is the phone line rental no longer free ?

[Comfortably Num]

I have been with ntl for about 6 years and always had XL tv package and whatever the fastest broad band was. I used to pay about £31 for TV and £35 rising to £38 for the BB as the speed upgraded. I used to get landline rental for free but from 23rd July till 7th August I've been billed £5.68 and for 8th August till 7th September they're trying to bill me a further £11. Is this an error as if not I want cancel the phone as I never use it.

thank you in advance

[Mick Fisher]

In all the time I was a VM DTV subscriber the phone line was a required condition of receiving it. Consequently it was included in the DTV price, it was never free.
My attempts to have the phone line charge removed were vigourously refused by CS and Retentions. Just one of many reasons as to why I no longer subscribe to the service.

[Chris W]

So if what Mick Fisher says is the case then you shouldn't be paying extra for the phone line, as the £31 DTV including phone line....

[djmagnifique]

I have tv phone and broadband and for quite some time its shown £11 for line rental on my bill but my tv has only been charged at £21 for xl pack. I'm not on any special or retentions deals so its probalby just your bill getting layed out differntly to fall in line with how they currently bill people. check how much yuor gonna get charged for your tv pack, if the price of it doesnt drop by £11 give them a ring.

[BenMcr]

If you have the phone and XL TV you pay £31.50 if you dont have any discounts. you can go through to customer relations and ask for XL Standalone (without phone). This is £25 per month.

With ntl it always used to be the DTV price was the same whether you took a phoneline or not, therefore you got the phone rental free. ex-telewest have had standalone tv pricing for a while.

when Virgin Media launched the standalone tv pricing was also done in ex-ntl areas

The Now do solus packages on the TV which is why the line rental is no longer bundled in with the TV price. You may have started to be billed £11 for the telephone line but your TV package should have reduced by £11 as well.

[frostygills]

Ah, glad I found this thread, though doesn't seem to have an answer. I received my latest bill on Sat, and it was 11 pounds higher than normal. This was dues to the telephone being charged. As already stated above I was with NTL and had the deal that the telephone was included in the 20 something pounds for the TV, and it has been this way for at least the last 4-5 years. Now without warning my bill is 11 pounds more.

Has anyone spoken to CS about this and got a satisfactory answer? I need to call them as I'm moving next week, wondered if it was worth pursuing this also.

[daggman]

well i would say you were paying over the odds at your original prices.

i would ring them and ask to go on the 3 for £30 package.

then upgrade the tv to XL = 9.00 , then upgrade the broadband to XL = 19.00.

total for phone, XL TV and XL broadband = 57.00 pounds a month.

works out less than what u were paying for them.

[ezzie_uk]

Yes this is correct, and this is the way we explain it to customers (or should) when they call up.
In the old NTL days, XL TV was £31.50 with a phone line "Free".
We have now brokem the bill down to make it easier so that everyone knows exactly what they are paying for, you will notice previoulsy that you were charged something like....

XL TV + Phone - £31.50
Call usage - £4.95

The bill is now brokem down to show all charges....

XL TV - £20.50
Phone - £11.00
Calls usage - £4.95.

Same total, just split up so you know what your paying for.
The amount of customers who call up and are ademant that their bills have gone higher is unreal, and it takes alot of explaining as some people just do not want to know.

But its also right, you can have standalone TV for £25 if you dont use the phone line.