BT Talk Plus - New

bk

BT Ireland have changed their Talk Plus service. It now costs €39 for line rental + free local and national calls (and cheaper mobile and international calls) at anytime.

This is down from €50 in the past.

This is now the same price as Eircoms product of a similiar type. That seems silly to me, why would anyone want to change from Eircom to BT to suffer all the hassle of their billing department, for the exact same price and product that you can get much more easily from Eircom?

Also, why I have posted this in the BB forum, their site doesn't mention if you can get the free calls product in conjunction with their BB + Line Rental (€50) product?

Surely you don't have to pay €50 + €39, that would make no sense.

dahamsta

There's another product that includes all three, I think it's €69 or €64 or something. Look back a couple days on ENN and you'll find the regurgitated press release.

adam

patrickmooney

From my understanding the Eircom one is 39.99, yep a whole 99c more expensive! But with the BT one, if you opt for online billing you save another 2.50 a month, so in reality it's €36.50 a month. Also mobile calls are cheaper, calls to the uk are 5c, 50% cheaper then Eircom etc. So there are differences between.

I believe it's another €25 for basic Broadband ontop of this (so around €64 (-€2.5 for online discount) for line rental, all landline calls and broadband).

It's very confusing with all their recent product re-offerings. I've been a BT customer for years nows, my current bundle has changed at least 3 times over the last year. Thankfully it's getting cheaper each time! I'm currently on the €64 a month deal.

bk

Found it:

- EUR63.82 a month (incl VAT) for Broadband, Line Rental and unlimited local and national fixed line calls to 32 counties (at all times!)

This is actually very good, the equivalent service from Eircom would cost €80.

BT really needs to improve and update their website, the options aren't obvious, I found this price in a press release. They really should have a form where you can select what service you want (BB @ 1m or 2m, line rental, Talk or Talk plus) and it tells you the price.

However I still say that if you are not getting BB, then the Phone + Line rental for €39 from BT, even with slightly cheaper international and mobile calls, still isn't that attractive. Most people wouldn't bother moving for this small difference.

Personally, I'm with NTL for BB (3m @ €45) and UTV Talk for calls (€25). I'm very happy with this setup, I've drastically reduced my bills from just 6 months ago. I'm just waiting for NTL to introduce their VoIP phone service and I would be a very happy man.

It is funny, it looks like we are coming full circle. In the past you were charged at just the start of a phone call and you could stay on for as long as you liked. Then Telecom Eirrean introduced per second billing. I always said people didn't like per second billing, people prefer to have a fixed, budgetable cost. And here we are back to almost fixed cost calls again

Solair

Yeah it's true it's gone totally full circle.

However, you know the main reason Telecom Eireann (and other operators in Europe) implemented per second billing was simply because they could!

A lot of the very old exchange equipment (disappeared by mid 1980s) had huge problems timing calls, so it made sense to simply charge a flat fee and just count the number of local calls. Long distance calls had to go through all sorts of electromechanical timers and tolling systems to work out the charge. It wouldn't have made any economic sense to install expensive equipment to monitor lines and record call times.

A few years after they got rid of the very old equipment and once they had a sophisticated billing software in place it left the door open to start charging for timed local calls and move away from unit based charges.

The digital exchanges and the last generation ericsson crossbars (the last electromechanical switches (dated from the 1970s) some of which remained in local service into the 1990s as local switches hosted by near-by digital exchanges... these were the areas that couldn't get voicemail or call management features) were all computerised and could handled detailed billing etc etc. so had no problem providing the data to rip you off

removefiannafai

bk wrote:

BT Ireland have changed their Talk Plus service. It now costs €39 for line rental + free local and national calls (and cheaper mobile and international calls) at anytime.

This is down from €50 in the past.

This is now the same price as Eircoms product of a similiar type. That seems silly to me, why would anyone want to change from Eircom to BT to suffer all the hassle of their billing department, for the exact same price and product that you can get much more easily from Eircom?

Also, why I have posted this in the BB forum, their site doesn't mention if you can get the free calls product in conjunction with their BB + Line Rental (€50) product?

Surely you don't have to pay €50 + €39, that would make no sense.

Dear young person,
You fail to realize that hundreds of thousands of citizens (particularly the older ones like myself) have a deep and abiding detestation for all things "Telecom Eireann" from the many years that we put up with the abuse from old biddy civil servants whenever we had a problem of any kind .This kind of contemptuous treatment is typical of all state controlled monopoly services,although it has moderated slightly since the arrival of the 21st century(not much though)
The last time I got a phone call from one of their minions asking me if I would return to the fold,I had the greatest delight of my entire life in telling her what I thought of Telecom Eireann-so much so that the uncivil b***h hung up on me.!!