BT Price Cuts!

[Neil]

LONDON (Reuters) - BT Group has moved to prevent desertions from its mainstay home user base, cutting line rental and call charges and simplifying its tariff structures.

BT <BT.L>, which controls over 70 percent of the home telephone market, has seen competition heat up from entrants such as Tele2, Carphone Warehouse <CPW.L>, Tesco <TSCO.L> and cable firms such as NTL and Telewest <TWT.L>.

Criticised in the past for its complex tariff structures, BT announced on Wednesday it would abolish its standard rate for residential customers and introduce a simpler range of low prices.

http://news.money.msn.co.uk/article....e=windows-1252

Source-MSN.

[Jerrek]

I pay 7 pounds for line rental, unlimited free local calling. For long distance, I pay 2.5p a minute to all of Canada, United States, United Kingdom, and western continental Europe.

I don't get why BT is still so expensive though. Those price cuts... will they bring your phone bill down dramatically?

[MovedGoalPosts]

The Register today http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/22/36482.html indicated that this price cut may not in fact show savings for all customers, just the majority. I suppose it depends on the type of calls you make, and how many.

Looks like the price cuts might not meet with Ofcom's approval though. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/22/36503.html

[etccarmageddon]

it's all a big con - the price 'cut' involves increasing line rental by £1 a month because they are forcing people onto 'bt together' which has higher line rental but lower call costs. this is a move to force www.talktalk.co.uk and others out of business.

[themelon]

Not only the extra £1 for the 9 million Standard Plan customers or those who use CPS or Indirect services with NO need for option 1 and its poor value. Other Stealth increases include.

BT Call Minder (Voicemail)
Current: £6/quarter
Will cost £7.50/quarter from May 1st

BT Answer 1571 - Personal Greeting
£3.00/quarter
Will cost £4.50/quarter from May 1st

From 1st August 2004, BT are introducing a "Charge Per Activation" if you use 1471 and then press "3" to automatically dial the last number called. -

Cost? 6p per go.

Calls to BT's 118 500 service will now have a 40p set up charge against 25p before - although the price per minute rate halves to 15p.

BT previously claimed their average call duration was only 28 seconds. Based on this, users will now pay around 47p a call under the new tariff instead of 40p as before.

From 1st August 2004, the cost of using ringback (press 5 on engaged tone) is going up from 10p to 15p.

Calls to Timeline (Speaking Clock, 123 ) are increasing from 10p to 20p per call.

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by Jerrek

I pay 7 pounds for line rental, unlimited free local calling. For long distance, I pay 2.5p a minute to all of Canada, United States, United Kingdom, and western continental Europe.

I don't get why BT is still so expensive though. Those price cuts... will they bring your phone bill down dramatically?

We pay : £11.50 line rental

1p per min daytime national/local landline calls in the UK. (call18866.com)
0.1p per min evening and weekend local/national calls(BT option 1)

10p per min daytime mobile calls (call18866.com)
2p per min evening and weekends calls to mobiles (call18866.com)

3p per min to 0845 numbers at all times (call18866.com)
7p per min to 0870 numbers at all times (call18866.com)

1p per min at all times to: USA, Canada, Australia, Ireland and most of Europe.(call18866.com)

[Matth]

Originally Posted by themelon

Not only the extra £1 for the 9 million Standard Plan customers or those who use CPS or Indirect services with NO need for option 1 and its poor value. Other Stealth increases include.


From 1st August 2004, BT are introducing a "Charge Per Activation" if you use 1471 and then press "3" to automatically dial the last number called. -

Cost? 6p per go.

OUCH!

Is that ONLY going to be if you press 3? - we have an Olycom answerphone that automatically 1471's to add the caller's number to the end of the message, without paying to have CLI - must remember to turn that OFF if they'll charge for it anyway - or say goodbye to BT altogether!


PS. To dellwear

I believe you could ditch option one, and use Talk70 (carrier preselection) and 18866 (prefix) together, saving £2 on line rental - which is why BT would LOVE to force everyone onto option 1, and why they should NOT be allowed to indulge in such an anti-competitive practice.

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by Matth

OUCH!
I believe you could ditch option one, and use Talk70 (carrier preselection) and 18866 (prefix) together, saving £2 on line rental - which is why BT would LOVE to force everyone onto option 1, and why they should NOT be allowed to indulge in such an anti-competitive practice.

Thanks for the advice but we make lots of calls in the evenings, so the 6p per hour plan works out the best for us

[themelon]

Originally Posted by Matth

OUCH!

Is that ONLY going to be if you press 3? - we have an Olycom answerphone that automatically 1471's to add the caller's number to the end of the message, without paying to have CLI - must remember to turn that OFF if they'll charge for it anyway - or say goodbye to BT altogether!


PS. To dellwear

I believe you could ditch option one, and use Talk70 (carrier preselection) and 18866 (prefix) together, saving £2 on line rental - which is why BT would LOVE to force everyone onto option 1, and why they should NOT be allowed to indulge in such an anti-competitive practice.

Presumably so on when '3' is pressed the clarification from BT Customer services is pretty vague to say the least.......although I wouldnt put it past BT to charge for 1471 anyway.

Carphonewarehouse and call18866 are sure to offer a combination to beat any package offered by BT.

Talk Talk is just 5.5p for 70 minutes https://www.talktalk.co.uk/talktalk/...TICLE=PRODUCTS

[N00N00]

Originally Posted by themelon

Not only the extra £1 for the 9 million Standard Plan customers or those who use CPS or Indirect services with NO need for option 1 and its poor value. Other Stealth increases include.

BT Call Minder (Voicemail)
Current: £6/quarter
Will cost £7.50/quarter from May 1st

BT Answer 1571 - Personal Greeting
£3.00/quarter
Will cost £4.50/quarter from May 1st

From 1st August 2004, BT are introducing a "Charge Per Activation" if you use 1471 and then press "3" to automatically dial the last number called. -

Cost? 6p per go.

Calls to BT's 118 500 service will now have a 40p set up charge against 25p before - although the price per minute rate halves to 15p.

BT previously claimed their average call duration was only 28 seconds. Based on this, users will now pay around 47p a call under the new tariff instead of 40p as before.

From 1st August 2004, the cost of using ringback (press 5 on engaged tone) is going up from 10p to 15p.

Calls to Timeline (Speaking Clock, 123 ) are increasing from 10p to 20p per call.

Apparantly BT are also abolishing the monthly call allowance of £2.15. Added to the line rental increase that's a 31.5.% rise. I don't know how they do it, but they even make NTL look good sometimes.

Can we change the title of this thread to somethng a little less misleading please?- just becasue BT say they are price cuts in the press release don't mean they are telling the truth.