UK ISP Primus Saver Joins Sky Broadband to Drop Cheap Pre Paid Line Rental

Bargain hunters will be displeased to learn that budget ISP Primus Saver, which is one of the markets cheapest broadband and phone providers, has followed Sky Broadband’s example (here) by withdrawing its annual pre-paid Line Rental Saver discount.

Until recently nearly all of the major ISPs offered pre-paid Line Rental, which allowed customers to pay a single one-off cost for 12 months of service and in return receive a discount. The option was attractive because, using Primus as an example, standard line rental costs £14.50 per month but this falls to the equivalent of £10 if pre-paid.

Many consumers regard Line Rental as an increasingly unnecessary service, preferring to use their mobiles instead, although sadly most still require it for their fixed line broadband services and the alternative approach of “Naked DSL” (i.e. paying for broadband without calls) has yet to fully materialise (except on Virgin Media etc.). In the absence of that, Line Rental Saver has often proven to be a happy middle ground but ISPs seems to be losing interest.

Primus Saver has apparently withdrawn the service (this should take affect from sometime today) because it was allegedly unpopular (take note that most ISPs only mention it as an option in the small print), while Sky is believed to have had problems with the admin side of fitting it into their system.

The good news is that their existing broadband discounts have been extended for another month, which means standard broadband from just £1.20 per month and a variety of half price offers on superfast broadband.