Is sky not telling the truth?

[danmarc]

We have had sky for over 10 years, everything we ring them to cancel being charged for a landline because we never use our landlibe phone they say "sorry you cannot cancel tha part of your subscription as it's needed, you will still be charged even though you never use your landline"......is this true? We are paying for a landline through sky even though we never use it, that's £100s a year for nothing...do other providers give broadband without charging for a landline 

[TimmyBGood]

@danmarc 

With all current terrestrial broadband subscription from an Openreach ISP there's a 'line rental' element in the monthly cost which pays for the physical bearer circuit over copper wire or optical fibre that delivers the internet connection to the address: by definition this is not optional if you want to have cabled broadband.  It's sometimes split out in the billing for regulatory purposes, and also because that's historically how it's always been done.

What you don't need to have is an inclusive voice call bundle: with Sky that would be 'Sky Talk Evenings and Weekends Extra', 'Anytime Extra' or 'International Extra'.  The default 'Sky Talk Pay As You Talk' / 'Sky Talk Internet Calls' service is PAYG and so has no additional cost if outbound calls aren't made.

Unfortunately online advice to 'save money by cancelling your landline' is therefore rather misleading: it should be 'save money by cancelling an unused inclusive voice call bundle' (but that takes up more headline space ; )

[TimmyBGood]

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@danmarc wrote:

do other providers give broadband without charging for a landline 

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No, as explained above an Openreach ISP cannot do so because then there'd be no active bearer cable to the address, but they may choose to discount from their regular list price by not providing a voice call service at all.

In as much as 'landline' has always referred to analogue voice telephony to distinguish it from radio telegraphy, it's a term which technically becomes obsolete in a couple of years time when PSTN is switched off, but no doubt people will continue to (mis)use it.