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Vodafone has started including line rental fees in the advertised cost of its broadband packages in an effort to make pricing more transparent.
The move is part of an overhaul of the company’s price structures and will apply to both new and existing customers.
The cost of line rental across providers varies, but the fee is typically around £18 a month (Vodafone previously charged £16.99). Currently only Virgin Media and Relish, which use both use non-ADSL networks, sell broadband without charging any fee for line rental.
Vodafone which launched its home broadband and phone service in June 2015, said doing away with standalone line rental charges would make pricing more transparent.
Industry experts pointed out that while Vodafone said it was “abolishing” line rental charges, it was in fact combining them into the overall cost of fibre broadband. “It won’t be long before this way of pricing becomes the norm across the whole broadband market,” said Ewan Taylor-Gibson from price comparison site uSwitch.
Vodafone said the changes will save existing mobile customers an additional £3 per month on its unlimited 38Mbps fibre broadband package. Before today's change, Vodafone offered non-mobile customers Unlimited fibre 38 for £25 per month plus £18 line rental and Unlimited fibre 76 for £28 per month plus £18 line rental to existing customers and Unlimited fibre 38 for £25 per month for non-Vodafone mobile customers.
Although there are no line rental charges for new and upgrading fibre broadband customers, connection charges may still apply. These include a new line charge of £60 and/or £49 to activate fibre on an existing line. The router then costs £6.99. The £18-a-month line rental does still apply to Vodafone Unlimited Standard 17 Broadband. The full terms and conditions are available on Vodafone's blog.
The eye-catching offer is the latest in an ongoing wrangle between operators to attract new customers and keep existing ones. In late July Sky announced a ‘fee forever’ fibre broadband deal with speeds of up to 38Mbps.
The deal comes with a few caveats including a £50 installation fee, £17.40 line rental, £7 router delivery and £12 monthly landline fee. The offer is also only available to Sky TV and Sky Sports customers, which costs £47.50 a month.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
