Line rental rant

[#1]

Why is Business line rental only £10.50 whereas Residential line rental is £15.95? In fact why do we pay line rental at all?
I have an electricity supply but I do not rent the cable to my house. I have cellphone but do not pay line rental. I have a water supply but I do not rent the pipe to my home. These things are part of the infrastructure of the provider. Line rental is akin to price fixing and there is no competition here. Who will be the first to abolish this outdated and extortionate charge?

[#2]

Quote

Our landline phone service line rental costs £10.50 on a 24 month contract, £12.50 on a 12 month contract and £14.50 with no contract.

It is actually £12.60/£15.00/£17.40 once you include VAT and the broadband part is more expensive - in the case of fibre a lot more expensive

[#3]

Hello
All providers rent the telephones lines from BT Wholesale, who charge this line rental, so plusnet are simply passing on this charge.
Hopefully soon we'll do without it.

[#4]

no they aren't - they are adding a big chunk to it

[#5]

Lines/pipes have to be maintained hence there is always a cost.
My water company charges £86.00 per year.  Electricity company £4.50 monthly.
Charges may be "hidden" but the will be there, line rental is very high, but clearly use of landline phones has dropped a great deal.
Money has to come from somewhere, BT have to make money to pay for their foray into football etc.

[#6]

Fundamentally wrong
The line rental charge is set by BT Openreach as set out here https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricing/loadProductPriceDetails.do?data=%2BrBpMW3XM9a... and has been reducing not increasing
Present cost is £89.50 + VAT = £8.95 per month incl. VAT
The fact is that most of the providers are using it to cover artificially cheap broadband prices

[#7]

Quote from: DSearleUK

I have an electricity supply but I do not rent the cable to my house.

Yes you do, you pay a standing charge to cover that sort of thing, whatever electricity you use. (Unless you are on a tariff that includes that in the unit charge).

[#8]

So if you pay monthly it goes up £12 a year, but if you pay annually it goes up £30 

[#9]

Quote from: Anotherone

Quote from: DSearleUK I have an electricity supply but I do not rent the cable to my house. Yes you do, you pay a standing charge to cover that sort of thing, whatever electricity you use. (Unless you are on a tariff that includes that in the unit charge).

I know what I pay for. If I use zero electricity or water or Cellphone , I pay nothing.

[#10]

Unless you are on a Pre-pay tariff where the unit rate is higher to include an element to cover the "standing charge" that others would pay on a standard tariff, or even a Quarterly Tariff like Equipower from Ebico, other normal tariffs have a standing charge. If you are on some fantastic tariff that doesn't have a standing charge, why can't you let us all know, some of us may benefit from changing tariff.
(I don't know what the set up is if you have solar panels and feed surplus to the grid) 

[#11]

Quote from: DSearleUK

I know what I pay for. If I use zero electricity or water or Cellphone , I pay nothing.

But do you, realistically, use zero?

[#12]

BTw line rental from Pulse8 is £13 per month. Even if you add the extra £2.50 you'd have to pay PN, for those not on a special deal it's worth looking at.
https://pulse8broadband.co.uk/line-packages

[#13]

and if you add in the bit about not needing anytime calls due to their very low call charges it is definitely worth it

[#14]

Did you move yours Jim?

[#15]

Quote from: Anotherone

Unless you are on a Pre-pay tariff where the unit rate is higher to include an element to cover the "standing charge" that others would pay on a standard tariff,

Are you sure? Prepayment meters have a facility to deduct a weekly standing charge.