BT has quietly increased the cost of its Line Rental Saver offer, which lets folks save money by paying for 12 months’ worth up front.
Previously, people willing to stump up a full year’s line rental in advance would have to pay £169.90 in one go. This was equivalent to paying £14.15/month, instead of the current rate of £16.99/month, saving customers roughy £33.98.
Now BT has bumped the price up to £183.48 a year, taking the scope for savings down to £20.40.
Despite this, BT says that it’s still giving customers the option to make a saving, pointing out that Sky canned its prepaid option last year.
A BT spokesperson said: “Line Rental Saver has proved popular with BT customers and existing customers are not affected by this change until their current deal expires. The new deal still offers a discount for customers paying upfront.
“Sky has dropped its cheaper line rental deal altogether – meaning all new Sky customers must pay £16.40/month – but BT was determined to retain the discounted Line Rental Saver option, which is more than £1 a month cheaper than Sky’s line rental.”
BT’s new rate is equivalent to paying £15.29/month which is cheaper than Sky’s rate, but is slightly more expensive than TalkTalk’s equivalent offering.
TalkTalk’s Value Line Rental service gives you 12 months line rental cover for £180.36, equivalent to £15.03/month. As of October 2014, the standard rate for TalkTalk line rental has been £16.70/month.
Both Sky and Fuel Broadband – then known as Primus Saver – dumped their line rental saver options last year. While Sky didn’t give a reason, Fuel said that it had dropped line rental saver because it was unpopular.
If the idea of paying line rental irks you to your core you only really have a couple of options – take out a broadband only service from Virgin Media (which currently doesn’t charge for line rental) or invest in wireless broadband, which has a high installation cost and is affected by terrain in a way that fixed-line services that aren’t.
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