BT charging £42 per year for previously free services

I appreciate there were a number of posts about this when BT's price rises were announced a few months back - but thought I would start a new thread as I hadn't realised all the details.

My broadband is with Freeola/Entanet who unfortunately don't have a phone service I can use. So like many I pay my line rental and get my calls package from BT.

I asked BT via Twitter yesterday about how to avoid the new £1.75 charge.
The conversation is here.

As you can see the conversation didn't go well - getting a straight answer wasn't easy!

During the 'conversation' I realised they are to start charging £1.75 per month for caller display and another £1.75 for the Answer 1571 service - so an extra £42 per year on top of the line rental etc. increases
I'm guessing this will become another major news item when the charges come in next year - it's not too far off the Gas/Electricity suppliers rises.

I've mistakenly been thinking that to continue with my current services would cost a maximum of £1.75 per month and nothing if I opted for a 12 month contract. But I was wrong this would only cover the 'caller id' service.

So after being with BT for my phone service for 30 years I'm thinking of moving.
If anyone has any tips on where to move or what to do (I want to stay with Freeola for broadband) then please let me know
I realise an option is to cancel the Answer 1571 and buy an answer machine.

For reference here's TBB's original news item.

These days you may find that the best option is to find a combined broadband and phone supplier. One alternative would be Plusnet. You can pay the line rental annually if you want, but they do charge those additional services that you want.

I need to stay with Freeola for my ISP as I make use of their great hosting services.

I've been looking at the Post Office link in TBB's news item.

Line rental: £12pm, Anytime calls: £5.75, free Caller Display and free Voice mail.
Total: £17.75
Anytime calls says it includes UK mobiles at weekends.

Against BT's £15.99, £7, £1.75 + £1.75
Total: £26.49

If I've read those prices correctly then that's a big difference!
Anyone know if they are due to increase prices or if I'm missing a catch?

The email you should have received from BT on about 1 Oct informed you quite clearly about the increases, that 1571 & BT Privacy were 2 separate facilities and how you could get the BT Privacy + Caller ID free for a year:

BT Answer 1571 and BT Privacy with Caller Display

In January, BT Answer 1571 is changing. You'll be able to keep more messages for longer and check them remotely. From 4 January 2014 this service will be £1.75 a month.

If you have BT Privacy with Caller Display it will cost you £1.75 a month from 4 January 2014. But you can sign up and get BT Privacy with Caller Display free for a year (a new 12-month line rental contract applies).

Sign up for free BT Privacy with Caller Display and manage your calling features here.

Yes I received that email - I'm sorry I didn't understand it and can only apologise

Very helpful...

Well if it helps with our basic service we charge 50p for 1571 and 99p for caller display and line rental at £9.50 (all + VAT)

Thanks - it seems BT's prices are very high compared to yours.

In reply to a post by vivaciti:

Well if it helps with our basic service we charge 50p for 1571 and 99p for caller display

Where's this documented?

View our UK calls tariff on your website does not compute!

yeah voice services are really turning into a goldmine for CP's. CP's is much more fitting than ISP's now days as they all jumping on the voice bandwagon.

The actual cost of supplying things like caller display is trivial it will be in the single digit pennies. So services such as those are pure profit.

An eye opener to give an idea how much profit these companies are making on voice is how much plusnet go to make someone take on voice services.

So for plusnet voice vs bb, plusnet is willing to pay someone signing up over £180 to signup to voice services.

£100 cashback (must take voice not bb only)
£32 off first 4 months (only if take voice)
£50 installation waived (only if take voice).
and even with all that taken into account the bb only service still has a £2.50 monthly premium.

its another one fo those areas where ofcom are either been incompetant or its "pretending to regulate". What I mean by the latter is it gives the public the idea they pegging prices down but it knows full well the costs are just going to shift elsewhere in this case its voice services.

CP's knowing people are shifting calls to mobiles are doing things like charging a premium for basic cheap to supply services such as ringback and caller display, charging to connect calls before even start talking, increasing charges per minute to make signing up to a call plan seem a no brainer knowing full well most wont utilise the call plan much. The inflation on landline voice services is very high, just look at prices in 2005 to see. CP's all know that each other is eager to raise prices so the first one to raise does risk free knowing the rest will always follow, a similiar situation to the energy companies.

The reason this has had way less attention is that the base prices are much lower than energy, even tho the inflation is high voice and internet services are still very affordable and also still reasonable (uk is still below average costs on broadband). Whilst energy has many people in poverty due to its very high costs so is a much more serious issue.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 10-Dec-13 17:25:43)