As of 1 August this year, BT will be free to charge it's customers whatever it likes for it's telephone services. Ofcom is lifting the price controls it imposed when BT was privatised.

On the one hand this is a great idea and should, in theory, increase competition in the telephony market. However nearly every competitive product out there still requires a BT line, which currently costs £11 a month (plus calls).

Local loop unbundling has increased at a rapid rate, but it's only really the cable companies who offer an alternative to BT's line rental. I really hope the lifting of this restriction will bring more players to the line rental market, and maybe even encourage someone (maybe BT) to offer a "naked broadband" package.

This is what I want. We currently pay £33 a quarter on line rental and only make about £3 worth of calls. Now, I need to pay the line rental because a) I want broadband, and b) our street isn't "cabled", not that I would want NTL's crap service anyway.

Come on telecoms companies... I want cheap calls AND cheap line rental - actually, just give me the cheap line rental and cheap broadband and I'll use VoIP for the calls.