After 13 years Plusnet have finally managed to rack me off!! 19% cost increase?

[#1]

I've asked Plusnet to explain their planned 19% increase in annual landline cost.
Plusnet have replied (twice) but they seem to think that a 19% cost increase in a product is both ok and justifiable and that the customer should swallow it.
I fail to see the link between an increased telephone line rental and Plusnet's ability to provide better technical support - I do not need telephone training!
So, it got me thinking - I'm paying Plusnet about £26 a month for landine and fibre.  Most of the time the bl**dy phone rings is from some company pushing PPI or is some foreign sounding person from "windows". I actually bought a call screener and pay Plusnet for CLI it got so bad!
Do I really need a landline?
Do I need broadband - I can use my 4g phone
I could cancel Plusnet and save £26 a month.

[#2]

The only reason they are putting their phone charges up is so that they can advertise even lower headline figures for broadband.
It's about time ISPs were forced the OFCOM/ASA to advertise the total cost of broadband and phone (and for users who do not use the ISP for the phone to add on the standard BT rate).

[#3]

mod:note
rest of thread moved to chit chat as it was well ot.

[#4]

Whilst wholesale line rental prices actually drop...
It's impossible to justify a 19% increase when wholesale prices have fallen.
Source: https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricing/loadProductPriceDetails.do?data=%2BrBpMW3XM9a...

[#5]

It can get even more blatant. Here's the relevant part from the current BT email about their September increase. (Line rental rises to £17.99, amongst other things).

Quote

Thanks for staying with BT. We're always looking for ways to give you more. That's why we're introducing things like the chance to double your data, AMC, our brand new US drama and movie channel and our best ever online protection - all for free. To keep bringing you our best products, we do have to change our prices sometimes. So, from 20 September 2015, line rental is going up by £1 per month. To find out more (and for details of other price changes including some broadband and TV prices) please click here.

So nothing whatsoever to do with the cost of providing any phone services.
It's time Ofcom stamped on this. Millions of pensioners, me being one, are paying to subsidise all the online TV, Sport  and so on that they have no interest in. That applies to all ISPs that provide these services.
Tomorrow, my line rental drops to £14pm, with per-second phone call charging at 1p per minute. Plusnet and BT charge around 10p just to make the call, before you use any time up at around 10ppm again, unless you have the Anytime package or it is within an E or E & W time window and you have one of those.

[#6]

And I still say one of the big conns with this phone business is the way the "free" 1571 is set up. As I've said many times in the past, there will be many occasions when you won't want to, or it's inappropriate to leave a message on any Answerphone/service. Yet if the number you are calling has this service (many do by default remember) and the line is engaged, you are promptly connected to the answer service - no engaged tone etc - that is a chargeable call if not within an inclusive call package. You don't get the option to use "Ring when Free" because there's no engaged tone.
Great to be charged for getting an engaged number - not
These services are fully programmable - OR could easily get it changed to return the engaged tone and the response message instead of just mentioning "ring when free" could add "or hold the line for the answer service" when a user had it enabled. But the Cartel wouldn't like that would they now, loss of income from people dialling engaged numbers, my word, that's not on

[#7]

@Anotherone,
+1 - I ditched the free 1571 service so that in the remote chance that my phone line is engaged that the caller does not get charged for using an answering service they do not want and does not alert me to the presence of a message until the next time I use the phone.  Given the fact that the caller has paid for the call to 1571 it ought to alert the called party when their current call ends.
@Estragon,
I said at the time when 'Free' sports TV was muted, that we would all end up paying for it.  Yet again greedy users are getting something they value paid for by others who have no use for it.
Come on PlusNET, please let's have good honest broadband, charge those who consume bandwidth and TV Sport services the real cost of those services so that those who do not, do not have to subsidise them.
Kevin

[#8]

Quote from: Anotherone

These services are fully programmable - OR could easily get it changed to return the engaged tone and the response message instead of just mentioning "ring when free" could add "or hold the line for the answer service" when a user had it enabled. But the Cartel wouldn't like that would they now, loss of income from people dialling engaged numbers, my word, that's not on

Openreach have nothing to do with the calls/calling and network features, that's all BT Wholesale. Openreach just provide the physical line from the exchange to end user.
I don't believe the wholesale cost (for BT Wholesale) customers for calling and network features has changed since 2006. The problem is that the big 6 ISPs are in a competitive market place and need to find ways to increase profitability.

[#9]

Oh I beg your pardon I hadn't meant BTw it's all part of WLR but it's the manner in which you try to correct people that gets up my nose.
The big 6 PCS are a cartel which is why things like this never change. It suits them to extract as much as they possibly can from unwitting phone users.
Edit: correct missing negative (thanks to mobile device) and minor correction to context

[#10]

Wholesale line rental is Openreach. All the calls and features (wholesale calls/features) is BT Wholesale.

[#11]

It's just like the big six energy company gas electricity go up while the wholesale price drop. Same as big six isp's line rental and call charges go up while the wholesale price drop. Both Energy and ISP's find a way profitability for them. I know it seem unfair. That's what UK are being ripped off for many years. 

[#12]

Well, I've been with Plusnet since 2002 and it gave me a kick up the backside to look elsewhere. I found a better deal saving me about £126 a year on landline alone.

[#13]

Goldenfibre's right...
The broadband and telephone industry and the moment resembles the energy market... No true competition and no reflection of wholesale prices!
And all this in the face of us having "one of the most competitive broadband markets among major European economies"
[Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33612314]

[#14]

Well my phone transferred to Pulse8broadband just after 1a.m. on Tuesday 28. All fine. £13 + £1 caller display + free basic 1571.
Re the 1571 that Townman complained about, the chance of my being on the phone when someone rings approaches zero. It's a useful tool for everybody that I an happy to have ringing me.
Also I read your post to mean that if I ring someone and get onto their 1571 to record, then the charge on me is outside my call package? I don't think that's true.

[#15]

Townman is picking up on the point I made and talking about calls made outside of any inclusive package as was I. Being charged in such situations for dialling an engaged number is a rip-off, mind you it isn't the only charge that is a rip-off.