Bundle deals for phone, TV and internet

Get the deal that suits you
Firsthelpline.com is a website that specialises in tracking how many people are opting for these combined offerings and it has a number of guidelines for cus tomers looking at taking on a bundled service for the first time.

First, consider whether there is a need for all of the services in the new bundle. Bundled deals are good value, suggests a representative, if you’re already using one service from the provider – maybe digital television – and have a genuine need for another. If you don’t need the second, third or fourth service, you might end up paying for something you’d never use.

Second, ‘free’ doesn’t always mean free. There may be a connection charge. The customer might have to buy an expensive broadband modem or router of some sort. A broadband deal still requires a line rental fee. These figures don’t mean the customer is being ripped off, but they all need to be factored in when working out whether a particular deal is worth pursuing.

Length of contract, as mentioned above in the Orange example, is bound to be a factor. Many bundled deals require a 12 to 18 month commitment from the customer. This is reasonable enough, since set-up costs are spread over that time, so the provider needs that sort of time to recoup their investment. The savings can still be significant as long as the customer is aware of what they’re getting into.

Finally, customer service can be a problem; if someone’s real need is for an internet connection, then signing up with a company whose main skill lies elsewhere might not be a good idea, as their core skills in support probably won’t be where you need them.

Firsthelpline director Aamir Baloch says that bundling has great advantages: For example, the value and convenience of paying a single bill. However, consumers must carefully examine their options to find the best deal for their broadband needs, says Mr Balock.

That said, Independent comparison sites can help consumers to do this. Clearly, he has a vested interest but he also has a point. Mr Baloch calls for more transparency in the publicity behind the various offers: “Consumers are being bombarded with flashy advertising for bundled deals,” he says. “Providers need to stop skimming over the facts, and give customers the transparency they need to make up their own minds about the best deal for them.”

One difficulty of getting away from the smoke and mirrors that shroud many of the offers is the changing nature of the offers themselves. A customer should always ask themselves whether a deal that looks good during the early stages of a contract will still appeal 12 or 18 months later at the end of the contract, but this is almost impossible to predict.

People signing for the early Carphone Warehouse deal would have had no idea that Orange and the others were about to enter the market as well – or if they did, they wouldn’t have known the pricing.

There are some problems, though, that can clearly hit the advantage offered by a particular deal quite hard. As has already been established, the Orange offer requires someone to take on a contract with direct debit payments rather than a Pay As You Go arrangement for their mobile phone. This is reasonable enough but if someone already has a contract with another mobile provider then there may be penalties to pay for an early exit from it.

Once again, this needn’t be a disaster as long as the cost is understood and borne in mind. If a change of mobile provider isn’t going to cost anything, then the inconvenience of swapping to a different supplier might be more of a problem. People accustomed to getting their email delivered to their phone automatically might be disappointed to see that service vanish if they changed to another provider.

Likewise, self-employed people and others who enjoy the second phone line on Orange’s Line 2 service will have no option but to watch it disappear when they move their contract. Often, it’s possible to move a mobile number when you change providers but this can’t be taken for granted, so the hassle factor of disseminating a new number and missing calls and texts when people inevitably don’t update their contact lists needs to be considered.