Holy Grail ? - all in phone package with NO connection charges

[bob_a_builder]

The downside of most all in packages for me seems to be the call connection charge, which generally means I would make no saving at all by switching to one of those

Could this be the one which breaks the mould ?

I can feel a BT line coming on ...

Info Here

Anyone got any relavent horror stories or can spot the catch ?

[Shaun]

I guess if you spend a lot of time on the phone (more then 33.3 hours a month) then thats a good deal. I'd find it hard to make that many calls, any less and I'd end up paying more for my calls than I do now (0.5ppm for land lines and as little as 2ppm for mobiles (1p connection)).


I use www.call18866.com

[Russ]

And there's me expecting a Monty Pythong thread

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by Russ D

And there's me expecting a Monty Pythong thread

You could always start one

[bob_a_builder]

I need something that works either via CPS or a dialer box, the kids or mrs bob_a_builder will never remember to dial a prefix

but those 18866 prices do look good

anyone know of a generic dialer box into which you can put your own prefix, if such a thing exists?

If it were possible to have this service without paying line rental to BT then it would truly be the holy grail of telecoms. But the very least you have to pay to BT is, IIRC, £10.50 a month, which includes all your off-peak UK landline calls charged at 5.5p per hour (merely the connection charge and a need to redial once every 60 minutes).

So, your minimum monthly charge for this service is really £20.49, which is admittedly cheaper than the equivalent BT offering, 'BT Together Option 3', which gives you all landline calls, at all times, for no extra charge (but redial every hour) for £25.50 a month.

[bob_a_builder]

re line rental - Yes I appreciate that, its not quite that good a bargin


But of my bill , 90% are very short calls ( kids !) , where the connection charge becomes a significant part of the bill, and even if you were on the All In packages, generally the connection charge is in addition to the All in price , so I guess moving to the normal All In package would actually give me a bigger bill not a smaller one
i.e. tenner for the All in package (+ line rental) but ALSO including all those 4p~5p connection charges

So my reference to the grail, holy or otherwise was the absence of a per call connection charge with Toucan.

1886 is also looks good, apart from the inability to (sensibly) automate the process. At least Toucan can be 'CPS'ed,

That seems to be one of the benifits of a BT line nowadays you can fairly easliy jump from carrier to carrier, currently on my Ntl line the only easy option is One-Tel and savings are not great, Even with one-tel I could get a better saving but only if I was CPS'ed to then via a BT line.

Originally Posted by bob_a_builder

re line rental - Yes I appreciate that, its not quite that good a bargin


But of my bill , 90% are very short calls ( kids !) , where the connection charge becomes a significant part of the bill, and even if you were on the All In packages, generally the connection charge is in addition to the All in price , so I guess moving to the normal All In package would actually give me a bigger bill not a smaller one
i.e. tenner for the All in package (+ line rental) but ALSO including all those 4p~5p connection charges

So my reference to the grail, holy or otherwise was the absence of a per call connection charge with Toucan.

1886 is also looks good, apart from the inability to (sensibly) automate the process. At least Toucan can be 'CPS'ed,

That seems to be one of the benifits of a BT line nowadays you can fairly easliy jump from carrier to carrier, currently on my Ntl line the only easy option is One-Tel and savings are not great, Even with one-tel I could get a better saving but only if I was CPS'ed to then via a BT line.

Don't know if it's useful info to you, but you would have to make 180 phone calls on BT option 1 before you have racked up more than £9.99 worth of 5.5p connection charges. Admittedly this is off-peak only and I can't speak with experience of teenagers, as my one and only son is still not quite 2 years old!

[themelon]

Originally Posted by Chris T

Don't know if it's useful info to you, but you would have to make 180 phone calls on BT option 1 before you have racked up more than £9.99 worth of 5.5p connection charges. Admittedly this is off-peak only and I can't speak with experience of teenagers, as my one and only son is still not quite 2 years old!

And you could make nearly 200 calls on ntls 5p call plan. It depends if the calls are in the daytime (before 6) also it will cost more.

But why BT were allowed to get away with scrapping basic line rental at £9.50 a forcing everyone on the Option 1 £10.50 whether they like it or not I will never know.

I personally will now never use another provider over a BT line because effectively you are wasting £10.50 a month paying BT for something you have no intention of using!

Wakey Wakey OFCOM!

[Bifta]

I've had 4 calls from different Indian chaps from Toucan Telecom trying to coax me in to using them in the last week .. the fact that they don't seem the comprehend the term "not interested" is beginning to nark me.

Originally Posted by Bifta

I've had 4 calls from different Indian chaps from Toucan Telecom trying to coax me in to using them in the last week .. the fact that they don't seem the comprehend the term "not interested" is beginning to nark me.

Sign up to TPS online http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/ and point out that they can be fined £2000 for every time they call you. It tends to get their attention!

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by Graham

Sign up to TPS online http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/ and point out that they can be fined £2000 for every time they call you. It tends to get their attention!

If they understand you.

Another point is that they can get around it by just dialing numbers indiscriminately and thereby not breaking the rules as they aren't taking your number from a list

When I spoke with TPS they confirmed this as we were still getting calls from companies.

There is a way around it you can sign up to silent call guard, I'll find the link in a min, its suppose to stop it, but we still get some

The number to register is 0800 398893, if I remember its run by BT from the switch or something

[murali_2000]

Originally Posted by Bifta

I've had 4 calls from different Indian chaps from Toucan Telecom trying to coax me in to using them in the last week .. the fact that they don't seem the comprehend the term "not interested" is beginning to nark me.

Report this to Adam willman, compliance officer of Toucan at awillm@toucantele.com

He has to promised to investigate the incident and has given me an undertaking that they will not contact me again.

[Russ]

I'm sure that almost 12 months on, Bifta is not getting these calls anymore....