BT retail line rental & Ofcom

Customers who only buy landline services from BT are set to get at least £5 a month taken off their bills under plans set out by the telecoms regulator, Ofcom.

And about time too. I hope it goes through. Link.

At the expense of the 20% of the market where competition has people with other line rental providers who are invariably cheaper?

I don't think that's much of a factor Andrew. The majority of those who stand to gain will be with BT and not even aware of the other companies. Most of them wouldn't move away from BT even if they were.

Even I, knowing what I do, having been with BT for phone all my life was very reluctant. It was when I actually opened a bill for line plus evening and weekends and discovered my previously free caller display was being charged despite having been on TPS for decades, with a total of over £24 per month, that I decided enough was enough.

However my total spend in fact went up a bit when I switched the phone away. It released sufficient for me to almost match the total I was already paying but move to a premium broadband provider. Something I previously regarded as too expensive.

I take most of the points you make in your News Article I've just read. I for one may have stayed with BT, but only for phone. However as I have so far a perfectly satisfactory service from my current supplier I strongly doubt if I will move back.

Monopoly power or not, millions of landline-only users are being ripped off to subsidise the Sport side of BT. It needs to be stopped.

Re your point in the article about bundle prices, that's about all I quibble with. At that point it is a reasonably competitive market. If bundle prices rise to maintain existing gross profit margins, in both senses perhaps , that is what should happen. Those paying 50% over-priced landline rental should not be in effect forced to subsidise the entertainment of users streaming BT Sport or Sky Sport.

You noticed that more people will be paying for BT Sport packages after July?

Small operators such as Fuel and Post Office who have carved a voice line rental niche may be less happy, as there is no underlying changing in pricing for them, so to compete they will need to destroy their margin.

A good point re the Post Office. I've heard of Fuel and think I looked it up a while ago.

I would never use either, but that's just me.

Also if PlusNet don't change pricing it will be cheaper to have BT voice line rental and PlusNet broadband even with the £2.50 supplement they charge.

This scenario might not go down well with Sky and TalkTalk either as

For a consumer with zero interest in broadband it is clearly a good deal. The subsidy part applies to many add-ons and taken to its conclusion Ofcom would have to outlaw bundling and added extras

Do you have it confirmed that this does include customers who have landline with BT but use a 3rd party for ISP services over BT lines? I wasn't certain from the BBC article whether it was for customers who literally only had landline service (there was a BT package I think called BT Low User or something similar that you could get lower costs on but if you had a broadband service from any supplier on the line then you couldn't get it).

That could be interesting re Plusnet.

I don't think the following was in the BBC article when I originally read it.

Andrew Ferguson of broadband comparison website Think Broadband said that while the price reduction would be welcome for landline-only customers, "a lot hinges on whether those who buy bundles will just end up subsidising those who buy standalone products".

The whole point is that exactly the opposite is what is happening now. No "whether" about the current situation .

Perhaps ultimately no one should subsidise anyone

BT Basic (the means tested tariff) is not just of the review.

The 117 pages does point out there are some 1.2 million with BT Consumer line rental and broadband with another provider and this change does seem to affect them, whether that survives the consultation to become actual policy is another issue.

If this is NOT the case, then Ofcom needed to make it a LOT clearer and explicit.