Ask Our Expert

Cheaper broadband bills

Dear Michael, I have a BT landline and am paying about £40 a quarter for the line rental.

My broadband provider is Tiscali, and I get free weekend calls, but it still usually costs me about £22 or more per month - or another £70 per quarter plus VAT.

I really only use the broadband about 2-3 hours a week for family research and not much else.

Being a lone pensioner I would like to economise on the bills. Would you suggest staying as I am or just having an ISP for emails and pay as you go connection?

Annie, via email on 30 March 2009

Our Broadband Expert says...

Tiscali was bought by TalkTalk Broadband (www.TalkTalk.co.uk) in 2009 and the ISP began migrating Tiscali customers to its own network at the start of 2010. Tiscali no longer accepts new customers, but you can still sign up to one of TalkTalk’s great value broadband and home phone bundles.

Dear Annie, you could definitely reduce your monthly bills by reviewing your broadband and home phone packages.

BT Broadband (www.BT.com) line rental currently costs £11.50 a month, but this will rise to £12.50 a month on 1 April, and you could get it cheaper elsewhere.

Free line rental

However, since you're already with Tiscali Broadband (www.Tiscali.co.uk) for your internet, you might be able to benefit from the ISP’s “free line rental” offer.

If you live in Tiscali’s local loop unbundled (LLU) area you can get broadband, a home phone call package and line rental from just £14.99 a month. This would mean savings of £138 on line rental alone, plus an additional saving of £64 a year on your broadband package.

The £14.99 a month package comes with up to 8Mb broadband, with “unlimited” downloads - subject to a fair usage policy - inclusive line rental, weekend UK phone calls and even weekend calls to selected international destinations.

If you want inclusive anytime calls - both within the UK and abroad - you can upgrade to the £19.99 a month package which also comes with up to 8Mb broadband and “free line rental”.

If you don’t live within Tiscali’s LLU area you might be subject to an additional monthly fee, or not be able to get this package.

Cheap broadband bundles

However, other ISPs also offer cheap broadband packages that include line rental and home phone calls.

One of the cheapest on the market is TalkTalk Broadband (www.TalkTalk.co.uk). Its myTalkTalk Essentials package costs just £6.49 a month for up to 8Mb broadband with a 40GB monthly download limit and inclusive calls to UK landlines during the evenings and weekends, as well as 36 international destinations.

You then add TalkTalk line rental, which currently costs £10.50 a month, and you have a total monthly cost of just £16.99. However, TalkTalk line rental will increase to £11.25 a month from 1 April.

Plusnet Broadband (www.Plus.net) also offers low-cost packages. You can get its Value package, with up to 8Mb broadband, a 10GB monthly download allowance and a free wireless router, as well as inclusive UK evening and weekend calls and line rental for just £15.47 a month.

If you want anytime UK calls the cost increases to £20.64.



	Broadband: XXL + Phone: XL + TV HD: XL	Talk, Surf and Watch - Calls + Broadband + TV	Base Broadband + TV + Talk Freetime
Monthly charge	£3.01 for 2 months	£9.99 for 3 months	£18.00 Online Offer £50 Gift Voucher Ends 25/03/10
Speed (up to)	50Mb	20Mb	2.0Mb
Usage limit	unlimited	10GB	2GB
Contract length	12 months	18 months	12 months
Line rental	£143.88	£138.48	£132.00
Call rates	Day Free Evening Free Weekend Free	Day 5.40p Evening 1.50p Weekend Free	Day 5.25p Evening Free Weekend Free
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