Toby Atkin-Wright

My ISP, BE, has started providing land lines. So no longer will I need to pay BT line rental for my ADSL line. The line changed over to BE today without noticeable interruption of service, and we’ve kept the same number. Not that we use it much; other than receiving calls from some family members, we use our mobiles for all our telephoning. Oh, and being part of BE’s initial land-line trial, I’ve got half-price line rental for the first year.

Taking into account the state of modern television, this evening we’re watching black and white Avengers episodes from 1965.

My ISP, BE, has started providing land lines. So no longer will I need to pay BT line rental for my ADSL line. The line changed over to BE today without noticeable interruption of service, and we’ve kept the same number. Not that we use it much; other than receiving calls from some family members, we use our mobiles for all our telephoning. Oh, and being part of BE’s initial land-line trial, I’ve got half-price line rental for the first year.

Taking into account the state of modern television, this evening we’re watching black and white Avengers episodes from 1965.

We need a BT phone line to run our ADSL internet over, but as Kate and I use our mobiles for most of our phone calls, I want to pay as little as possible for the fixed line. The cheapest BT package is £11.54/month line rental, on top of which I pay £4 for anonymous caller rejection (which weeds out all of the rascally commercial calls that ignore my Telephone Preference Service registration). We still keep a phone on the line because we receive occasional phone calls from family members who prefer not to call mobiles, but we don’t make any outgoing calls through BT.

Unfortunately not making any calls came back to bite us, as I looked at my latest bill and noticed that I’d been billed £10.77 for caller display and an answer-phone service, which I’d thought would have been free. But, reading the small print, one needs to make two chargeable calls per month to get various “free” services. Maybe I knew about that before; I don’t recall, but I find it unnaturally annoying. I’ve cancelled those services now, and am dreaming of a bright future where I could have internet without having to pay separately for a phone line too.

In the mean time, Kate and I would be much happier if you called us on our mobiles rather than the house phone.

We need a BT phone line to run our ADSL internet over, but as Kate and I use our mobiles for most of our phone calls, I want to pay as little as possible for the fixed line. The cheapest BT package is £11.54/month line rental, on top of which I pay £4 for anonymous caller rejection (which weeds out all of the rascally commercial calls that ignore my Telephone Preference Service registration). We still keep a phone on the line because we receive occasional phone calls from family members who prefer not to call mobiles, but we don’t make any outgoing calls through BT.

Unfortunately not making any calls came back to bite us, as I looked at my latest bill and noticed that I’d been billed £10.77 for caller display and an answer-phone service, which I’d thought would have been free. But, reading the small print, one needs to make two chargeable calls per month to get various “free” services. Maybe I knew about that before; I don’t recall, but I find it unnaturally annoying. I’ve cancelled those services now, and am dreaming of a bright future where I could have internet without having to pay separately for a phone line too.

In the mean time, Kate and I would be much happier if you called us on our mobiles rather than the house phone.