do bt and ntl hold a monopoly?

[babyonboard]

we want to switch out phoneline and internet from NTheLl and i have found they are the only cable operaters.
all the other companies expect you to have a bt line and pay bt line rental on top of their charges!?
this can't be right..do any of you have a phoneline with another company?

The vast majority of physical lines are owned by BT, always have been. The other operators lease them from BT and pass the cost onto you. NTL seem to have the majority of cable lines. I find BT to be reasonable.

The thing to remember when being seduced by a phone company's cheap offer is that, as soon as BT start to lose customers they raise the lease charge to the rival company. BT can always undercut any rival and regularly do to secure their monopoly.

Not sure how it works with cable, bob (those are your initials!), but you don't have to use BT for your calls at all, use 18866 or 1899, they are brill.

Our BT line is about £11 a month + maybe £5 worth of calls when people forget to dial 18866; calls with 18866 and 1899 about £10-15 a month; and our ISP is AOL at £25. Oh, and we can't get cable here so have Sky TV at £19.50 a month - £75 a month altogether. How does that compare with your cable package?

No - we have recently changed our line rental to Onetel and pay £9.99 a month plus £3.99 for evening and weekend calls plus £1.50 a month for caller display (i.e. it's ever so slightly cheaper than BT). Can register online and they do everything for you but it takes a couple of months.

cable tv, all telephone calls internet access £50 pm NTL

am not advocating them - you are obviously having probs with them
there is telewest broadband - but it might not be in your area.

I'm not with BT - never have been, never will be and not cable either.

Then again, I do live in Hull. We have our own private telephone company

They are expanding into areas of East Yorkshire if that's any help.

Telewest are actually owned by ntl - so i want to avoid them too!
Think i will go with bt for phone, then get bulldog broadband and freeview..we never watch much tv anyway so i won't miss the cable