Home Phone Price changes and Line Rental Saver

[#1]

Hi Alan,
We can't change those unfortunately, I know they're not specifically related but the community site adds those automatically.

[#2]

It probably suggests that you ought to add one of two things:
- Add something date-related to the titles of such articles, such as "New Home Phone Pricing Takes Effect December 2007"
- Add the article date to the template where "related article" is being listed, so the website includes that detail.

[#3]

Well done Plusnet, looks like a nice little offer. 
Currently have my line with BT on their 12 month pay up front deal which works out at £10 a month, will be looking to move my phone line over to Plusnet at some point after reading about this offer. One question though will there be any down time with my phone line or Plusnet broadband transferring my BT line over to Plusnet?

[#4]

Bear in mind that if you want Caller Display that will be an additional 99p p.m. from Plusnet.

[#5]

Quote from: alanf

Bear in mind that if you want Caller Display that will be an additional 99p p.m. from Plusnet.

Ah forgot about that, just guessed it would be free like bt & sky, shame i'll stick with BT then.

[#6]

Quote from: alanf

Bear in mind that if you want Caller Display that will be an additional 99p p.m. from Plusnet.

Eeek i didn't realise that - I may just cancel my order to swap to PN

[#7]

Quote

I may just cancel my order to swap to PN

Does the line rental saver offer not appeal to you? surely that would offset the cost of caller display?

[#8]

Surely not if you're with BT... LSR is £120 there with free Caller Display. Otherwise the services appear to me to be the same - so sorry, I've stayed with BT.

[#9]

Quote from: _Adam_Walker_

Quote I may just cancel my order to swap to PN Does the line rental saver offer not appeal to you? surely that would offset the cost of caller display?

Do The Math, Line rental including caller display with BT is £ 10 per month with their LRS yours works out at £10.48 per month.
I also think it's rather cheeky charging for caller display when people are hassled with cold callers and marketing calls on a regular basis not to mention nuisance calls this should be a free service by all providers as standard. But that's just my opinion one of the reasons I stay with BT!

[#10]

The main reason I stay with BT is because of what happens if my line is down:

Anyone trying to contact me can report the fault to BT (Plusnet refuse to do this citing the DPA)

I can have incoming calls diverted to a mobile for free

BT are a lot quicker at processing the fault and getting the engineer called out
It's not what the service is like when things are OK that matters it's how things are handled when something goes wrong.

[#11]

John,
Just on the latter point - we're currently training all of our technical staff to raise phone faults.  Previously it was only our faults staff that could do so, so I'm expecting in a reduction in the delays that you're referring to.

[#12]

That's long, long, long overdue!

[#13]

Quote from: WelshPaul

Do The Math, Line rental including caller display with BT is £ 10 per month with their LRS yours works out at £10.48 per month.

However, doing the Maths for customers on Anytime does change the result in favour of Plusnet.  BT charges +£.4.90 pm and Plusnet charges +£3.50 pm  (A total of £14.90 pm and £13.98 pm resp. including Caller Display)

[#14]

I accept the PN charge might be lower than BT for Anytime - but the latter's a bit of a luxury for people who go to work and are thus out most of the relevant period.
If I need to make a call during the day for whatever reason I use my mobile - it's 8p/min PAYG so for short calls it's cheaper than using a landline with the "connection charge" they make (I've never understood why this additional "TAX" is now imposed - didn't used to be and doesn't apply to mobiles).

[#15]

Quote from: drj

with the "connection charge" they make (I've never understood why this additional "TAX" is now imposed - didn't used to be and doesn't apply to mobiles).

In admin terms, it's just the way that BT have chosen to split costs between "per month", "per call" and "per minute" aspects. Whatever best fits their business model, I suppose.
But as well as each charge being a profit point, you can also think of them as control points. If BT wanted you to make fewer calls that lasted longer, they'd adjust one factor more than the others.
In technology terms, it is a good fit. When a call is made, a lot of computing effort (and the years of software development effort beforehand) goes into establishing the call, or using a service, but not in keeping the call going - which is merely an act of routing bits back-and-forth.
Twenty years ago, the computing effort sat in the same box (System X or AXE) that routed the call bandwidth too. Nowadays, the technology can be separated more using MSANs or VoIP. This split allows BT to separately dimension the hardware that carries calls from the hardware that controls call establishment.
If you make a lot of short calls (such as speculative dialling from a telemarketing company), you are taxing the call establishment side much more than the actual call-carrying bandwidth/capacity. Overall it is perhaps a sign of the fact that call-establishment is a thing they need to control more.
For mobiles, the scarcest resource is still the bandwidth over the air, and that is the thing they need to control the most, by having scary numbers per minute.