Vodafone 'removes' broadband line rental charges

snips86x · 9 Aug 2016 at 11:28

Mobile-phone giant Vodafone claims it is scrapping line rental charges for new and upgrading home broadband customers in the UK.

The move means customers will not be billed the current £18 ($23) monthly charge but only if they commit to an 18-month contract.

They will still get a landline connection and phone number, the firm said. Prices will start at £22 a month.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37021766

Well while it may not be perfect, its a start! I'll look forward to further changes with other providers. I appreciate there are comments around 'Merge' but I see this as a good move!

Artery · 9 Aug 2016 at 11:33

They'll find some way to hike the prices up of the service instead but yeah I guess it's a start.

topgun06 · 9 Aug 2016 at 11:42

Its a start. So Vodafone 76mb fibre is £28 pm compared to BT at £44 pm which includes line rental.

bledd · 9 Aug 2016 at 11:55

Meh, I don't mind paying for line rental, you're using it 24/7!

matthab · 9 Aug 2016 at 14:02

bledd said:
Meh, I don't mind paying for line rental, you're using it 24/7!

Even better if you don't pay it.

Line rental has always been a pet hate for me. Just role it in with the price and stop making the deal look good till you go through buying it.

ttaskmaster · 9 Aug 2016 at 14:35

They can't get me faster than 0.7Mbps, so it's all a 'mute' point....

Mute, geddit... because they're a phone company...

booyaka · 9 Aug 2016 at 14:59

matthab said:
Even better if you don't pay it.

Line rental has always been a pet hate for me. Just role it in with the price and stop making the deal look good till you go through buying it.

I believe that OFCOM have said that from later this year that's what must be quoted.

I.e instead of £19 line rental and £10 broadband etc - it must be quoted as £29 a month for broadband as you can't get b/band without the line.

pompeygreg · 9 Aug 2016 at 15:03

booyaka said:
I believe that OFCOM have said that from later this year that's what must be quoted.

I.e instead of £19 line rental and £10 broadband etc - it must be quoted as £29 a month for broadband as you can't get b/band without the line.

It's the ASA changing their approach on what suppliers are allowed to claim in their ads.

https://www.asa.org.uk/News-resources/Media-Centre/2016/Insight-We-confirm-tougher-approach-to-broadband-price-claims-in-ads.aspx#.V6niJ7AUX4Y

Hotwired · 9 Aug 2016 at 15:06

Well it always was BS when companies obscured the line rental with smaller text or remotely stuffed it somewhere on an asterisk.

DragonQ · 9 Aug 2016 at 15:20

Shame their website doesn't list any available packages. It says I can get up to 76 Mb/s then the "show packages" button or whatever it's called does absolutely nothing on every browser I tried.

Great job Vodafone.

bremen1874 · 9 Aug 2016 at 15:53

https://www.vodafone.co.uk/broadband/deals and scroll down to the bottom

JasonM · 9 Aug 2016 at 16:03

Do Vodafone offer static IP for home users?

ChrisD. · 9 Aug 2016 at 16:10

So it's just being merged then, as you still need a line and phone.

Rozzy85 · 9 Aug 2016 at 17:43

Better to think of it as a £18 line rental + £4(£7 for new) package. It's just combined to make it more appealing. No doubt comes with some nice traffic restrictions during heavy network congestion. One of Sky's packages is cheaper over the same 18 month period but it has a 25GB data cap which'll be used up in 2 hours. If you're a light to medium user then it's definitely worth going for (even more so if you're already an existing customer).

KIA · 9 Aug 2016 at 18:32

Rozzy85 said:
No doubt comes with some nice traffic restrictions during heavy network congestion.

No.

Dooksy said:
So it's just being merged then, as you still need a line and phone.

Yes. It's Vodafone trying to be clever and win over new customers using cheap advertising.

Sure... :/

BT 55/10 works out at just over £15 per month after maximum cashback, and you can use your own modem/router combination. Voda's "deal" is nothing special.

DragonQ · 9 Aug 2016 at 20:18

bremen1874 said:
https://www.vodafone.co.uk/broadband/deals and scroll down to the bottom

Thanks. Their top-tier fibre package is cheaper than BT's standard price and BT has £19/mo line rental on top of that! As others have said though, BT offers way more cashback and occasional offers to join.

I also have no idea what Vodafone's network is like...hopefully more like BT's than SSE's. :eek:

Caged · 9 Aug 2016 at 22:27

Line rental is the ticket booking fee of the broadband world. It's frankly a joke that something can be advertised as 'free' but requiring £18.99 per month of line rental.

bremen1874 · 9 Aug 2016 at 22:41

The only problem I can see is that they've been allowed to subsidise the headline broadband cost with ever increasing line rental charges.

Line rental and broadband don't need to be bundled together. They should be sold as separate products and then there'd be some possibility of competition. I appreciate that this won't happen.

As I've said before Virgin are the company that really take the **** on line rental. They're charging for something that to a large extent doesn't exist just because people are used to paying it.

DragonQ · 10 Aug 2016 at 13:26

bremen1874 said:
The only problem I can see is that they've been allowed to subsidise the headline broadband cost with ever increasing line rental charges.

Line rental and broadband don't need to be bundled together. They should be sold as separate products and then there'd be some possibility of competition. I appreciate that this won't happen.

As I've said before Virgin are the company that really take the **** on line rental. They're charging for something that to a large extent doesn't exist just because people are used to paying it.

You can get line rental from other companies with some providers, including BT, but it just isn't economical to do so because they will only sell them bundled to new customers and existing customers won't get discounts without having both products together.

roadie · 13 Aug 2016 at 10:05

I'm of the opinion that this is a very good thing. I know that they will eventually hike the price, but getting a top of the line fibre package for £28 a month, or basic fibre for £25 is a good deal.

Hopefully this shakes up the market a bit price wise.