My BT landline phone bill is a fixed £66.47 every quarter. That includes £5.25 for CLI. It provides free national calls at any time including 0845 and 0870 - for up to 60 minutes on each call initiation. My ADSL broadband is a separate deal with Demon.
Obviously I try to avoid calling mobile or any other special rate numbers that would incur a charge. My mobile is a PAYG that is only used for texts when necessary. Friends have complained about my dumb mobile when they couldn't send me a picture of their cat.
Cold callers can be a problem. Several important callers like the doctor and council offices all insist on using Withheld. A foreign friend registers as International when she uses her free credits and doesn't want to to use Skype.
This week has been a plague of cold callers selling solar energy or kitchen schemes - just when they seemed to have finally taken the hint.
My PAYG received its first ever phishing text this week. As it happened not long after a friend had sent a text it did lead to speculation that their smartphone had been compromised.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
