Broadband guide

Cheap broadband and line rental

Updated: Tuesday 04 January, 2011

By Editorial - news@consumerchoices.co.uk

A landline is an essential for the vast majority of broadband users who need a copper line to access the internet.

While many people pay BT broadband (www.BT.com) £14.60 a month for their landline, there are other options, with increasing numbers of providers now offering broadband and line rental as part of a money saving bundle.

Cheap line rental and broadband packages

If you're going for broadband with line rental included, you should compare your total monthly cost rather than just one aspect of the deal. You also need to look at any other extras that you might get, such as inclusive calls with your line rental.

For example, BT charges £14.60 a month for line rental, which also comes with weekend calls, while some other big ISPs, such as O2 broadband (www.O2.co.uk) charge a lot less. it offers line rental for just £7.50 without calls if you're bundling your broadband - allowing you to pay an extra £2 for evening and weekend calls or £5 for anytime calls.

This means that if you take advantage of O2’s discount for existing mobile customers, you can get line rental and 20Mb broadband for just £15.83 a month - or add evening and weekend calls for a total of £17.83.

At the same time, although TalkTalk broadband (www.Talktalk.co.uk) charges £14.50 a month for line rental - which is closer to BT’s cost - its overall monthly cost is very competitive. For a total of just £19.29 a month, you can get speeds of up to 24Mb broadband, evening and weekend calls and line rental.

Line rental providers

BT, the UK’s traditional landline provider, offers all of these services as well as digital TV bundles via its BT Vision service, but it’s always a good idea to compare providers to make sure that you get the best value deal.

Many other big broadband providers now also offer line rental as well as home phone calls, injecting more competition to the market and allowing you to save extra cash by bundling all your services with one ISP.

When you sign up to a new broadband provider, the monthly price you're quoted won’t always include your line rental, so make sure that you check the small print to find out whether this extra charge will be included in your bill.

Broadband without a landline

It is also possible to get broadband without a landline, if you’d like to ditch yours all together. If you want to get online without having to fork out extra cash on line rental, then you have two options; Virgin Media (www.Virginmedia.com) or mobile broadband.

Virgin Media charges extra for its broadband without a phone line, so this option might only save you around £4.50 a month. And while mobile broadband uses the mobile phone network so doesn’t need a landline at all, coverage can be patchy, speeds slower and download allowances a lot lower than traditional fixed line connections - so always make sure that you do your research before signing up.

Click here to read more about broadband without a BT phone line.

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