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BT puts up line rental prices

By Barry Collins

Posted on 19 Jul 2010 at 09:37

BT is raising the cost of line rental by 50p from October, pushing up the cost of broadband for tens of millions of British users.

Line rental will cost £13.29 per month from October, or £12.04 for e-billing customers who pay their phone bill by Direct Debit. The company also offers discounts for paying line rental in advance.

Coincidentally, the Labour Government's 50p-a-month "broadband tax" was set to be introduced in October, but the plans were scrapped by the new coalition Government in the recent emergency budget.

The rise in line rental will comes as a blow to the increasing number of people who only maintain a home landline for broadband connectivity. Ofcom figures show that 12% of British homes now don't have a landline telephone, with mobile telephony and broadband-only connections from companies such as Virgin Media becoming increasingly popular.

At the same time, BT is increasing call charges by 10%, with the cost of connecting calls rising from 9.9p to 10.9p, and daytime call rates jumping from 5.9p to 6.4p.

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User comments

BT puts up line rental prices

who the xxx do BT think they are!

Many ordinary people presently have a pay freeze

Bank Base Rates are marginal

General inflation is negligable

By invalidscreenname on 19 Jul 2010

BT puts up line rental prices

who the xxx do BT think they are!

Many ordinary people presently have a pay freeze

Bank Base Rates are marginal

General inflation is negligable

By invalidscreenname on 19 Jul 2010

More for less

They charge us more for doing nothing.

By cheysuli on 19 Jul 2010

Shareholders or Customers?

I wont really have a problem with this if I could be convinced that the increases were going to be reinvested for future benefit (such as the Infinity fibre rollout).

As I usually grumble about having to pay line rental purely for broadband, I will find myself grumbling a lot more if it ends up in shareholders pockets instead!

By Fraz_pro on 19 Jul 2010

BT ....grrrrgh!

BT ...fraudsters, charlatans and incompetents!

And they are the politest words I can find to describe them.

By fingerbob69 on 19 Jul 2010

dose any one here believe in santa claus!

the only way bt will change is, if enough people have phone free periods, and use other things like email or messageing for a week every month. Like dump the pump

By invalidscreenname on 19 Jul 2010

Stupidity tax

There are still lots of people out there who still think they can only get their telephone (and broadband) via BT.

They will always be more expensive than TalkTalk or PlusNet for example.

By Stiggy on 20 Jul 2010

qedelec

BT operate a monopoly on lines, because stupid politicians did not take away the telecoms infrastructure on denationalisation. I have complained to the Regulator without result, but keeping in mind that all BT line users, e.g. Talktalk, Plusnet and all their competitors who use the BT lines, will also have to pass the increase on.
So what about competition? It's actually a farce with the present infrastructure.
We should all demand Parliament cuts BT down to size. I find them an obnoxious organisation always on the look out for making users captive, by stealth - imposed contracts without written agreement, etc. By operating such scams, they are also in my view operating illegally.
Lines should be costed on the basis of running the infrastructure plus an acceptable profit - not owned by yet another company that wants to pay its executives vast sums of unearned money!

By qedelec on 22 Jul 2010

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