Auto renewable contracts such as describe were offered last year by BT but have since been banned by OFCOM.

If you have a My BT online a/c, or start one, you can navigate to Manage my Calling Plan and it will tell you the duration of tour current contract, like so:

Your current Calling Plan is

Unlimited Anytime Extra
Your contract started on 21/09/2012
Your contract finishes on 20/09/2013

Try this if you want to or have the nerve

> log in to My BT
>Click the My Services tab
Under the Manage your phone services
> click the Manage your calling plan link
a new page should come up My Phone
> click the Change Your Calling Plan tab

a new page should come up Start Your Order
> fill in the first page
your details will be checked and then another page will appear it should show you your current calling plan and dates plus line rental if you pay it too to BT

You can cancel the order by clicking on the CANCEL tab at bottom of page.

Below is a pic of my own BT plan and the line rental plan:
http://oi48.tinypic.com/14xo22e.jpg

Absolutely positive.

But I couldn't look at the document, because I'm not prepared to sign up for that Microsoft tosh, sorry. (That's a separate subject, already discussed in FC, although I wasn't a party to that conversation, and didn't even know what they were on about 'til just now.)

It wouldn't even matter if call charges were slightly higher, as I make landline voice calls very rarely indeed. Certainly less than once a week, and often less than once a month.

All things considered, I suppose I only keep a landline (i) to host the broadband, and (ii) in case of emergency. It's probably not wise to depend entirely on mobile for the latter.

The only thing I can see that erodes the cost saving slightly, is that PN would charge me £1 a month for caller ID, which BT currently throw in for free. Actually looks like an oversight on the part of BT, as my call plan doesn't seem to mention anywhere that I have it, and pretty sure I'm not paying for it. I think they forgot to remove it when the "rolling" contract idea was scuppered. Either that, or they decided it wasn't worth manually removing from every account that took it as part of the promotion.

Edit: Huh? Verrrrry odd! Previous clicking on that link led me to Microsoft Windows Live, or whatever they now call it, which I refused to sign into, as it wanted me to provide additional security details NOT required by my legacy Hotmail/MSN Messemger account for the last 10+ (???) years! But having declined the log-in earlier, clicking the link now does not take me to that page at all, but direct to the document, as originally intended.

I can see you haven't edited the link, as there's no edit stamp on your post. So now wondering if I'm going ever-so-slightly mad.


T.

Edited by TLM (Tue 13-Nov-12 17:33:20)

In reply to a post by TLM:

Actually looks like an oversight on the part of BT, as my call plan doesn't seem to mention anywhere that I have it, and pretty sure I'm not paying for it

Caller ID is part of BT's free Privacy at Home which you may have signed up for.

Ah that could be it.

Apologies, I typed my response just before I headed out to work.

There may not be much difference between the BT wholesale based providers' line rental as they obviously can't go lower than it and can't go too high otherwise people will go elsewhere.

BT Retail are apparently hiking their prices in January anyway so now might be a good time to switch.

I think most providers have either already announced line rental price hikes, or will do soon. It's like the rest of the utilities: when one move, they all do, so in the long term, there's only limited advantage in being a "rate tart", although you may get a short-term advantage by signing with someone who's a bit slower to move than the rest. If I pay a year up-front with PN by the end of the week, I can get the lower line rental for the whole year, but after that, it will be priced at their new rate.

Tina

Wierd, about the link. Until I got to to the end of your post I was completely puzzled.

I used the info in it when I considered moving to O2 Home Phone when I was on their LLU. Came out at about 28p per year . We use the phone a bit more than you do, but not a lot.

It's things like:

- the call setup and ongoing charges in the call;
- calls to mobiles;
- 1571;
- 0845 pricing;

and so on, as well as the caller display already discussed.

I have been with BT and Plusnet and never again. You can do better than both with superb customer service. Though cheaper than BT proper and despite the very poor customer service I experienced, the very few calls that I or you make will cost you a fortune, as it is either £3.50 at the last count for the PN anytime calls add-on, or just like BT proper you will be faced with the ripoff connection charge and per minute billing at about 7p per minute. The last ticket I put into Plusnet was given the promise of a reply in Eleven hours. In actual fact I had to chase them after 24 hours. My current ISP always answers tickets in around ten minutes. There is no contract tie-in, or a PN style fee to avoid one and unmetered from 7.00pm and all weekend. There is also free hosting among many freebies.
With no connection fee, per second billing, 1.5p daytime and 1p per minute nights and weekends, you could make a lot of calls for that £3.50. Halfway through the month my calls are 60p at the moment.
http://www.zen.co.uk/business/voice/phone-services.a...
Family is plenty with all the off-peak. http://freeola.com/broadband/

Edited by professor973 (Tue 13-Nov-12 20:00:29)

Thanks, but your opinion is well-known.

I've been a satisfied customer of PN for years, and of BT too, for that matter, so your experience is not mine. Not that that invalidates your experience in the least - but it's just one experience. I can only conclude either that you have been very unlucky, or I very lucky, as your gripes are not ones I share.

I'd be quite happy to stay with Plusnet and/or BT, and to recommend either of them to a friend. The only reason I'm looking to tamper with anything at all is not dissatisfaction, but that I've had a change of circumstances, and need to watch the pennies more. I can clearly get a better deal by combining phone & BB than continuing to take the two separately, but I don't mind if it's still not absolutely the cheapest out there. I'm a believer in: "You get what you pay for". so I'd be rather sceptical of some of the dirt cheap deals I'm sure are possible...