eircom hardship

Hi,

When i changed to tele2 at my old address I got a letter from eircom about 2 weeks later saying I could apply for hardship status or something like that - basically if I kept calls under 5 euro a month I would pay no line rental.
I'm currently considering disconnecting the phone line and am trying to find out about this scheme. Does anyone have any information about it?

thanks

Paddy

It's for people who don't use their phone much, eircom had hidden this scheme away for years so that they could claim they had such a scheme when needed (e.g when they increased line rental charges) but didn't publish any details so people wouldn't apply for it.

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What is a low users scheme?

The main aim of the 'Low Users Scheme' is to limit any increases in the size of telephone bills for all customers who have a relatively low level of usage. The eircom scheme works as follows: if a user spends on average less then €11 a month on calls alone, they can now pay an initial subscription fee of €22.50 (incl. VAT) per month. This will include line rental, local, national, fixed to mobile and international calls up to a value of €5.00 (incl VAT). It should be noted that once a customer exceeds the €5.00 worth of free calls they will pay double on calls up to €6 - €11, after which they will revert to standard call rates.