UTILITIES: BT discounts are false economy

Most domestic telephone users would still be better switching from BT, despite its discount schemes, the Consumers' Association said yesterday. Its research was published as figures showed some 87,000 customers a month are leaving BT for cable telecom companies - an increase of almost 50 per cent on the last published rate of 60,000 a month.

The analysis by Which? magazine found that BT remains the most expensive option for most consumers, with many saving up to 20 per cent by switching to other providers.

When all the companies were compared using a typical quarterly bill, including rental costs and all UK calls, all of BT's rivals were cheaper, even after the widely advertised discount schemes were taken into account. Only people whose call bills were less than pounds 12.69 per quarter got a better deal from BT than the cable companies. Those which came out best were Bell Cablemedia, Cable London, ComCast [Teesside], Ionica and Nynex - consistently a fifth or more cheaper.