Line Rental Saver - hardly worth it

My line rental is due up shortly and the "Saver" saving is £1.50 a month. I recall previously it was considerably more than this. To add insult to injury we still have to pay 99p a month for CLI. As a low volume user I do begin to wonder if a mobile service ultimately is a better deal.

I know it is a competitive market but just how "customer focussed" are PN nowadays.

In reply to a post by meldrew:

My line rental is due up shortly and the "Saver" saving is £1.50 a month. I recall previously it was considerably more than this. To add insult to injury we still have to pay 99p a month for CLI. As a low volume user I do begin to wonder if a mobile service ultimately is a better deal.

I know it is a competitive market but just how "customer focussed" are PN nowadays.

I've just transferred my rental to Pulse8. As long as you don't make calls it saves about £2 a month. Only downside for me is that they don't support SMS but it's not like I use that very often anyway.

and even when you do it is massively cheaper once you factor in Anytime Calls at £6 per month unless you use the phone a heck of a lot

if you're a low volume user and get a good signal, a mobile makes lots of sense. 3 years ago, I took out a monthly contract for £7.50 a month (£7.70 now) and that included a free smartphone as part of the deal with no upfront costs. I get 250mins, 5000 texts and 750mb of internet (3G) a month. Does me fine. Indeed, out shopping yesterday, I was very tempted by the deals out there now. £10 a month gets you a lot if you're not bothered about not getting an Iphone. As for my home phone, one call made in 3 months! Total waste of time.

The big problem is that usually if you just want a broadband only line, it can cost more than having one with a phone line included.

in most cases for light voice users mobile's are better value even PAYG.

Even for heavy users mobile's can be better value, the issue is really a case of market failure, all the big providers following each other and using broadband as a bribe to get you to pay for a ripoff voice line, They then charge a high amount for line rental which is clearly excessive and have a small price difference to their inclusive call plans to make them seem good value.

Pulse8 demonstrate the extent to which other suppliers are ripping people off with their per minute or part there of charging and extortionate connection charges.

Pulse8 charge 1p per minute (peak), per second billing and NO connection fee.

As Jim says, you'd have to make a hell of a lot of calls before a calls package from another supplier would be cheaper!

Not sure about Plusnet, but BT have changed their LRS recently.

It used to be 12 months for the price of 10 *edit*

Now it's 10% off 12 months.

Edited by BuckleZ (Wed 30-Dec-15 11:26:56)

I renewed LRS from 18th December

The way I saw it the bank won't give me 10% on my money and I still get Evenings and Weekends.

Actually proved helpful when upgrading to fibre as didn't need new phone contract

In reply to a post by BuckleZ:

Not sure about Plusnet, but BT have changed their LRS recently.

It used to be 10 months for the price of 12.

Now it's 10% off 12 months.

I'm not with BT just now but don't you mean 12 months for the price of 10?

In reply to a post by Apprentice:

I'm not with BT just now but don't you mean 12 months for the price of 10?

I would hope he did! I know LRS has got less attractive, but 10 months for the price of 12 really would take the biscuit.

haha woops!

In reply to a post by 69bertie:

if you're a low volume user and get a good signal, a mobile makes lots of sense. 3 years ago, I took out a monthly contract for £7.50 a month (£7.70 now) and that included a free smartphone as part of the deal with no upfront costs. I get 250mins, 5000 texts and 750mb of internet (3G) a month. Does me fine. Indeed, out shopping yesterday.
The big problem is that usually if you just want a broadband only line, it can cost more than having one with a phone line included.

Looks like quite a good deal, but which network?

The problem with mobile phones is that the need a decent signal to work. VOIP down a broadband line works and is cheap.

Aquiss and vivaciti have landline pricing only a fraction above Pulse8's, and uno either have similar planned or recently available. Like Pulse8, you are not required to take their broadband.

With all you can also have some or all of their broadband packages without taking their line rental.

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 30-Dec-15 21:06:09)

that is easy to put in reverse.

The problem with landlines they need your home to work, i.e. you can only make calls in your home.

A mobile can place calls anywhere.

How often do I have no signal?

Well for a start never at home, yet I have had phone line outages.
I do sometimes lose 3g/4g when out and about in places like hospitals or in the middle of nowhere on the road, but 2g can handle voice services and I very rarely have no signal at all. Even at the seaside watching the sea in a small seaside town have been able to use my mobile phone.

Of course some providers like Three which have no 2g network may have issues but on EE and O2 I have experienced excellent 2g coverage.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 30-Dec-15 14:24:53)

In reply to a post by 69bertie:

if you're a low volume user and get a good signal, a mobile makes lots of sense.

That would depend on the signal in your area. Where I live (small town, couple of miles from the M40 and work (large town right next to the M40) mobile data is pants. It's like going back to the days of analogue connections. Slow, stops and starts sometimes fails altogether. I also know it's not my phone because in order to get calls and texts at home I stumped up for the Vodafone SureSignal and when data is going via that my phone is fast and reliable (though obviously it runs on wifi normally when at home).

I think the only place I've had a good experience with mobile data is in Llandudno, North Wales. Everywhere else it's rubbish.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

A mobile can place calls anywhere.

How often do I have no signal?

I'd have no calls (and sometimes no texts) at home if I didn't have my Vodafone SureSignal booster. And I wouldn't call Brackley the back end of beyond either. It's fine at work for calls and texts, and supposedly 'H+' for data. But the data...is naff. Stops, starts, gives up altogether. Yesterday I wanted to see the satellite imagery while out walking around Banbury to get a feel for the coming weather..nope. Sorry. Vodafone couldn't manage it beyond a few buttons and half a the CSS. Chap I was with was with T-Mobile..he faired no better.

How often do I have no signal?

When I am at home, and quite often when I go out.

To some extent a problem can be weak 3G & 4G signals. The Samsung phone I have does not let me select 2G only. The weak signals reduce the battery life to less than a day.

Talkmobile (part of Carphone warehouse) ....run on Vodafone, which by sheer chance offer a fairly good signal round these parts (very rural). I tried Three round here but it was usually a case of driving about a mile up the road to get a signal! I just checked to see what deals they are currently doing, Slightly less data but still £7.50/mth

Thank you. I looked at them a little while ago, but did not move to them for some reason, which might have been because they did not allow tethering. I see that tethering is not longer excluded on the monthly contracts. (AIUI!).

Pulse8 do ADSL2+ broadband only for £19, though line is inclusive in FTTC prices.

Sorted, thanks .

In reply to a post by 69bertie:

Talkmobile (part of Carphone warehouse) ....run on Vodafone, which by sheer chance offer a fairly good signal round these parts (very rural). I tried Three round here but it was usually a case of driving about a mile up the road to get a signal! I just checked to see what deals they are currently doing, Slightly less data but still £7.50/mth

talkmobile is not part of the CPW, vodafone purchased it some years ago since then its been directly owned by and part of vodafons portfolio

The critical words are "low volume user". 1GB/month is a tiny amount of data for many people. There are mobile packages with much more data allowance but they tend to cost quite a bit more.

Also if you want to use things like BBC Iplayer sensibly you'll need to tether your phone to your home network, get a good and fast mobile data connection and have a large data allowance.

That's why many of us still have landlines.

Interesting set of replies. Many thanks. My deal is up shortly and I will see what they might offer. New customers apparently get free internet with a landline and PN have to pay commission to USwitch too. Its a crazy world out there.

Same problem here in a village near Thame. No 3G at all, sometimes no mobile signal at all, useless for web browsing, despite being about a mile to the nearest mast (but shaded by trees). At least we do have FTTC now...

Mines just ended decided after a couple of years wasn't worth it for me.

I have paid LRS with BT consumer for probably 10yrs, But not this year, switching away within the next week or so, Cheaper line rental and calls, a 1mth min term too with my new voice service provider Pulse 8 my costs will fall from £24.99 (2016 LRS ) price inclusive of Any-time unlimited call plan that they have also regularly increased the price of,

One trick the Bigger providers all use is this bundling drive voice and bb=cheaper bb, This also prompts the question of this thread, If you have say the unlimited calling plan, and really hammer it , make 10+ hrs of calls every month, then no LRS isnt worth it, better deals exist by switching voice provider, even when considering the small token gesture saving you get off the bb for bundling both services with same provider

As i live in one of the counties that BTOR have listed for their SOGEA trial i will be seeking further into on this option, Sick of getting fleeced for line rental and subsidising cheap BT's bb & tv offers LRS should be a lot cheaper than it is currently(10%) is a insult, because you are paying 12mtrhs in advance and they won't refund any remaining months should you want to change suppliers or cease the line altogether

Edited by tommy45 (Sun 03-Jan-16 20:12:08)

In reply to a post by keith969:

Same problem here in a village near Thame. No 3G at all, sometimes no mobile signal at all, useless for web browsing, despite being about a mile to the nearest mast (but shaded by trees). At least we do have FTTC now...

The problem around Banbury isn't the signal. When I'm out walking at lunchtime I usually have full signal, especially at the top of the walk because that's only about a kilometre from a Vodafone mast outside Wroxton. But throughput is still lousy. It's either mast backhaul or too many people using that cell :-/

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by keith969:

Same problem here in a village near Thame. No 3G at all, sometimes no mobile signal at all, useless for web browsing, despite being about a mile to the nearest mast (but shaded by trees). At least we do have FTTC now...

The problem around Banbury isn't the signal. When I'm out walking at lunchtime I usually have full signal, especially at the top of the walk because that's only about a kilometre from a Vodafone mast outside Wroxton. But throughput is still lousy. It's either mast backhaul or too many people using that cell :-/

That's typical for voda. EE and three often did better because better backhaul. However when voda/o2 joint venture CTIL upgrade the mast things improve.

Well I was talking about voice, but concerning data, I get a solid LTE at home, and when I was in a hotel in cromer over christmas I was able to stream twitch fine to my phone using EE mobile data.

Calling a mobile from a landline is expensive. Friends and family with landlines would have to pay more to call you.