UK ISP BT Joins the All-in-One Line Rental and Broadband Price Club

Unsurprisingly BT has today become one of the latest major ISPs to introduce the advertising watchdog’s new all-inclusive pricing rule (details), which among other things forces them to combine the cost of broadband and line rental into a single price.

BT are one of those providers that likes to rotate their special offers on an almost weekly basis and as such it’s difficult to establish a baseline rental price for their packages, although it’s worth pointing out that their one-off setup fees have been increased in order to reflect that the £9.99 router deliver charge (up from £7.95) is now included into the cost.

Otherwise it looks as if BT has merely adopted a simple merging of line rental and broadband charges, although they seem to be forgetting about the ASA’s requirement for a “greater prominence to … any post-discount pricing“.

For example, BT’s up to 17Mbps Unlimited Broadband package now costs £32.99 per month (£24.99 if you get one of the discounts) on a 12 month term, but it’s only when you look into the small print that you find this: “Price from month 13 currently: £38.99 a month.” TalkTalk are another ISP that fails to mention their post-discount / standard prices clearly and it will be interesting to see if the ASA acts against this approach.

Meanwhile BT’s sibling, Plusnet, should be introducing their changes on Monday when the rules are introduced. Similarly John Lewis Broadband, which uses the Plusnet platform, will be doing the same. We won’t be reporting on any more individual ISP updates though as that would be too spammy.