other voice line providers - eg onetel, Just Dial, Telco, Tiscali etc

[madgirl]

i'm off on maternity in a few weeks' time so will actually have to start using the phone at home during the day - I need to change my provider from BT - still keeping the line but to keep costs down I want to get an account with one of the others- eg onetel, Just Dial, Telco, Tiscali etc Does anyone have an opinion on their prices (ie beyond the marketing shpeel) and/or customer service? Half of them i've never heard of!
thanks all in advance

Check out whether you have to pay to call customer service, also if you dial internationally have a look at the rates for these calls. We use Toucan, free customer call line and cheap international, try this this

oooh my first link that worked how exciting

udar thanks for that- i wish i could do links i have tried about 10 times now and count myself (deluding myself) as one of the more techy advanced people i know! do you have £12.99 deal? and do you not get stung on the exceptions?

Tele2 is also supposed to be good.

No we just pay as we go but may change plan when I'm off on maternity.

I use Onetel for all international calls and they have been fantastic. If you stay with BT then you get a phone pal thing to plug your existing phone into so you just dial your number and normally get straight through and Onetel are billed. If you change to cable you have to ring a freephone number first which is a pain but worth it for the savings you make. Alternatively try NTL (if in London or your local cable and digital providers)) as they may do a special all inclusive monthly fee where you get all local and national calls for one price. I use Telewest whose customer service is ok but tbh I have not had any trouble so far and have included Broadband in my package.

Good luck.

I use Planet Talk as they offer really cheap rates for international calls. You can either have a pre-pay system, where you dial an 0800 number to access the service, or an account with bills (sorry, brian's gone blank and can't think of what to call it) where you just dial a 4 digit code before dialling number you want. Customer service OK, not brilliant but not bad either.

Thanks Udar, JannZ, eyelash and mamaya. It's utterly baffling- why can't somebody just collate all the info with the pros and cons of each?! eg, some of them charge you the amount per minute rate, even if you've spoken for 3 seconds etc etc. and i reckon that maximum charge thing (eg 6p max for up to 70 minutes) is such a rip off- like who calls customer service somewhere for that length of time (praps the phone company!). think i might do a thing on uswitch.com and see what they say....anyway, will post what we do and tell you what customer service is.