Post Office Telephone

[brainiac]

Anyone else on PO phone disgusted with their recent £2 per month landline increase? They also increased the landline charge by £1 per month in April last year - so that's a 25% increase in 9 months, when inflation is less than 2% - incredible! I rang to complain, and the guy who answered wouldn't even discuss it with me, said it was BT's fault. Grrrrr

[Prudie]

I'm not 100% sure but they may well be right. I thought all landlines still ultimately belonged to BT.

[boxtops]

They do. as I understand it. Other service providers just rent them.

[brainiac]

Have BT customers had a similarly large increase, then?

[DSJ]

No.

[bednobs]

£12 a month is cheap tho innit?

[brainiac]

It was £12 a month, but it's now £15 - an increase of 25% !

[Buenchico]

OpenReach (which owns the copper cables and associated infrastructure) is BT-owned but has to operate totally separate accounts to BT. That's to ensure fairness, as BT then has to pay OpenReach the same price to access their services as other operators do.

So if OpenReach put their prices up, everyone else is likely to follow suit (unless they're prepared to reduce their own profits).

Post Office line rental at £15 per month (or the equivalent of just £12 per month if you pay for a year in advance) is still cheaper than BT's own basic line rental fee of £16.99 per month.

A relevant link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30273667

[VHG]

>>>I thought all landlines still ultimately belonged to BT.

I am pretty sure Virgin "cable" landlines don't.

[Prudie]

VHG I've never considered Virgin cable as anything to do with BT phone landlines. They were laid by Virgin weren't they which is why lots of areas can't get Virgin - such as me.

[Old_Geezer]

Virgin cable will be fibre optics and not part of the original copper network. If they lay their own cables then sure, they won't be BT owned. But cable telephones I suspect are still the exception. If laid it makes sense to carry calls on them along with the data. But most customers will be on the original copper as there is little incentive to bear the cost of replacing it until it needs replacing anyway.