suspect like many others, we do use our landline less now, so the 700 minute deal is not worth it now anyway. But as I explained the real benefit of what we thought we were buying was something that would work when internet was down.  We have not yet been told when our line will be switched over to digital only that it will be, If I understand you correctly you are saying that at that point BT will offer us the option of ending the telephony part of our deal - that would be great, though not what I understood from talking to BT yesterday. On your point about the contract being to provide a telephony service and not the means by which it was delivered - I am sure you are right but I suspect BT understood perfectly well that those buying a landline thought they were buying something independent of the internet. thanks anyway i will wait until they contact me to move the system to its digital future - in the meantime ironically the landline has been down for days and  BT are not promising to fix it before 23.59 on Friday!