In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by bpullen:

FWIW, I think the link in the footer is present on all variants of the site (happy to be proved wrong if that's not the case).

Nope, not there for me. Same as yours without the "Broadband only" line.

Fair enough, thanks for the clarification.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by bpullen:

FWIW, I think the link in the footer is present on all variants of the site (happy to be proved wrong if that's not the case).

Not the case. I could post a screen capture but I don't really want to beta test your nonsense.

Don't think there's any need for that. I said I was happy to be proved wrong. I based the statement on some early prototypes I fished out from our project tracking system.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

I also tried the live chat, and asked if they did broadband-only. However, when asked exactly that question, the person there wouldn't answer directly, and needed my landline and address before being able to confirm whether I was "eligible for a standalone deal". I don't know if this is an attempt to hide the package, or over-zealous script-following.

The latter.

In reply to a post by johnjburness:

NO! It is not similar because that one refers to the Line Rental!

I've just double-checked by typing "Plusnet" into Google, both using IE & Firefox & both return the original where the Line Rental is NOT mentioned!

However, even the one that you've linked to, does NOT make it clear (IMHO)that the "Line Rental" bit is a condition of "1/2 Price Broadband".

Right, we're limited in what we can say here as we've only 70 characters at our disposal, split across 2x35 character blocks. Looking at some of the other big ISP's (mentioning no names) there are certain ads where they're not explicit about the line rental either.

From an ASA perspective I think we're in the clear anyhow. The opinion seems to be that as long we're only broadly advertising the offer and link directly to the full details, then we're OK.

Having said that, we're going to change the wording of some of the ads based on your feedback.

e.g. "Unlimited Broadband from £4.99pm for 9 months! +£14.50 Line Rental"

Rgds,

Post deleted by Sadoldman

In reply to a post by bpullen:

Don't think there's any need for that. I said I was happy to be proved wrong. I based the statement on some early prototypes I fished out from our project tracking system.

The "nonsense" I referred to was not your assertion that "Broadband Only" is always present in the footer, it's aimed at your company's concept of hiding information from potential customers for the sake of greed.

The trouble is Oliver, although we are in agreement that this is an ill-thought-out experiment, and shoddy to boot, the actual product is amongst the best, and the support is the same.

If it leads to withdrawal of "Broadband only" then the product will be considerably less competitive.

I fail to see how withdrawal of 50% of a product range could improve customer capture, when that 50% has for a long time been less acceptable than the bundles. It might improve the overall margin, but will simply block out people who don't want a bundle but ant their phone with some other chosen provider.

The flaw in my argument there is that there wouldn't really be any other price-competitive "broadband only" providers.

If they need to increase the price of "broadband only" in order to make it viable then so be it. There's really very little mainstream competition in that market now, so they could conceivably put the price up without affecting new signups.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

If they need to increase the price of "broadband only" in order to make it viable then so be it. There's really very little mainstream competition in that market now, so they could conceivably put the price up without affecting new signups.

If PN put the price up on unlimited BB only, 30 day minimum term, on Market 2/3 exchanges (currently £12.49) then it wouldn't really be competitive with LLU (SMPF) resellers, such as xilo/uno, who can do a similar deal, e.g. 30 day minimum term, 100GB at about £15 inc. VAT. Activation fees are about the same at £50 also...

But as you rightly say: there is actually very little mainstream competition

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

If it leads to withdrawal of "Broadband only" then the product will be considerably less competitive.

Of course, PN could do what BT do, being a subsidiary, and remove BB Only from website, not advertise it, and only offer it via the backdoor to those who phone up and explicitly ask for it .

That seems to be part of what they are testing. Hence my "Calling the tune" thread .

As they've done with unlimited for years.

They would then struggle to compete with the better ISPs customer service.