Trying to reduce cost of fixed line rental.

Got a flyer from a company called Perlico offering cheaper local calls etc than Eircom. Has anyone used this company?. I am also interested in reducing the cost of my fixed line rental charge that I presently pay to Eircom. Is there a company offering a cheaper version?.

> Is there a company offering a cheaper version?.

Not at the moment as far as I know. I don't think that you can get a domestic landline for anything other than the standard eircom c. €25 p.m. line rental right now.

Alternatives such as ditching the landline and using mobiles and/or non phone line dial-up/DSL internet access and IP telephony or NetMeeting or the like might work for some people. I'm still waiting for ntl: cable broadband in my area so that I can ditch my landline but no white smoke on that front yet... :|

Considering it's the communications regulator, Comreg is not the easiest site to navigate.

Don't know if it's the answer you're looking for but this Comreg press release says there are 3 companies (Access, Smart Telecom & Esat with UTV coming soon) offering single billing. Combined with a recent announcement that Eircom has to give other Telco's a discount on Network access, you should be able to get cheaper line rental (one would assume!!).

Sluice

Afaik, Eircom only has to offer a 10% discount to d'rivals, so they don't have a whole lot of margin to undercut Eircom on the line rental cost. So far, most of them seem to be going the route of matching Eircom on the line rental, and throwing in X number of free off-peak minutes. I've still to see an all-in deal that beats Eircom line rental + "whatever you're having" (EsatBT/UTV/NTL/Chorus/Smart/Perlico/Euphony, etc.) for the call charges...

But I get a "shifting sands" feeling... 12 months down the line (no pun intended! ) things could be distinctly different.

UTV

UTV are doing a good offer for the same rental as eircom (paid to utv ) - and 10% reduction in calls - plus free evening and weekend calls in Ireland and UK!!

Sounds too good - but I've checked it out and there are no extras. I signed up anyway

cheap line rental

Gaelic Telecom offer 10% off line rental

See [broken link removed]

Quote;
"By selecting Gaelic Telecom’s standard pack, you will automatically be charged €21.75 for your monthly line rental, giving you a saving of 10% against Eircom monthly line rental charge.
When you spend over €60 on calls* in any one month you will be awarded a further discount of 10% bringing your line rental charge down to €19.34, which represents a 20% saving against Eircom standard monthly line rental charge."

* Calls relate to standard local, national, mobile and international numbers only.

phone bills

Raver: by 'standard' local national etc do they mean that you have to use up the €60 during the peak times ie weekends and evenings not to count towards the €60?

gaelic telecom

There is nothing on their website about when to use Euro60. I assume they mean that when the total value of all calls made anytime during one month exceeds this amount then you get the extra line-rental discount.

Perlico = "too good to be true"

Had a few full bills and feel badly stung - horrendous additional charges on Broadband - see my other posts (other boards)

I'd advise steering clear if looking for anything other than simple voice telephony.

At the moment I'm trying to get rid of Perlico. The trouble seems to have started when they stopped sending out bill's and then the phone would have a block on it, (normaly on a friday) without warning. No out going call's till the lifted it, charged for late payment even though there's no bill and charged for the block on the phone.

This has happened 4 times and is about to happen again I think as I got no bill again. I was quoted the bill when I phoned to tell them AGAIN that there was a problem AGAIN. The bill was so large due to block's and late charges that I won't pay till I have a bill in my hand and can just pay call charges as the rest isn't my fault and will apeal it.
They seem to be fine if you pay direct debit and don't mind if you don't know what they are taking.

I have enough of them and I'm starting to wish I'd never left eircom, so that's bad.

I joined perlico in June and so far very happy with them. I only have the basic telephone package for 29.99 so all my landline calls are free and I have Perlico 25 for internet which suits me (25 hours off peak for 7.99) I pay by direct debit and the bill arrives before money is taken out so far so good.

Best options are if you have BB, to go to a bb provider that either pays for the line rental (smart or BT) or a provider that does not use the landline, eg, wireless bb providers lieke digiweb, IBB or locak wireless ISP's in your area. Also chorus or NTL provide cable BB, so no phone line needed.

If you can get a good BB wihtout your phone line, then sign up to avoip provider like blueface and port your number over to the,. No line rental, and you still have your phone line.

I did it a year back and no regrets (some intermittent call problems, but I would equate a good reliable voip provider (there are some chancers) along the same lines with regards voice quality and servce as any of the irish mobile providers).


How come there are so many posts like this over thje last week >
Regards,
Wexfordman

Hi, just to say I have been using Perlico for well over a year now and everything works perfectly fine. I was attracted by their policy of following Eircom's billing regime just pricing it a little lower. With other alternatives to Eircom I always felt it could be case of swings and roundabouts. That said due to the fact that line rental makes up the loins share of the bill my bills have only dropped by 10-15 euro per month (from 50 down to 40 say). Still as long as I'm not giving money to Eircom with their line-rental extortion strategy I don't mind And now that I should be able to transfer my land line number to Blueface I think it might be time to sign up to my local wireless BB provider.