Want to save money on your phone bills? Get fair, unbiased advice in a language you understand
so you make the right choice.
Why get Cable?
Many people are frustrated at the prospect of paying £11 to BT every month for the line rental that they only use to run their broadband connection. If you’re one such person, you might be wondering what options are available to you. You can reduce your home phone line rental by switching to a cheaper provider. However, Cable (provided by VirginMedia) offers a way to eliminate your line rental forever. Read on to find out how.
Cable phone lines
Virgin Media phone packages are inclusive of line rental and start from £11 a month (paying by Direct Debit – going up to £16 a month otherwise) and there are add-ons to reduce calls costs to mobiles, calls abroad and for services like call waiting and call barring.
But the real selling point of cable for people who only have a landline in order to get broadband is the fact that they won’t need one any more. VirginMedia offer broadband for £14.99 / month, which includes line rental charges. Because cable providers use fibre optic cables instead of the copper wire network, you don’t have to have a phone line at all if you don’t want to; and you can still get high-speed broadband.
You should note however, that if you switch from an ADSL line to a cable connection, but then want to switch back, it will cost you £120 to reconnect.
If don’t want to give up your home phone, there’s another way that you can save with a cable connection. You could opt for a VoIP phone (otherwise known as an Internet Phone).
VoIP + Cable
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is the latest trend in the cross-over markets of telephony and broadband. Having a VoIP phone means that you can make calls over your broadband connection; which is great for cable customers as it can eliminate line rental forever.
Using a VoIP provider you can retain a geographical telephone number so that people can still call you, and for as little as £5.99 a month, you can get great national and international rates that are much cheaper than BT. You can also use VoIP with an ADSL broadband line, but would still have to pay line rental to get your internet so it wouldn’t be such good value as combining cable broadband and VoIP. You should note, however, that call quality might be lower than with a traditional landline. Click here to read our article on VoIP / Internet Phone Calls.
The beginning of the end for the BT landline?
Unfortunately for the many people who have landlines in order to get broadband, you currently can’t get broadband-only packages unless you have cable. In the US however, you can purchase pure broadband without a cable connection, known as naked ADSL. Ofcom currently allows suppliers to choose whether or not they want to offer this service and as yet in the UK, none do. However, naked ADSL could have a massive impact on the future of both line rental and VoIP connections.
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