>> BT retail tend to raise their line rental,
My line of thinking was it wasnt until the compulsory tie in of lines that prices started to rocket. Yes BTr are also guilty because they do the headline grabbing introductory new customer offers that have to be clawed back somehow. Another reason why I believe retail should be split off is that retail as just as bad as the others
Prior to 'tie ins' we could easily have a different line & broadband provider. Plus you have people like my uncle who was on pension credit and he only had to pay something like £7.50 for his phone line (this was a few years back now) and it made trying to find a DSL provider quite difficult as he only needed a very basic connection to check emails. I kept my phone and DSL separate for many years until the point when it became quite a lot more.
Retail Line rental and its associated charges have become a rip off in the UK. Unlike DSL there is very little work involved for the SP for line rental yet the mark-up in the region of 100% or more is ridiculous.
>> I dont know what talktalk subsidised it with tho,
iirc it was Dunstone and CarPhoneWarehouse and they projected to make losses in the first year, but eventually once they had built up a sizeable customer base then it would turn around because they had lower operating costs. Just tried to google to check but all that comes up is compare sites.
Did find this though -
link where they blamed introduction of free broadband for their DPA security breaches.