Phone charges increase

[Clive]

Dear Customer

Thank you very much for choosing IDNet to supply your telephone line.

We are acutely aware that everyone is suffering with the cost of living crisis. Prices for everything are rising all the time. Here at IDNet we are tightening our belts and resisting price rises as best we can. However, BT Openreach have now imposed an increase on our buying price for telephone line rental ahead of the national phone system switch off, scheduled for 2025. We have tried as hard as we can to absorb as many cost increases as we can, but unfortunately we are unable to absorb this one.

We are writing to give you notice that we will have to increase the price that you pay for your phone line rental by £4.50 per month (£5.40 inc VAT) for invoices dated 1st July 2023 onwards.

We really do appreciate that this is unwelcome news and if we could force BT to back down then we would. Thank you once again for choosing us to supply your services.

Regards
Tim Davies

[stan]

Price increase on phone line from July 2023.

Received the notification from IDnet today ... increase of £5.40 per month including VAT.

Got to be honest I've been thinking more and more seriously about jumping ship and joining Andrews and Arnold on their FTTC (with their VOIP phone service which costs peanuts).

Maybe this is the nudge that pushes me over the edge after 15 years with IDnet. It's a shame that the IDnet Centrex phone offering is so expensive compared to AAISP (£1.40 a month). A landline is less and less obligatory but I still think it would be handy to have a landline number for the foreseeable.

I've contacted A and A and, as was expected, their tech support is excellent and as personal as IDnet and I feel confident in applying for FTTP and getting them to port my landline number over to them. Their router (Technicolour) serves as an ATA and I'm assured I'll be able to plug my analogue DECT cordless phone into the back of the router and should expect it to work (after, maybe, a bit of tweaking with advice on the phone from AA tech support.

AAISP told me they have no plans to increase prices (in fact their last change was a DECREASE). but, that could change in an instant.

I haven't done anything yet .... and maybe I'll stay but my experience is that IDnet won't be making any offers to retain me, despite 15 years with them - I did ask a year ago and felt like I was just a number and that my leaving wasn't going to keep anyone awake at night.

I have no justifiable complaint ... I can stay and pay the increase and change to full fibre when circumstances dictate it becomes necessary at some point in the future .... or take the bull by the horns and move to another provider. 

[sparky]

Yes, a massive increase from the £12.60 that I am currently paying. But I'm sure that its still cheaper than BT?

Hopefully won't affect me for long as I am waiting on a FTTP install from an ALT Provider and our last real contact on LandLine has recently said that they are ditching it. So although mobile in our area is not great, between my wife on one network and me on another I think we should always be contactable. Transferring my landline number to the Alt provider  (and VOIP) would only cost £7.95 a month, but I think that I might give it a miss and go for for an unlimited broadband package.

Times they are a changing..............

[sparky]

Think i'll be on the move to soon, but more to do with FTTP,

https://www.idnetters.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,34218.msg764035.html#msg764035

[stan]

Bit of a duplication here ... apologies if I started a different thread instead of seeing sparky's.  Perhaps a mod will see if they need merging or somesuch.

BUT .... It just sunk in that, as sparky has said, the phone rental was £12.60 and has gone up by £5.60 .... that's one hell of a jump!!!!

[Simon]

It does seem a steep increase (about 40%), but maybe this is because there hasn't been an increase for a while?  I have to admit, it's been years since I explored the competition.

[Simon]

I've merged the threads, Stan.   

[stan]

Right you are, ta.

[zappaDPJ]

That is a huge increase and perhaps one of the reasons a million households have cancelled their broadband.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-65622403

[stan]

Just to confirm, IDnet Centrex phone service (VOIP) has a set up feeof £24 and a monthly fee of £15 which includes UK landline and mobile calls. And the set up fee seems to include them sending you a phone (presumably a digital one).

There are lots of facilities that come with the Centrex service. When I look at the digital phones that you use with VOIP I admit that I'm taken aback at the complexity of them. They need configuring and goodness knows how long the training course is before you can call yourseld qualified to use one.

[Simon]

Pardon my ignorance but, assuming it's in addition to your broadband cost, why do you need to pay an extra £15 per month to use a VOIP phone through your own broadband connection?

[Simon]

And, of course, no matter how many bells and whistles these new digital phones have, they still don't work in a power cut. 

[Simon]

And, you'll need to remember to hang up and redial if you've been talking for an hour:

All call packages have a call limit duration of 1 hour per call after which you would be charged for the time period after the initial hour at 1p per minute for landline calls and 5p per minute for mobile calls.
Setup fee includes handset delivery, activation of service and number porting.

[nowster]

I was going to suggest sipgate, but they seem to have become business-centred and expensive nowadays. 

I still have a free account with them. I wonder how long that will last.

[Tacitus]

Pardon my ignorance but, assuming it's in addition to your broadband cost, why do you need to pay an extra £15 per month to use a VOIP phone through your own broadband connection?

You're getting a DECT phone and base station (Yealink) together with unlimited calls to landline and mobile.  If you're a heavy user it's not that bad a deal.

For someone like me who doesn't often use the landline, it's a poor deal.  I currently have three relatively new Gigaset S700 handsets and an N300IP/A base station which covers both POTS and VOIP.  Using iDNet Centrex, I would need to rent or buy two additional Yealink phones at significant cost.  Alternatively iDNet could supply an ATA for use with the current setup. 

The alternative would be either to jump ship and go somewhere like A&A, maybe Zen, or simply swallow the addtional cost.  I think many people will find the cost equation no longer adds up.   

[gizmo71]

I obviously picked the right moment to go FTTP and dump the landline.

[Tacitus]

I obviously picked the right moment to go FTTP and dump the landline.

I'm on FTTC as FTTH/FTTP is a long way off.  Were the latter available I would probably use a separate VOIP provider and stay with iDNet for the Broadband as I have no complaints whatever on that side of things.

At present I'm constrained by the phone number being attached to the copper line.  Fair enough A&A have a workround, but it seems a lot of faffing around for what should be a simple matter.  Then of course there's still the fact that a power cut means complete loss of service, something which nobody seems to be addressing in any practical way.

If iDNet supported Gigaset kit then it would make things a lot simpler.  Centrex has the appearance of iDNet being a reseller and having little flexibility in what is offered. Makes things simpler for support but for the end user it's that or nothing.

[sparky]

At present I'm constrained by the phone number being attached to the copper line.

I know some one with FTTC IDNET Broadband but has no landline number and never had to order a PSTN connection when he ordered the Broadband, is this SOGEA?

So if traditionally, you have always had both, is it not possible to drop the landline but keep the broadband connection? Or does the canceling of the landline automatically cancel the broadband and you then have to create a new order?

Am I making sense 

[nowster]

So if traditionally, you have always had both, is it not possible to drop the landline but keep the broadband connection? Or does the cancelling of the landline automatically cancel the broadband and you then have to create a new order?

Certainly it used to be the case that cancelling the telephone service would automatically cancel the DSL attached to it.

[peasblossom]

What residential VOIP providers are there? I was reluctantly thinking of switching when the change over happens in 2025, but it would have to be with a company that had a customer service team as good as IDNet's. So none of the larger operators.

[zappaDPJ]

I obviously picked the right moment to go FTTP and dump the landline.

I did that around 10 months ago after a degree of protest which quickly fizzled out once she realized that for us at least there has been no downside, just positives.

[Simon]

I've not received the email Clive posted.  Would that be because I still have a normal landline?  Are my charges also being increased?

[robinc]

Basically you cannot win. BTW I pay line and BB annually in advance

From email:-
"You would not get charged anything additional before your next billing period.

You would see the increase in your next invoice.

New line rental cost per year £198 Including VAT (NOTE this was £139.33 last year)
Broadband cost per year per year £283.80 Including VAT

Total £481.80 Including VAT

Unfortunately Full Fibre is not yet showing available at your address but we can provide the broadband service without the line rental by converting this to SoGEA (please see below).

SuperFast Basic SoGEA 40/10 (broadband only service) £468 per year Including VAT
No charge for conversion."

The saving hardly seems worth the effort. I'll just wait and see what happens in 2025 on the Great Switch Off.

[peasblossom]

I've not received the email Clive posted.  Would that be because I still have a normal landline?  Are my charges also being increased?

Define normal. (Mine's PSTN and I got the email.)

[Simon]

Well, a normal old fashioned copper landline.

[Tacitus]

I know some one with FTTC IDNET Broadband but has no landline number and never had to order a PSTN connection when he ordered the Broadband, is this SOGEA?

I can't speak for them but mine is not SOGEA.  I swapped my broadband from Demon to iDNet many years ago and then transferred the phone and number to iDNet.  As I understand it that means the phone number is attached to the line and transferring the number will cease the broadband on that line. 

You can get round it by ordering another line first and once that is up and running transfering the phone number from line number one to the new voip supplier so you still have a broadband service running on the new line. Line number one can then be ceased with no problem.  Trouble with that is there are few spare lines available in the cabinet and none of them are of decent quality.  I would be swapping a reasonably decent line for one that almost certainly will be flaky.   

[Clive]

We have a company coming in to install FTTP in the next few weeks but it will work in parallel with the old copper cable until BT decide to remove it.  Then we will have to make a decision to get the FTTP connected.   According to the engineers I will have a choice of suppliers but according to IDNet they cannot be a supplier.  Very sad as far as I'm concerned.

[sparky]

SuperFast Basic SoGEA 40/10 (broadband only service) £468 per year Including VAT
No charge for conversion."

The saving hardly seems worth the effort.

That is definitely not worth the effort!  Mind you, BT now want £26 for a landline phone number with no call package included!

Unfortunately, I have just learnt that my prospective FTTP provider, who originally promised connection April/May, then moved it to June/July, are now saying December 2023 or January 2024 as they are having difficulties accessing our village!!!    

[peasblossom]

So does this mean that if you switched phone and broadband together, you can't separate them out easily?

[Postal]

So does this mean that if you switched phone and broadband together, you can't separate them out easily?

It's a little more complex than that.  Whether you are on an FTTC or FTTP package, when you split out the phone and broadband elements it automatically ceases your existing package as that contract covers the whole broadband and phone package.  You then have to re-contract on a broadband only package and may have some downtime while the existing package ceases and the new package is provided.

If you currently have an FTTC connection and are migrating to FTTP it is a little more expensive but provides a greater level of safety in regard to continuity of the service to maintain the FTTC connection and order a new FTTP service not a migration.  Whichever way, when we get to the PSTN switch off or you are on an FTTP connection some providers only allow the phone connection to work through the router that they supply which may hinder some people who have their own set-up with kit that is a bit more advanced than the kit supplied by the ISP.  If you order a new FTTP connection rather than a migration you can just take the broadband package and find your own VoIP provider.  That should allow you to have a phone service through whatever is your router of choice.  Once you are happy that everything works on the FTTP you can then migrate your existing phone number from your FTTC package to your VoIP provider which will cease the FTTC package.  Then, unless you have some sort of back-up power supply it all falls over when there is a power cut, but that is another story.

If I have got things right, OfCOM introduced a new ruling in April this year which should allow people to migrate their phone number without losing their other services but most ISPs don't seem to have come on board with that as yet.

[Adrian]

Price increase on phone line from July 2023.


Got to be honest I've been thinking more and more seriously about jumping ship and joining Andrews and Arnold on their FTTC (with their VOIP phone service which costs peanuts).

Maybe this is the nudge that pushes me over the edge after 15 years with IDnet. It's a shame that the IDnet Centrex phone offering is so expensive compared to AAISP (£1.40 a month). A landline is less and less obligatory but I still think it would be handy to have a landline number for the foreseeable.

I've contacted A and A and, as was expected, their tech support is excellent and as personal as IDnet and I feel confident in applying for FTTP and getting them to port my landline number over to them. Their router (Technicolour) serves as an ATA and I'm assured I'll be able to plug my analogue DECT cordless phone into the back of the router and should expect it to work (after, maybe, a bit of tweaking with advice on the phone from AA tech support.

I was with IDNet on FTTC and land line phone until May last year when I decided the time was right to move to VOIP. I chose A&A having had some experience of them a few years ago and I have absolutely no regrets. FTTC was moved over, shortly afterwards the line rental moved to A&A and then the phone number was migrated and converted to VOIP, all virtually seamless. Around December they also changed me over to SOGEA, again absolutely seamless.

If 1TB/month is enough for you then they aren't even that much more expensive than IDNet now.

Adrian

[Gary]

I just went with SOGEA and dont want a VOIP phone or landline my mobile works well and I can use a app if I ever wanted a second number via EE, my careline is over 4G too or Ethernet if you choose to your router. Our village had a horrible FTTP provider called Giganet put fibre in the village last year in August, but its not connected still, they use CGNAT and no IPV6 so thats no good for my CCTV when I'm out and they have no smtp servers so no email pushed to your computer, phone or Tablet, awful phone support too, I was on hold for an hour just to find out the details about their lack of services.
I am happily staying where I am even when (or if) they switch on, hopefully people will jump ship and my FTTC will get less crosstalk. I have no need for even 500Mbps, 4K even Bravia Core uses at most 48Mbps but Prime and Netflix use much less, everybody jumps on 900Mbps (people like big numbers Ive decided) and because its shared with a block of other users they don't get those speeds over FTTP, altnets seem problematic and iDNet still serve my purposes just fine.

[nowster]

CGNAT without IPv6 is the worst of both worlds, I agree.

[zappaDPJ]

I just received the following email:

Thank you very much for choosing IDNet to supply your broadband service.
We are acutely aware that everyone is suffering with the cost of living crisis. Prices for everything are rising all the time. Here at IDNet we are tightening our belts and resisting price rises as best we can. However, our suppliers have now imposed an increase on our buying price for fast (ADSL) & superfast (FTTC, SoGEA & FTTP) broadband services. We have tried as hard as we can to absorb as many cost increases as we can, but unfortunately we are unable to absorb this one.

We are writing to give you notice that we will have to increase the price that you pay for your broadband service rental by £4.50 per month (£4.95 inc VAT) for invoices dated 15th July 2023 onwards.
Regards
IDNet

Last night I received notification that our power supplier has put our monthly payment up by £50 and it's been reported that our water company is considering a colossal 73% hike in the water bill. These increases are now starting to eat into our savings and investments at an alarming rate. We won't starve but I imagine there's a lot of people that will.

[Simon]

So, that's in addition to the phone line increase?   

[zappaDPJ]

It's pure conjecture on my part but I wonder some percentage of these increases are due to the huge number of people ditching their landline and broadband connections (one million disconnected from the Internet last year alone). The infrastructure still has to be maintained and my guess is those of us still connected will pay for the shortfall.

[Simon]

If it's both, than that would be a very sudden increase of around £120 for the year.  Given my last annual payment to IDNet was around £508, that's something like a 25% increment on this year. 

[zappaDPJ]

I don't have a landline so I can't say for sure for but the increases are for different amounts which suggests to me that they are for two different line types?

[Simon]

Guess I'll find out when they bill me next January. 

[Gary]

I got that letter as well, I'm going to have to consider if staying with IDNet is worth the extra £4.50 a month, on top of a 14% rise with EE on a sim only 30 day contract now after the initial 18mths ended, and with other bills, and now needing a new computer this year I may try and find cheaper deals. Im not saying IU will but the constant price rses are getting hard to swallow. I have part time work now as a CCNA which helps but still IDNets price rise and EE's were a bit of a punch. I do wonder if its because people are ditching the internet as has been said, in an age where its used more often for almost everything now rather than always being able to connect to a real person. 

[Simon]

I'm more included to think people are going for the cheaper all-in-one packages offered by the likes of Sky and perhaps Virgin.  I've never compared their prices but last year I ditched O2 after nearly 30 years and went to Sky Mobile, saving myself around £14 per month on my mobile bill, for an exact equivalent package.  I don't think I'd go to a large provider for my internet, but a lot of people may be prioritising cost over quality of service these days. 

[zappaDPJ]

We switch our car, house, contents and up until recently, our power providers every year so why not our broadband. By most accounts the downtime is minutes now rather than the days or weeks it used to be so that shouldn't be an issue. I calculate my bill for next year will be £455.40 with Idnet or £256.44 if I switch to Onestream Full Fibre 115 (swapping like for like).

I don't want to switch and it does mean having to switch everyone 12-24 months to take advantage of the deals on offer but a saving of around £200.00 a year is a no-brainer given the current economic climate.

[robinc]

The Onestream package looks interesting. For Onestream Fibre 55 (which I guess is just a plain SoGEA) it would save me about £100 a year.

But - they don't mention line rental charges anywhere!!!

[Gary]

I'm more included to think people are going for the cheaper all-in-one packages offered by the likes of Sky and perhaps Virgin.  I've never compared their prices but last year I ditched O2 after nearly 30 years and went to Sky Mobile, saving myself around £14 per month on my mobile bill, for an exact equivalent package.  I don't think I'd go to a large provider for my internet, but a lot of people may be prioritising cost over quality of service these days. 

I think you are right Simon. Also today FTTC/FTTP is pretty reliable so small ISP's are not really used that much, but I get a consistent service from IDNet, then again we have had FTTP put in by a big ALTNET called Giganet, they use CGNAT which is a big no go, no IPV6 and no SMTP but if you lucky and the winds blowing in the right direction you can get 900mbps for £40. They only put the trunking in last year and never completed the rest of it. For £4.50 a month I will stay for now with IDNet, I stay with EE because for £26 I get unlimited data top speeds not limited, and unlimited calls and calls and texts and other bonuses and I can still use it in Europe plus a bunch of other countries, so its a bargain and I can use it as a hotspot or gift data to my iPad. `I don't like being in contracts, hence I by phones from Apple, normally once a year so I loose the least amount of cash.

I cant be bothered any more with new phones now, my last purchase was a iPhone 14 Pro 1TB so I could sell that and get a a max unit this year, but I need a new mac so a M2 mac mini and a keyboard (yep they don't include one or a mouse) plus a monitor will be costly or I get a 15" Macbook air and a bunch of ports to plug into it and use a bigger monitor. My iMac still works and I could use the OpenCore Legacy Patcher to run the latest Sonoma on it but its not worth the grief, and I like to keep things up to date for security and also I have no idea how stable my mac will me with the legacy patcher.

[zappaDPJ]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/27/mobile-and-broadband-firms-accused-of-fuelling-uk-greedflation-with-major-price-hikes

[Simon]

Hmm...   

[Gary]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/27/mobile-and-broadband-firms-accused-of-fuelling-uk-greedflation-with-major-price-hikes

Mine when up 13% early this year, crazy when everyone is pretty much tightening their finacial belts. 

[Clive]

My Plusnet account went up from £23 to £42 a month in May.  When I phoned them to cancel it they reduced it to £21 a month.  I really hate companies that try and take advantage like that. 

[Simon]

Yes, and it's always worth a phone call as they will usually reduce it and even though you hate them for trying it on, it's easier than switching providers. 

[zappaDPJ]

The same thing happened to my other half when she complained to EE about a monumental price increase. I told her to ask for her PAC. She did at which point someone within EE literally hijacked the call and offered her more for less

[Clive]

Priceless!  What a miserable world it's become!   

[zappaDPJ]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/04/more-than-half-of-uk-broadband-customers-hit-by-connection-problems

I wonder how many of those people complaining of connection issues are having problems due to the OpenReach infrastructure rather than their ISP. My connection drops regularly but it's always late in the evening or early morning. That suggests to me it's more likely to be engineering works rather than a problem with IDNet.

[zappaDPJ]

I've just had yet another night of continual disconnections. I can see from looking at other IDNet BQMs that it's been the same for other customers but not everyone.

[Gary]

I've just had yet another night of continual disconnections. I can see from looking at other IDNet BQMs that it's been the same for other customers but not everyone.

Just looked though my router logs, mines pretty solid no drops in any of the logs so not sure why yours does it  . Which backhaul provider are you with on IDNet?

[zappaDPJ]

Which backhaul provider are you with on IDNet?

I've no idea Gary. This a relatively new FTTP connection. It went down for 15-20 minutes just after 3.00am, again at 4.00am and once again about an hour later. It was the same for Simon's connection and a few others but clearly not everyone.

[Simon]

Funnily enough, I didn't notice. 

[zappaDPJ]

I'll sleep when I die

[Simon]

The final outage...   

[zappaDPJ]

 

[Clive]

One of my favourite sayings:

Soon you will be dead.
Not long after that everyone who knows you will be dead.
And not long after that, everyone who has ever heard of you will be dead.   

[peasblossom]

Dithering over this. City Fibre are the fibre provider of choice here, so picking anyone else (like Hyperoptic who sound good to me) means finding out if they are available now or waiting. I refuse to jump ship and go to a larger firm though because their customer service will be nowhere near as good as IDNet's is, but I am keen to pay a bit less.

[Clive]

My son has Hyperoptic in London and it's certainly very good.  During the six years he's had it he has not had a single issue.

[zappaDPJ]

I've read good things about Hyperoptic, competitive pricing and they currently have some pretty decent special offers. Shame they don't cover my area.

[peasblossom]

I've read good things about Hyperoptic, competitive pricing and they currently have some pretty decent special offers. Shame they don't cover my area.

Nor mine. I registered interest a while ago in the hope that they will one day.