From the 1st April 2006 the cost of BT's minimum call charge will increase from 4.2p + VAT to 4.6p + VAT.

Thats a bit much. Orange pay as you go is also raising the minimum call charge too from 5p to 10p (Including VAT).

It won't be for long until BT scraps minimum call charges completely and replace it with 'Call connection charges' instead in line with Cable and Wireless and the Cable companies.

One CPS provider which doesn't impose minimum call charges or connection charges is the Post Office. Their ads said so unless they've suddenly changed the T&C's.

PO still has no min call charge, however their tariff is poor.

You bet! and it looks confusing too, thats why i'm sticking with Telewest's phone service even though it might be more expensive for certain services, but they are reliable and the terms and conditions are easy to follow and there isn't any red tape!

However, when Telewest is completely replaced by NTL, the service will probably be the cheapest in the market. NTL already have wide range telephone packages to choose from unlike BT's 3 simple and extortionate tariffs!

Direct dialled international calls,Premium rate calls,operator assistance calls,0870 calls and calls to mobiles during the day are cheaper on BT than the Post office.

Telewest phone line does have very good call quality, their tariffs leaves a lot to be desired, NTL don't offer much better, and I hope Telewest don't turn into the poor service NTL is.

TW/NTL need to drop that annoying call connection charge, it wouldn't be so bad if like 1899, 18185, 18866 they had lower call costs.

It would be nice if BT droped there prices by 2p or 3p sometime. Its like BT are one of the dearest and dont seem to care and say but we are a better service than some of the rest and 15% off people that leave BT end up going back with them they tell you. Im now with BT for Broadband and phone. They seem a good service but are a bit dear and I can see why some are looking at a cheaper services.

Darren

BT have been unable to be competitive due to the then OFTEL requirements making them unable to compete.

However the now OFCOM will be relaxing these requirements, so BT can soon compete, and be able to lower prices.

Although I can see BT lowering the cost of calling, I can envisage them increasing the line rental.

I can't wait for OFCOM to relax IPstream/Datastream pricing (how most UK ADSL connections are delivered), perhaps we'll see more competitive, unlimited or even large capped broadband.

But this is OFCOM, who still haven't done anything wrt 0870/0871/0845/0844 and 070 numbers - and making sure those in the 500 odd chosen LLU exchanges profit from faster, well capped / unlimited broadband and the rest of us deal with a worse service.

3-2-1 FREE: £10 per month

Talk Unlimited Local:

£12.50 per month Unlimited local calls evenings and weekends. Includes your line rental

Calls to mobiles from 2p a minute
International calls from 2p a minute
Daytime national calls just 3p a minute, weekdays 2p a minute evenings and 1p a minute weekends



Talk Unlimited: Unlimited evening and weekends national calls
£16.50 per month




Talk Unlimited 24 unlimited 24/7 national calls
£25.00 per month


Calls to 01,02,0845,0870 and mobile numbers incur a 5p connection charge.

Call charges on the 3-2-1 tariff:

Local/National landline calls: 3p Daytime,2p Evening,1pWeekends (All prices are per minute)

Local Evening and weekends NTL to NTL calls are 5p per call.

The 3-2-1 tariff is for those who use their phone less than frequent.


I think the choice from NTL seems good although they need to introduce Free weekends calls to local and national numbers across all of the unlimited plans.

NTL should scrap the line rental charge for 3-2-1 users in line with Wight Cable as this would save people a lot of money and attract more custom to NTL.

NTL should also think about making the unlimited local calls really unlimited, they seem to of forgotten what unlimited means. They charge 3p per minute for daytime calls to local landlines, Now I thought they said unlimited usage?

Whoever designed Telewest's plans truly believed in unlimited, The talk unlimited plan offers unlimited calls for a fixed monthly fee to calls to geographical landlines and customers do not have to hang up after 59 minutes.

3-2-1 FREE: £10 per month hasn't been available to new customers for ages.

The unlimited talk plans you post, just highlight how poor value for money TW are.

TW (at least when Birmingham Cable here) used to be very good value, however just look at the extremely poor tariffs you have posted, they lost the way several years back.

At the moment, TW are using their phone line to claw back money, and decided a few years ago not to try and compete on that.

Sorry the above tariffs are NTL's.

I was mentioning the differences in which NTL and Telewest believe in 'Unlimited'

The 3-2-1 taroff is available on NTL, I actually just saw it advertised. Although Telewest offer free weekend calls to their customers on this.

I would like to see TW go back to the days where their phone service was very competitive, but I don't think they have any plans for this, as they even said themselves they will be using the phone service to keep ARPU up.

These companies see that it is better to have one customer spending £15 per month than it is two spending £10 per month each.

Yes but that was Telewest.

Since Telewest is now part of NTL, the company is going to be managed by NTL.

NTL are company which want to offer customers a choice and value for money and will lower costs when the companies have properly joined together.

It might mess things up if Telewest introduces a tariff that lets you call landlines for 4p per call during the day and free at evening and weekends for just £12.50 per month including line rental and NTL introduces a completely different plan or makes no changes to its plans, then the two companies are jointed together. Too much confusion for customers if you ask me!

So nothing should change at the moment and I think it will become cheaper in time.

The companies will also be getting extra revenue from:

TV on demand/Teleport
Premium Channels
Virtual mobile network (If ever launched or if merges with Virgin)

Of course Telewest wants to get as much revenue out of its phone service, thats what business is all about. Isn't that what all companies do? You wouldn't see companies saying:

''We've made enough money from customers in Staffordshire this week, I don't think we'll operate in that area, it's just too much hard work''

If that was really Telewest's idea, it hasn't worked since most customers are frightened away about the call connection charges.