BT has today (Friday) made UK weekend call charges a thing of the past
by extending free weekend calls to UK landlines for its 10.8 million
Option 1 customers.

The move takes effect from today and will mean that, for the first
time, all 14.8 million BT households - the majority of those in
Britain - will no longer have to pay for weekend calls.

BT says the giveaway is the first step in a revision of its prices
that will also see the cost of its two most inclusive calling plans
slashed from 1 April. BT says the move will undercut its closest
rivals for such standalone plans.

The main changes are:

    * Unlimited Weekend Plan (replaces BT Together Option 1): This
plan is free with customers paying line rental only. From today,
customers on this plan will receive free weekend calls without having
to do a thing. If they take a 12-month renewable contract, they will
also get free evening calls, saving them a further £32.40 a year on
top of the savings they will enjoy through receiving free weekend
calls

    * Unlimited Evening & Weekend Plan (replaces BT Together Option
2): BT is cutting the price of this plan, which offers free calls at
weekends and evenings, by 22 per cent from £3.45 to £2.70 a month. The
monthly cost of this plan has now fallen by more than 50 per cent in
two years

    * Unlimited Anytime Plan (replaces BT Together Option 3): BT is
cutting the price of this plan, which offers free calls at all times,
by 25 per cent from £7.95 to £5.95 a month. The monthly cost of this
plan has now fallen by almost 60 per cent in two years. The plan
includes discounts of up to a third on calls to mobiles as well as 200
inclusive texts.

BT says customers will enjoy further savings from April with the
launch of a new International Saver calling plan. This offers highly-
competitive rates for calls to all international destinations for just
£1 a month.

This is the third time in the past two years that BT has slashed the
price of its inclusive calling plans. A recent report from Ofcom
estimated that a typical basket of fixed-line calls had fallen in
price by 30 per cent since 2002 and that fixed-line prices are now
lower in the UK than in France, Germany, Italy and the US.

BT Retail consumer managing director Gavin Patterson said: “These are
radical changes that will benefit millions of our customers - and they
don’t need to do a thing. Millions of people will see the price of
their call plans fall whilst millions more will enjoy free weekend
calls for the very first time.

“These are fantastic deals and, unlike with some of our competitors,
there’s no need to take another costly service to get the benefits.
Weekend calls are being given away free to millions of people and
there’s the added bonus of free evening calls if customers take a
contract and stay with BT.

“Our research shows that customers prefer to know what their bill will
be in advance and that’s what we’re giving them.

“Customers can now get all their calls for less than 20p a day - less
than the price of a second class stamp, or what you’d pay for sending
a couple of texts. We’re moving towards a world where people won’t pay
per call in the same way they don’t pay per e-mail.”

From 1 April, BT is revising some other prices. For the first time in
two years, the price of line rental - now available with free calls at
the weekend - will go up by 75p to £11.75. Customers who take paper-
free billing will see no change, however, as the discount for that
option is increasing by 75p to £1.25.

The price of daytime calls is also being increased from 3.25p a minute
to 4p a minute. These calls are free for customers on the Unlimited
Anytime Plan.

The price of evening calls for Unlimited Weekend Plan customers is
also changing to 1.5p a minute. Those customers can enjoy these calls
free if they sign a 12-month contract which will then operate on a
rolling basis. This means they will enjoy free weekend and evening
calls as long as they stay with BT. The existing set-up fee of 6p will
apply to all chargeable evening calls.

Regards
Sunil

Sunil Sood  wrote:
> BT has today (Friday) made UK weekend call charges a thing of the past
> by extending free weekend calls to UK landlines for its 10.8 million
> Option 1 customers.

Pardon me for being suspicious from price announcements that come from BT,
but:

>     * Unlimited Weekend Plan (replaces BT Together Option 1): This
> plan is free with customers paying line rental only. From today,
> customers on this plan will receive free weekend calls without having
> to do a thing. If they take a 12-month renewable contract, they will
> also get free evening calls, saving them a further ?32.40 a year on
> top of the savings they will enjoy through receiving free weekend
> calls

OK, so that's replacing weekend calls at 6p/call.  Unless you make lots and
lots of weekend calls I doubt it's going to make a huge difference.

> From 1 April, BT is revising some other prices. 

Here it comes...

> For the first time in two years, the price of line rental - now available
> with free calls at the weekend - will go up by 75p to ?11.75. Customers
> who take paper- free billing will see no change, however, as the discount
> for that option is increasing by 75p to ?1.25.

Not such a big deal - though that is about the same as 12 weekend calls
under the old system.  I wonder if on average people make more than 12
weekend calls to landlines a month?

> The price of daytime calls is also being increased from 3.25p a minute
> to 4p a minute. These calls are free for customers on the Unlimited
> Anytime Plan.

Aha!  That's an 18% rise on daytime calls.  Will probably wipeout any saving
on the weekend calls if there's ever anyone at home during the day.

> The price of evening calls for Unlimited Weekend Plan customers is
> also changing to 1.5p a minute. Those customers can enjoy these calls
> free if they sign a 12-month contract which will then operate on a
> rolling basis. This means they will enjoy free weekend and evening
> calls as long as they stay with BT. The existing set-up fee of 6p will
> apply to all chargeable evening calls.

Ouch! Evening calls under Option 1 were previously 6p/call.  That's now a
huge increase to 1.5p/min.  If you make even a few evening calls you're
likely to be worse off as they'll wipeout any saving on weekend calls.  You
have to make 180 mins of evening calls per month (excluding setup costs) to
justify the 2.70 extra for Unlimited Evenings & Weekends, but if you're
locked into a 12 month contract you have to pay it every month.

Think I'll stick with CPS myself...

Theo

On Fri, 1 Feb 2008 03:01:43 -0800 (PST), Sunil Sood
 wrote:


<snip>

In essence, it's a case of "I give you a pound but you give me 5 in
exchange"

On Feb 1, 11:38 am, Theo Markettos 
wrote:
> Sunil Sood  wrote:

> OK, so that's replacing weekend calls at 6p/call.  Unless you make lots and
> lots of weekend calls I doubt it's going to make a huge difference.

Weekend calls were 4.5p for up to an hour.

> Not such a big deal - though that is about the same as 12 weekend calls
> under the old system.  I wonder if on average people make more than 12
> weekend calls to landlines a month?

The line rental increase is cost neutral if you have online billing
but I suspect the number of people who make more than 3/4 landline
calls a weekend is considerable.

> Ouch! Evening calls under Option 1 were previously 6p/call.  That's now a
> huge increase to 1.5p/min.  If you make even a few evening calls you're
> likely to be worse off as they'll wipeout any saving on weekend calls.

Evening calls under Option 1 were 4.5p/call (upto an hour)

Now including set-up charges, I make the break even point between
'Option 1' and 'Option 2' (@£2.70/month) 36 evening calls/month (if
you ignore other things like 'free texts' etc)

However, if you agree to a 12 month line rolling rental contract you
basically get 'Option 2' for free.

Regards
Sunil

Sunil Sood wrote:
> BT has today (Friday) made UK weekend call charges a thing of the past
> by extending free weekend calls to UK landlines for its 10.8 million
> Option 1 customers.

[snip]

Full text at:
http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/dynamicmodules/pagecontentfooter/pageContentFooterPopup.jsp?pagecontentfooter_popupid=23771
or http://tinyurl.com/3yp67y

Allan

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Sunil Sood   wrote:

>
> However, if you agree to a 12 month line rolling rental contract you
> basically get 'Option 2' for free.
>

I don't think so! Where does it say *that*?
-- 
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

On Feb 1, 3:17 pm, "Roger Mills"  wrote:
> In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
> Sunil Sood   wrote:
> > However, if you agree to a 12 month line rolling rental contract you
> > basically get 'Option 2' for free.
>
> I don't think so! Where does it say *that*?

From my original post.

"Unlimited Weekend Plan (replaces BT Together Option 1): This plan is
free with customers paying line rental only. From today, customers on
this plan will receive free weekend calls without having to do a
thing. If they take a 12-month renewable contract, they will also get
free evening calls, saving them a further £32.40 a year on top of the
savings they will enjoy through receiving free weekend calls"

and from the last para:

"The price of evening calls for Unlimited Weekend Plan customers is
also changing to 1.5p a minute. Those customers can enjoy these calls
free if they sign a 12-month contract which will then operate on a
rolling basis. This means they will enjoy free weekend and evening
calls as long as they stay with BT."

Regards
Sunil

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Sunil Sood   wrote:

> On Feb 1, 3:17 pm, "Roger Mills"  wrote:
>> In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
>> Sunil Sood   wrote:
>>> However, if you agree to a 12 month line rolling rental contract you
>>> basically get 'Option 2' for free.
>>
>> I don't think so! Where does it say *that*?
>
> From my original post.
>
> "Unlimited Weekend Plan (replaces BT Together Option 1): This plan is
> free with customers paying line rental only. From today, customers on
> this plan will receive free weekend calls without having to do a
> thing. If they take a 12-month renewable contract, they will also get
> free evening calls, saving them a further £32.40 a year on top of the
> savings they will enjoy through receiving free weekend calls"
>
> and from the last para:
>
> "The price of evening calls for Unlimited Weekend Plan customers is
> also changing to 1.5p a minute. Those customers can enjoy these calls
> free if they sign a 12-month contract which will then operate on a
> rolling basis. This means they will enjoy free weekend and evening
> calls as long as they stay with BT."
>
> Regards
> Sunil

Yes, I saw that - but couldn't find any mention of it on 
http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/dynamicmodules/pagecontentfooter/pageContentFooterPopup.jsp?pagecontentfooter_popupid=23771

And in the PDF document cited in that link, it says:
"From 1st February 2008 customers who sign up to a new 12-month renewable
contract on BT Together Option 2 will receive free Evening calls (in 
addition to their free Weekend calls) to all UK geographic numbers."

Note the reference to *Option2* (not 1) - big deal!

So how does that all stack up? I can't find anything (apart from the press 
release or whatever it was you quoted) which suggests you can get free 
evening calls for just the basic rental. I hope I'm wrong!
-- 
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

On Feb 1, 3:49 pm, "Roger Mills"  wrote:
>I can't find anything (apart from the press
> release or whatever it was you quoted) which suggests you can get free
> evening calls for just the basic rental. I hope I'm wrong!

From https://www.freeevenings.bt.com/

'Free UK Evening Calls. Available to eligible residential customers
agreeing to a 12 month renewable contract on BT Together Option 2
("Unlimited Evening & Weekend Plan" from 1 April). You will only pay
line rental, which has a monthly cost of £10.50 if you pay by Direct
Debit and elect for paper-free billing...'

Regards
Sunil

Sunil Sood  wrote 

.
BT has today (Friday) made UK weekend call charges a thing of the past
by extending free weekend calls to UK landlines for its 10.8 million
Option 1 customers.

The move takes effect from today and will mean that, for the first
time, all 14.8 million BT households - the majority of those in
Britain - will no longer have to pay for weekend calls.

*all* BT Households ?

So the legacy LUS and new BT Basic are not BT or not Households ?

And calls to mobiles & non-geographic numbers & data calls at the
weekend are not "weekend calls" ?

-- 
Mike D

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Sunil Sood   wrote:

> On Feb 1, 3:49 pm, "Roger Mills"  wrote:
>> I can't find anything (apart from the press
>> release or whatever it was you quoted) which suggests you can get
>> free evening calls for just the basic rental. I hope I'm wrong!
>
> From https://www.freeevenings.bt.com/
>
> 'Free UK Evening Calls. Available to eligible residential customers
> agreeing to a 12 month renewable contract on BT Together Option 2
> ("Unlimited Evening & Weekend Plan" from 1 April). You will only pay
> line rental, which has a monthly cost of £10.50 if you pay by Direct
> Debit and elect for paper-free billing...'
>
> Regards
> Sunil

That certainly appears to say it - thanks.

Do you interpret that to mean that you'll get free evening calls for just 
the rental for ever - as long as you renew the 12 month lock-in each year - 
or could it be that this is only for the first year and that, at renewal, 
the pricing will be as per conventional Option 2?

Forgive me if I'm slightly suspicious about the notion of getting you to 
commit to Option 2, seemingly at the Option 1 price. Where's the catch?
-- 
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

On Fri, 1 Feb 2008 19:31:40 -0000, "Roger Mills"
 wrote:


>
>Do you interpret that to mean that you'll get free evening calls for just 
>the rental for ever - as long as you renew the 12 month lock-in each year - 
>or could it be that this is only for the first year and that, at renewal, 
>the pricing will be as per conventional Option 2?
I don't get the "agreeing to a 12 month renewable contract" I thought
we had agreed to that when we first signed up with BT .

On Feb 1, 7:31 pm, "Roger Mills"  wrote:
> In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
> Sunil Sood   wrote:
>
> > On Feb 1, 3:49 pm, "Roger Mills"  wrote:

> Do you interpret that to mean that you'll get free evening calls for just
> the rental for ever - as long as you renew the 12 month lock-in each year -
> or could it be that this is only for the first year and that, at renewal,
> the pricing will be as per conventional Option 2?

Yes, free evening calls every year you are on this offer/tariff -not
just for the first 12 months.

> Forgive me if I'm slightly suspicious about the notion of getting you to
> commit to Option 2, seemingly at the Option 1 price. Where's the catch?

In my view, the benefits for BT are basically:

a) ensuring more calls are carried over BT's network - even if at no
cost to you.. as they can benefit from interconnect fees etc.
b) knowing that you are less likely to move your line rental and/or
calls to another provider
c) you are likely to be paying by direct debit and e-billing so their
costs will be significantly reduced

The one disadvantage for you is that if another operator introduces a
more competitive tariff then you are 'locked in' unless your 12 month
finishes or you pay a penalty - though i imagine any such tariff would
have to be substantially better to make it worthwhile.

As a sidenote, having inclusive weekend calls (even if stay on Option
1)  makes it very easy to 'qualify' for free 1571 and Caller Display
by meeting the call requirements (as those count 'inclusive' calls)

The full T&C are at http://www.serviceview.bt.com/list/public/current/Cust_Opts_Res_boo/pdf/Sec55Pt2subpt3.pdf
- the only one I find 'odd' is the restriction against u*pgrading*
your tariff to BT Together Option 3

Regards
Sunil

On Fri, 1 Feb 2008 07:56:13 -0800 (PST), Sunil Sood
 wrote:

>'Free UK Evening Calls. Available to eligible residential customers
>agreeing to a 12 month renewable contract on BT Together Option 2
>("Unlimited Evening & Weekend Plan" from 1 April). You will only pay
>line rental, which has a monthly cost of £10.50 if you pay by Direct
>Debit and elect for paper-free billing...'

Does anyone knows what effect moving house has on a 12 month renewable
contract?  Does the contract survive a move to another BT-supplied
house or terminate on the move with a penalty of line rental for the
remainder of the current year?

Mike.

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Mike   wrote:

> On Fri, 1 Feb 2008 07:56:13 -0800 (PST), Sunil Sood
>  wrote:
>
>> 'Free UK Evening Calls. Available to eligible residential customers
>> agreeing to a 12 month renewable contract on BT Together Option 2
>> ("Unlimited Evening & Weekend Plan" from 1 April). You will only pay
>> line rental, which has a monthly cost of £10.50 if you pay by Direct
>> Debit and elect for paper-free billing...'
>
> Does anyone knows what effect moving house has on a 12 month renewable
> contract?  Does the contract survive a move to another BT-supplied
> house or terminate on the move with a penalty of line rental for the
> remainder of the current year?
>
> Mike.

Yes, in the T&Cs it says:
"Customers moving home and retaining an account with BT will take any 
remaining initial minimum period or renewal period with them."
-- 
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

Theo Markettos wrote:
> Sunil Sood  wrote:

>> The price of daytime calls is also being increased from 3.25p a minute
>> to 4p a minute. These calls are free for customers on the Unlimited
>> Anytime Plan.
> 
> Aha!  That's an 18% rise on daytime calls.  Will probably wipeout any saving
> on the weekend calls if there's ever anyone at home during the day.

Only on the per-minute rate.  Applied to my last 
itemised bill, the increase in call costs would be 
just over 8%.  That's still double what I would have 
saved on weekend calls.

>> The price of evening calls for Unlimited Weekend Plan customers is
>> also changing to 1.5p a minute. 
> 
> Ouch! Evening calls under Option 1 were previously 6p/call.  

4.5 p
Overall impact on my calls would be a 3% increase, net 
1.5% with rental included.  So, yes it's a price rise 
but it's within inflation!

mymail@hotmail.co.uk wrote:
> I don't get the "agreeing to a 12 month renewable contract" I thought
> we had agreed to that when we first signed up with BT .

No, you had a 12 month minimum term.  Imagine you signed up with BT on 1st
Feb 2006.  If you left before 31st Jan 2007 you'd have to pay a fee to BT
for breaking your contract.  After that date you're out of the minimum
contract period, and it just keeps rolling from month to month.  You can
cancel at any time (with N days notice, whatever it is)

Under the new arrangements you might take out a contract on 1st Feb 2008
which would run until 31st Jan 2009.  Then there would be another year's
contract from 1/2/09 to 31/1/10, and so on.  If you renewed that contract
(which I presume would happen automatically unless you notified BT), if you
decided to leave BT on 1st Mar 2009 you'd have to pay the release fee to
cancel the last 11 months of the contract.  In other words you can only
decide to cancel the contract at one point during the year without paying a
penalty, rather than at any time.

I wait to see what the release fee is, but personally I don't think the
minor bribe of free evening calls is worth it (since anyway I get free
eves+weekends with Primus CPS with no monthly charge and no contract)

Theo

On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 10:35:39 +0000, Jim  wrote:
>
>>> The price of evening calls for Unlimited Weekend Plan customers is
>>> also changing to 1.5p a minute. 
>> 
>> Ouch! Evening calls under Option 1 were previously 6p/call.  
>
>4.5 p
>Overall impact on my calls would be a 3% increase, net 
>1.5% with rental included.  So, yes it's a price rise 
>but it's within inflation!

How do you work that one out?

Previously 4.5 (or 6)p per call. Now, 1.5p/minute - with the 6p call 
set-up fee makes the lowest possible call charge 7.5p.  For a one minute 
call that's a price rise of 25% (from 6p) or 67% (from 4.5p).

A one hour call on the new pricing will cost 96p. This is an increase of 
1500% (from 6p for the hour) or 2033% (from 4.5p for the hour)

This is (probably) within inflation, but only if you're looking at 
Zimbabwe.

-- 
-- Michael "Soruk" McConnell         Eridani Star System
   MailStripper - http://www.MailStripper.eu/ - SMTP spam filter
   Second Number - http://secondnumber.matrixnetwork.co.uk/

On Fri, 1 Feb 2008 07:56:13 -0800 (PST), Sunil Sood
 wrote:

>On Feb 1, 3:49 pm, "Roger Mills"  wrote:
>>I can't find anything (apart from the press
>> release or whatever it was you quoted) which suggests you can get free
>> evening calls for just the basic rental. I hope I'm wrong!
>
>From https://www.freeevenings.bt.com/
>
>'Free UK Evening Calls. Available to eligible residential customers
>agreeing to a 12 month renewable contract on BT Together Option 2
>("Unlimited Evening & Weekend Plan" from 1 April). You will only pay
>line rental, which has a monthly cost of £10.50 if you pay by Direct
>Debit and elect for paper-free billing...'

Still not competetive, and still limited to a call time of 1 hour,
then chargeable, as I work it out.

I'll stick to my Orchid box and send weekend calls via Tiscali for
free with no call time limit, and Onetel's (or whatever it is callled
nowadays) free 240 minutes per month off peak used in the weekday
evenings, 1899 for daytime geo numbers and 18185 for mobiles and
international across the pond.

-- 
brightside S9

Soruk wrote:
> On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 10:35:39 +0000, Jim  wrote:
>>>> The price of evening calls for Unlimited Weekend Plan customers is
>>>> also changing to 1.5p a minute. 
>>> Ouch! Evening calls under Option 1 were previously 6p/call.  
>> 4.5 p
>> Overall impact on my calls would be a 3% increase, net 
>> 1.5% with rental included.  So, yes it's a price rise 
>> but it's within inflation!
> 
> How do you work that one out?
> 
> Previously 4.5 (or 6)p per call. Now, 1.5p/minute - with the 6p call 
> set-up fee makes the lowest possible call charge 7.5p.  For a one minute 
> call that's a price rise of 25% (from 6p) or 67% (from 4.5p).
> 
> A one hour call on the new pricing will cost 96p. This is an increase of 
> 1500% (from 6p for the hour) or 2033% (from 4.5p for the hour)
> 
> This is (probably) within inflation, but only if you're looking at 
> Zimbabwe.
> 

I was referring to my OVERALL calls, not the evening 
element, which, if I've understood it, can be omitted 
altogether for anyone signing the 12-month rolling 
contract.  In that case, the cost of evening calls on 
their own would fall by 100%, even more than the 
Zimbabwe currency.

If, OTOH, I allowed the new evening charges to apply, 
the increases would be nearly 7% on all calls and 4% 
overall.  This suggests it should be worthwhile for 
anyone not considering a move away from BT to sign up 
(after checking the small print!)  I've assumed there 
would be no change for NGN and mobile calls, which are 
about a third of my current costs - this is a fairly 
typical proportion, at least for business users whose 
bills I've analysed.

On my bill, the fixed charges for evening calls are 
all shown as (£) 0.038  (ex-VAT) - equivalent to 4.5p 
with VAT.  The confusion may be over the 6p set-up 
fee, which doesn't apply to evening geo calls on the 
current tariff.

I do wish BT would stick to quoting VAT inc. prices 
for Residential customers.  This causes a lot of 
confusion - but that seems to be the general aim anyway.

On Fri, 1 Feb 2008 03:01:43 -0800 (PST), Sunil Sood
 wrote:

>    * Unlimited Evening & Weekend Plan (replaces BT Together Option
>2): BT is cutting the price of this plan, which offers free calls at
>weekends and evenings, by 22 per cent from £3.45 to £2.70 a month. The
>monthly cost of this plan has now fallen by more than 50 per cent in
>two years

BT Together Option 2 comes with 100 inclusive text messages.

Has anyone managed to work out whether its replacement, the Unlimited
Evening & Weekend Plan, will offer the same?
-- 
Martin Jay

In article ,
	Sunil Sood  writes:
> On Feb 1, 3:49 pm, "Roger Mills"  wrote:
>>I can't find anything (apart from the press
>> release or whatever it was you quoted) which suggests you can get free
>> evening calls for just the basic rental. I hope I'm wrong!
> From https://www.freeevenings.bt.com/
> 'Free UK Evening Calls. Available to eligible residential customers
> agreeing to a 12 month renewable contract on BT Together Option 2
> ("Unlimited Evening & Weekend Plan" from 1 April). You will only pay
> line rental, which has a monthly cost of £10.50 if you pay by Direct
> Debit and elect for paper-free billing...'

I hate their term, "paper-free billing".  I would love to have BT send
me paper-free bills, but they won't. The only bills they are prepared to
_send_ are paper ones.

Their paper-free alternative contains no bill!  Instead of sending
something useful, they send me some email which insists that I do all
the work myself and mess around interacting with some damn fool web
site. If they hadn't made it so impenetratable, I could perhaps have got
my computer to do the work instead whenever an email arrives to say the
bill is ready. As it is, the effort involved programming my computer to do
the work is not something I've wanted to tackle yet. But even if am
prepaperd to wrestle with their on-line system by hand, the only thing I
can download is a pseudo-paper version (PDF) rather than something
sensible where the data in it would actually be accessible.

The final insult is that only the most recent bills are available. If
you don't do the work and download the info within 9 months, it
vanishes. If they'd only send it by email, my computer would
automatically deal with its archival, safe with other emails going back
over 20 years.

Having been programming for 40 years, I remember a time when people
thought computers would actually work for us. Indeed people were afraid
computers would take jobs away from humans. Instead it's all gone
horribly wrong. It's as though computers can't even manage to send out
phone bills by themselves now.  Instead millions of humans are required to
carefully coax the information out of them.

-- 
Tim Clark

>I hate their term, "paper-free billing"...

Recently BT sent me a letter saying they are "upgrading me" to paper free 
billing.
That is after they have been bombarding me for months with letters asking me 
to update my email address !
It would be funny, except I won't get the bills and they will cut me off !

I have no intention of giving them my email address.
So now I have to get on their website to restore my paper bills.
Some customer service !
Regards,
Martin

Tim Clark wrote:
> In article ,
> 	Sunil Sood  writes:
>> On Feb 1, 3:49 pm, "Roger Mills"  wrote:
>>> I can't find anything (apart from the press
>>> release or whatever it was you quoted) which suggests you can get free
>>> evening calls for just the basic rental. I hope I'm wrong!
>> From https://www.freeevenings.bt.com/
>> 'Free UK Evening Calls. Available to eligible residential customers
>> agreeing to a 12 month renewable contract on BT Together Option 2
>> ("Unlimited Evening & Weekend Plan" from 1 April). You will only pay
>> line rental, which has a monthly cost of £10.50 if you pay by Direct
>> Debit and elect for paper-free billing...'
> 
> I hate their term, "paper-free billing".  I would love to have BT send
> me paper-free bills, but they won't. The only bills they are prepared to
> _send_ are paper ones.
> 
> Their paper-free alternative contains no bill!  Instead of sending
> something useful, they send me some email which insists that I do all
> the work myself and mess around interacting with some damn fool web
> site. If they hadn't made it so impenetratable, I could perhaps have got
> my computer to do the work instead whenever an email arrives to say the
> bill is ready. As it is, the effort involved programming my computer to do
> the work is not something I've wanted to tackle yet. But even if am
> prepaperd to wrestle with their on-line system by hand, the only thing I
> can download is a pseudo-paper version (PDF) rather than something
> sensible where the data in it would actually be accessible.
> 
> The final insult is that only the most recent bills are available. If
> you don't do the work and download the info within 9 months, it
> vanishes. If they'd only send it by email, my computer would
> automatically deal with its archival, safe with other emails going back
> over 20 years.
> 
> Having been programming for 40 years, I remember a time when people
> thought computers would actually work for us. Indeed people were afraid
> computers would take jobs away from humans. Instead it's all gone
> horribly wrong. It's as though computers can't even manage to send out
> phone bills by themselves now.  Instead millions of humans are required to
> carefully coax the information out of them.
> 

This is surely for security reasons, and to protect 
the customer's own privacy.  E-mail should never be 
used for confidential information.  I don't think any 
bank would e-mail its customers' statements.  It's 
common (universal?) practice for a customer to use an 
authentication procedure via web access.

An alternative would be e-mail encryption so that only 
the desired recipient can read it, but given the lack 
of knowledge and common tools, there's no easy, 
reliable way to do that (and it's not likely to be 
encouraged).

Itemised calls can be downloaded as data (CSV).

Your post reminded me why I didn't receive an e-mail 
for the last bill - I hadn't updated my address. 
Thanks for that!  Fortunately, I'd set a reminder 
elsewhere - surely not too much trouble for a 
programmer? :)  You could schedule a task every 
quarter to access the web-site, and maybe even login 
and download the bill.  You can't always rely on 
billing delivery - paper bills can go missing in the 
post, while e-mails have to fight their way through 
increasingly-aggressive spam filters.

If you have any ideas for improvement, BT might 
listen.  I got a questionnaire about the service 
sometime last year.  I don't know why they restrict 
the bills to 3 quarters (presumably the cut off is 
just under a year).  It may be down to storage space - 
I imagine anything over a year old just gets archived 
automatically (for as long as current government 
regulations require) so is no longer available to the 
billing system.  It would probably be easy enough to 
keep old bills on the system without call itemisation.

On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:26:52 +0000, Jim  wrote:


>This is surely for security reasons, and to protect 
>the customer's own privacy.  E-mail should never be 
>used for confidential information.
Neither should ordinary first class post either if I am sending
anything that contains minimum confidential information or
value it goes special delivery .

On Wed, 6 Feb 2008 13:07:46 UTC, mymail@hotmail.co.uk wrote:

> On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:26:52 +0000, Jim  wrote:
> 
> 
> >This is surely for security reasons, and to protect 
> >the customer's own privacy.  E-mail should never be 
> >used for confidential information.
> Neither should ordinary first class post either if I am sending
> anything that contains minimum confidential information or
> value it goes special delivery .

I'm sure you do, Ron. Your paranoia knows no bounds.

-- 
Bob Eager
begin  123  a new life...take up Extreme Ironing!

On Feb 5, 7:43 pm, Martin Jay  wrote:
> BT Together Option 2 comes with 100 inclusive text messages.
>
> Has anyone managed to work out whether its replacement, the Unlimited
> Evening & Weekend Plan, will offer the same?

Yes, the texts remain - all BT seem to have done is change the name of
the tariff.to 'more accurately reflect' what they are..

Regards
Sunil

Tim Clark wrote:
>...
> Having been programming for 40 years, I remember a time when people
> thought computers would actually work for us. Indeed people were afraid
> computers would take jobs away from humans. Instead it's all gone
> horribly wrong. It's as though computers can't even manage to send out
> phone bills by themselves now.  Instead millions of humans are required to
> carefully coax the information out of them.

We find the same dealing with BT wholesale and openreach. To get 
itemised bills for calls from openreach we have to have an ISDN line to 
make a data call to ftp the data?!!?!? The bills we can download are rtf 
which does not open cleanly on almost any application we have. Oh, and 
it is always wrong as well.

Fortunately for our customers we send emailed pdf, and xml and plain 
text (you can choose levels of bill to be sent) and can download pdf, 
html, text or xml any time and we keep the bills on line forever...

Maybe BT could learn from us :-)

-- 
Adrian Kennard, on his Mac...
Andrews & Arnold Ltd. Communications specialists.  www.aaisp.net.uk
New UK Wide 03 phone numbers available now.