Line Rental going up from September 23rd

Has anyone got email just now from Plusnet to say line rental going up from September 23rd:

Email read out:

On 23rd September 2014 we are making some changes to our home phone pricing and call charges. The cost of our monthly line rental is increasing to £15.95 a month. Our monthly line rental packages with inclusive calls still deliver great value, they're better value than TalkTalk1 , and we continue to lead the market on customer satisfaction. 2

If you currently pay for 12 months line rental in advance, we'll send you a reminder before your Line Rental Saver expires, with details on how to renew. The renewal charge after 23rd September 2014 will be £155.88, equivalent to £12.99 a month, this equates to a saving of £35.52 a year.

I already pay line rental saver £131.88 last month - so, I don't know if my line rental saver will going to increase or not?

Edited by adslmax (Thu 24-Jul-14 13:30:40)

Not had the email yet myself (only had the one where they've turned on a firewall for each of us today!!!) but seems like it's pretty well covered here

It's rather annoying as Plusnet seem to follow BT line rental cost. I hope my line rental saver remain the same until end of my 12 months in July 2015, but a cheeky of email me after I signed up line rental saver last month upfront of £131.88 to cover from July 22nd 2014 until July 22nd 2015.

Yeah it is annoying - I'm stuck with them for another 8 months and pay monthly!

Ofcom ruling say u can leave if they increasing the price without a penalty fee but you will lose LRS as LRS are non-refundable.

Updated: Plusnet staff told me My LRS won't be affected until end of my LRS as I still got 11 months left. So, I am ok for now until next July 2015.

Edited by adslmax (Thu 24-Jul-14 14:15:03)

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/6483-line-rental-... old news by about 5 weeks

No it isn't
This price change is for existing customers and was first announced here http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1292...
The previous one was for new customers

Edited by deleted (Thu 24-Jul-14 14:37:13)

MrSaffron, no it not old news. The first time was for new customers and now this one for existing customers which I got email just today from Plusnet.

Hands ADSLMax the golden cookie for the day

Hi all,

We know nobody likes a price increase, we've made this decision to both maintain and improve our overall service to customers whilst we continue to grow.

We're doing our best (and the mods are too, cheers Jim et al...) to field any queries and discussion surrounding that here:

http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1292...

I'd advise having a read through the discussion there before posing any new questions as you may well already find the info/answer you're looking for.

I am serious thinking from next year when my LRS expiries. I will never join broadband & phone at the same isp. Because the isp are clever smart to keep the customers in the long term contract while the price keep increasing!.

So, from next year I will look all isp for broadband only and phone supplier for phone only.

Plusnet used to be value for broadband & phone, not anymore, They are now expensive!

Edited by adslmax (Thu 24-Jul-14 15:18:19)

If its not escaped your notice finding similar priced phone with provider A and broadband with provider B, or broadband-only deals are hard to find.

So stomping feet up and done and moving may not help at all

You can keep your Plusnet broadband and just move the line rental when your LRS expires Currently Zen at £11.22 on a monthly contract seems to be the best, apart probably from Primus which I wouldn't fancy.

Won't that bump his monthly price to the broadband-only pricing level?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Won't that bump his monthly price to the broadband-only pricing level?

Yes it will an extra £2.50 without phone, that's why I left Zen home phone switch over to Plusnet phone to save me £2.50 on broadband

Edited by adslmax (Thu 24-Jul-14 18:58:49)

Even with the 2.50 surcharge on the bb, it will still work out cheaper to move phone to Zen than stay with plusnet for phone and b/b

Think I'm gonna move my phone to Zen, and a downgrade to the 40/20 package is looking tempting right now as I'm looking at reducing costs and fibre bb deals appear to be slim on the ground atm

Edited by Davey_H (Thu 24-Jul-14 19:20:37)

I expecting Zen Line Rental will be increasing soon as all isp's doing this now.

Yes, but by taking both initially he avoided the Fibre setup charge of £50, and won't get charged it if he moves the phone away.

Simple if you know where to look. There are quality no tie-in services to be found.

Plusnet, like many, follow BT on all they can get away with. There is nothing cheap about your line rental compared to Zen. Especially as you put your money in their bank and got tied in for a year into the bargain.

The only way of no more line rental charge is taking out Virgin Media Cable Broadband stand alone without the phone but still well expensive in my view below:

Up to 50Mb - £26.50 a month
Up to 100Mb - £31.50 a month
Up to 152Mb - £39 a month

No need for a Virgin Phone line
12 month contract

Edited by adslmax (Thu 24-Jul-14 22:20:31)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

The only way of no more line rental charge is taking out Virgin Media Cable Broadband stand alone without the phone

What on earth has that to do with the fact, that a years Plusnet line rental and tie-in up front, is still dearer the £11.22 no tie-in Zen line rental?

The weirdo are my friend in Shropshire got Plusnet fibre activated on his line but no phone line (not working) as a dead tone. So, I believe BT Openreach want everyones to have line rental is a MUST for Fibre broadband to work! So, how on earth fibre still working even the phone tone went dead not working. Doesn't make any sense at all.

Edited by adslmax (Thu 24-Jul-14 22:27:55)

What makes little sense to me, is your post above, along with it being well off topic (expensive Plusnet line rental).

Please excuse my replying to you Bob, but I didn't want to spoil the utter delight of a thread that has turned into a conversation between professor973 and adslmax. Sheer joy that we have been waiting for for so long

What date did you sign up to Plusnet, Max?

You pushing for a scrap [censored] ?

No, you and everyone else is doing it so you can offer a ridiculously low headline price for Broadband.

Because that price is actually not profitable, you're slowly pushing up the Line Rental - and you, like Sky, TalkTalk and everyone else do this to just below or the same as BT (who of course you are owned by) so that it's still "competitive".

It effectively amounts to cartel like behaviour, and it's done purely because increasingly line rental is not a competitive market because broadband pricing depends on taking it with the same provider to get a better broadband deal, effectively forcing the hand of everyone. Especially since more and more people only want a landline for the broadband part.

It's not because of any wholesale cost increase. It's not because the line rental increase somehow magically improves the "overall service". If PlusNet and everyone else (since it's not just PlusNet who are guilty) just had more honest pricing, this sort of nonsense explanation wouldn't need to exist.

Nobody wants to put up "broadband" pricing, because that's actually what people are competing on, so instead everyone is using this backdoor method of bumping up the line rental price - which handily you often can't easily move because (a) your BB price has to go up, (b) is generally contract linked, and (c) everyone else is magically putting prices up so nobody is really any cheaper in a meaningful way.

If we just avoided this ridiculous race to the bottom on pricing (which PlusNet are very guilty of), we'd all have a more realistic expectation of what it really costs, and could just price honestly from the outset without reverting to subsidy and marketing tricks.

The "line rental" is for the copper circuit. It handily (or not) includes a "voice" service. There are plenty of fault conditions that would prevent the voice service from working, but leave the broadband.

However...

(a) Apart from administrative efforts, paying someone line rental is mandatory for any BT Wholesale based broadband services, and the logic is that this pays for the upkeep of that copper line network.

(b) If your "friend" does get a BB fault, he'll struggle to get that fixed because the phone line is in a fault condition - he/she will almost certainly find the BB fix is delayed because the voice line part first needs to be repaired before the broadband provider can easily raise a fault on the BB side.

(c) You still talk a lot of nonsense.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

What date did you sign up to Plusnet, Max?

I have to check plusnet account details to find out When I did join?

Updated: found it...

£36.49 £0.00 16/12/2010 Fully Paid ADSL Initial Charge

Edited by adslmax (Fri 25-Jul-14 00:47:12)

Ah. Thanks but. I forgot you were already with them when you got FTTC and phone.

I should have asked when you signed up for fibre and phone? I don't think you had phone before did you?

I join Plusnet as ADSL (8Mbps in 2010 December) then later upgrade to ADSL2+ in 2011 August and then upgrade to FTTC (last February 2014) then join Plusnet a phone transfer from Zen two months ago (May 2014). I join Zen phone line from BT April until May 2014 as I was with BT as a line rental from 2007 until 2014.

Edited by adslmax (Fri 25-Jul-14 01:17:22)

Thanks.

That gives me some arithmetic to do, but probably won't give me the result I was hoping for.

Not tonight!

I think you are absolutely right.

Plusnet will not offer me any sort of broadband deal because my line rental is with Primus.

If I moved my line rental to PN I could get a broadband deal but the line rental would cost another £9 which would effectively negate any overall saving plus the deal would only last for 12 months and then I would be worse off than now and dependent on negotiating another deal.

Looking on the positive side at least Plusnet do offer a broadband only service which many other ISPs do not. Its just annoying that they play silly games with respective charges - which I suppose is all the marketing types have to fill their working day.

A shame PN can't seem to offer a "no-nonsense" service like they did before BT days! (That [censored] with the blender annoys me!)

In reply to a post by therioman:

The "line rental" is for the copper circuit ...

...

(a) Apart from administrative efforts, paying someone line rental is mandatory for any BT Wholesale based broadband services, and the logic is that this pays for the upkeep of that copper line network.

So surely with so many FFTC enabled cabinets, the amount of copper installed and in use is reducing, a fibre should be more reliable, and so the maintenance costs are reducing. So line rental is reducing I would hope.

An FTTC cabinet adds to the amount of copper in use. The tie cables between it and the PCP.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

An FTTC cabinet adds to the amount of copper in use. The tie cables between it and the PCP.

But if you aren't using the landline, the copper between the cabinet and the exchange is not 'in use'. At least, as far as I know if that copper was completely removed the broadband would still work fine.

I don't know how the copper from exchange to cabinet works. Is there a separate copper connection between cabinet and exchange for each line connected to the cabinet, or is there more logic in the cabinet to reduce the need for dedicated cables?

Ah, I see what you are wrongly assuming .

Your phone line to the exchange remains as is, and I expect the vast majority of the population still use it.

A basic guide to FTTC on this page.

Yes, the user line from PCP to the exchange is a dedicated pair for each number connected.

In reply to a post by godsell4:

In reply to a post by therioman:

The "line rental" is for the copper circuit ...

...

(a) Apart from administrative efforts, paying someone line rental is mandatory for any BT Wholesale based broadband services, and the logic is that this pays for the upkeep of that copper line network.

So surely with so many FFTC enabled cabinets, the amount of copper installed and in use is reducing, a fibre should be more reliable, and so the maintenance costs are reducing. So line rental is reducing I would hope.

The copper network still exists and runs just as far (the fibre ends at the cabinet, so the bit to your premises is still copper, the but from the cabinet to the exchange or the voice side is still copper too).

I suspect the "fibre network" also needs maintenance (ever picked up a bill for repair of damaged fibre), or the electricity for the extra cabinets, etc etc.

I think strictly speaking the correct term is that it pays for the "local access network" (eg the "local loop") - but it isn't really the point - the wholesale price for line rental is not rising massively and has not done so. The retail price is going up considerably at an alarming rate.

In reply to a post by StephenTodd:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

An FTTC cabinet adds to the amount of copper in use. The tie cables between it and the PCP.

But if you aren't using the landline, the copper between the cabinet and the exchange is not 'in use'. At least, as far as I know if that copper was completely removed the broadband would still work fine.

I don't know how the copper from exchange to cabinet works. Is there a separate copper connection between cabinet and exchange for each line connected to the cabinet, or is there more logic in the cabinet to reduce the need for dedicated cables?

You can indeed, in theory do without the copper from PCP to Exchange for FTTC broadband yes. There is no technical requirement for it to deliver the FTTC bit.

In reply to a post by mbeenham:

Looking on the positive side at least Plusnet do offer a broadband only service which many other ISPs do not. Its just annoying that they play silly games with respective charges - which I suppose is all the marketing types have to fill their working day.

If you exclude the "big players" (BT, Sky, TalkTalk etc) you will find a huge number of ISPs offer "no tie" based broadband.

I haven't mentioned them yet, but the biggest con ever is Virgin who (until recently at least) had the same price differential where there really is absolutely no requirement for the voice bit to deliver the broadband in any shape fashion or form whatsoever, yet they still had a £15.99 line rental you had to remember about). More recently they seem to have started offering no (genuinely pointless) voice options, but they really were pushing it before - at least in standard ADSL2+ setups the copper has a purpose in the setup!

In reply to a post by therioman:

You can indeed, in theory do without the copper from PCP to Exchange for FTTC broadband yes. There is no technical requirement for it to deliver the FTTC bit.

In the world as it is however :-

First, I expect a number does need to be allocated to the FTTC service.

Second, all the equipment exists for remotely checking copper faults, and I believe pretty well pinpointing where it is. Remove the exchange-PCP link and what happens then?

Third, it would be impracticable to remove much nationally, if any, until nearly everybody was on FTTx.

In reply to a post by therioman:

More recently they seem to have started offering no (genuinely pointless) voice options,

But at only £4.99 less than the total including the £15.99 line rental, so you are still effectively paying £11 a month "line rental".

Edited by kasg (Fri 25-Jul-14 20:39:44)

Silly question, Adam, and I'm sorry if it's already answered somewhere in the link you gave, but how do I find out when my LRS is paid up to?

I think it expires in December, but I'm not sure when in December, so don't know if I'll be able to do what I did last year too, and renew "up to" three months early, to retain the current price.

I can't find anywhere in my account information it says when it runs out. I can find proof I've paid, but that doesn't cast any light on it.

The home phone control panel only seems to deal with the monthly call charges. The line rental is showing as £0 - because I already paid it up-front, but no info on when that needs renewing, and can't find the section where you can opt to do it early.

T.

Look up in your email, it should be there of your LRS order with the date on it.

I agree that they don't make it easy to see when it is due and it is complicated by paying in advance as the messages you get don't actually tell you when it starts from. However, if you think it is due in December I am fairly sure it will be due on your normal billing date (mine is the 26th), therefore it runs out on the day before.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Look up in your email, it should be there of your LRS order with the date on it.

Unfortunately the emails omit the vital piece of information that TLM wants.

Quite. I can see when my LRS payment was accepted. However, I can't see when it ran from - which is different - and therefore when it expires.

I also can't find the part of the website (at least, I thought it was part of the website last time) where it allows you to pay early. Possibly, that part only becomes available once you are in the three-month window. Or can it be that I have only ever done it by phone, or by PMing one of the reps here?

I think I have paid early for the past two years, to avoid price hikes, but as the annual increases seem to be getting ever earlier, I think it is now borderline whether I can squeeze in a payment before they go up again.

T.

it tells you here https://portal.plus.net/apps/linerental/saver/portal and I am one day too late to get in before the price rise - I think I am being picked on

Edited by deleted (Sat 26-Jul-14 12:17:26)

Ah, thank you - I'm glad it was not my imagination that it's in there somewhere, but they certainly don't make it easy, do they?

I was right that it expires in December, and it is my billing date of the 13th, so I need to set a reminder to renew between the 13th and 23rd September. Sorry - I don't mean to rub salt in any wounds. It is indeed bad luck to miss it by a day!

If they continue this trend of inching the rises forward, year on year, I'll fall foul of it too, next year or the year after. I'm down to just a ten day window of opportunity already. Expecting to lose that in due course. Assuming LRS sign-ups are pretty evenly spread throughout the year, I guess, each year, only a quarter of customers can squeeze in before the cutoff, but three-quarters can't.

T.

In reply to a post by Oldjim:

I think I am being picked on

Not just you - mine is due on 26th December so I'm in the same boat. As there's no point in renewing early now, I'll just hang on until the last moment and make a decision then.

As my present broadband contract runs out on the 8th November and the LRS in December I will wait until December before phoning the cancellations lot to find out what they will be prepared to offer so that I can align the two dates
According to the Superfast Map I should be getting Fibre in the back end of next year but I will believe that when it happens

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by therioman:

More recently they seem to have started offering no (genuinely pointless) voice options,

But at only £4.99 less than the total including the £15.99 line rental, so you are still effectively paying £11 a month "line rental".

Yes - I'm not arguing that the economics are such that the cost of the "phone line" plus the "broadband" are overly profiteering. What I have an issue with is this "broadband for a bag of crisps*"

*plus <inflated> amount of line rental

...approach. The reality is that the line rental is subsidising broadband (undoubtedly in the case of plus.net), but is always in small print and subject to constant price rises. It's a pathetic situation driven primarily by marketing and the race to the bottom.

In reply to a post by therioman:

The reality is that the line rental is subsidising broadband (undoubtedly in the case of plus.net), but is always in small print and subject to constant price rises. It's a pathetic situation driven primarily by marketing and the race to the bottom.

I couldn't agree more. Having spent so much energy (excuse the pun) on shaking up the broken so-called competitive energy market, it's time that someone looked at the telecoms market.

Thanks Oldjim as mine is:

You're already signed up to Line Rental Saver.
This is due to expire on 21-07-2015. We'll contact you before this to let you know when you can renew the offer.

I just saved that on my notepad on my pc just in case if I forget next year.

Edited by adslmax (Sat 26-Jul-14 17:55:16)

Dear Plusnet

Please explain why is residential line rental going up from £14.50 to £15.95 inc VAT but I think it disgraceful because how come business line rental still cheaper at £12.60 inc VAT as it was pricing at £10.50 excluding VAT. I don't understand why we being Punishment by expensive line rental on the residential side?

I don't understand why we being Punishment by expensive line rental on the residential side?

Could have something to do with with the race to the bottom by the mass market ISPs to offer such cheap broadband that there's no or very little money to be made out of it, so line rental takes the hit.

Now what was that advert where someone said something like "They've got to get the money from somewhere to pay for the bubbly at the next ..........."

There is nothing to stop you using the Post Office HomePhone line rental at £13 plus call package. They don't charge for caller display either...

You will pay £2.50 extra on your plusNet Fibre though. So for the sake of £1.44 a month I prefer to keep my landline and broadband with the same provider as there is then a clear responsibility when something goes wrong...

In reply to a post by Apprentice:

Could have something to do with with the race to the bottom by the mass market ISPs to offer such cheap broadband that there's no or very little money to be made out of it, so line rental takes the hit.

Couldn't agree more. Why do you think BT came up with BT Sport - "Free to customers taking Broadband and Line rental"? They want their Line rental and call charges back.

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

Why do you think BT came up with BT Sport - "Free to customers taking Broadband and Line rental"?

Fixed that for you

I was not aware new customers could have BT broadband without BT Line rental

It was possible for a while, and there are rumours if you order over the phone it may be possible, but that would usually lose all the online only discounts and cashback too.

But what pays for the BT Sport ....

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

But what pays for the BT Sport ....

#

It's what is known in supermarket speak as a "Loss Leader" to attract new business - Line Rental and Call charges.

Edited by deleted (Fri 08-Aug-14 16:33:00)

If you have BT Line rental but not BT Broadband, then you're not entitled to BT Sport. You're only entitled to BT Sport if you have BT Broadband.

A high-cost loss-leader.

Without seeing any figures, I can't see rental and call charge increases paying that cost without the bottom line falling. The new customer numbers to be gained are also debateable. I expect Sky churn is quite low, which in mass market terms leaves TalkTalk as the main poaching ground.

BT bean-counters will no doubt have some impressive spreadsheets driving it all.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

If you have BT Line rental but not BT Broadband, then you're not entitled to BT Sport. You're only entitled to BT Sport if you have BT Broadband.

I said:-

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

"Free to customers taking Broadband and Line rental"? They want their Line rental and call charges back.

Yeah, Line rental is irrelevant. It's the BT Broadband that gives you free BT Sport.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

......... It's the BT Broadband that gives you free BT Sport.

Which, for new BT broadband customers comes with an 18 mnth Line Rental contract, and for existing BT Sport customers requires signing up for another Line Rental contract for "free" BT Sport.. No such thing as a "free lunch"

Edited by deleted (Fri 08-Aug-14 20:11:08)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The new customer numbers to be gained are also debateable.......

I personally think that is the crux of the BT promotion.

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

for existing BT Sport customers requires signing up for another Line Rental contract for "free" BT Sport..

Sorry, that's incorrect. I just had to renew my BT Broadband contract, not the phone contract.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

BT bean-counters will no doubt have some impressive spreadsheets driving it all.

Probably. It will be interesting to see if they can make it pay, but they have deep pockets to run a 10 year experiment, and really hurt Sky in their key income stream.

Sky have worked hard over the last 3 to 5 years to expand their platform into "entertainment" as well as Sports and Movies, and achieved a lot as all but one person I know don't have sports or movies, just entertainment. The Sky Atlantic channel is really a nice freebie.

BT are trying, but a lot of people only want premier league, and are not willing to pay two providers. Sky giving (ADSL) broadband for free to sport subscribers are fighting back.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

BT bean-counters will no doubt have some impressive spreadsheets driving it all.

Probably. It will be interesting to see if they can make it pay, but they have deep pockets to run a 10 year experiment, and really hurt Sky in their key income stream.

Sky have worked hard over the last 3 to 5 years to expand their platform into "entertainment" as well as Sports and Movies, and achieved a lot as all but one person I know don't have sports or movies, just entertainment. The Sky Atlantic channel is really a nice freebie.

BT are trying, but a lot of people only want premier league, and are not willing to pay two providers. Sky giving (ADSL) broadband for free to sport subscribers are fighting back.

Totally agree but I still think it is ultimately a fight over Line Rental and phone charges.