Whatever next - a two-headed tariff? [13 August 1998]
Over the past few days Southampton subscribers have been receiving a letter from Janet Somerville, reproduced here (thanks to Alex Presland).
What it amounts to is that CWC have committed a gross breach of contract by moving Southampton ex-Videotron subscribers to a different tariff with no notification and no consent sought. (And people would probably not have noticed the move until they were told). But the new tariff is a hybrid - it's CWC's own LocalCall tariff (with our old friends the Price Pledge, the '50p national call' and 'at least 100 free minutes') coupled with the Videotron unmetered cable-cable calls!
There's no contract change; your existing Videotron contract remains in force.
Why has this been done? My guess is that CWC know that they're not going to get rid of unmetered calls 'by force' and are trying to get as many ex-Videotron subscribers as possible onto what looks like an attractive tariff whereby the unmetered calls can be quietly dropped sometime in the future.
LocalCall is almost attractive: there are considerable savings on all charges ... except for cable-cable calls. CWC 0.636 pence (plus VAT?) per minute off-peak; Videotron zero per minute off-peak.
So I suggest that you do not accept this new tariff: tell CWC to put you back on the full Videotron tariff. It might cost you a bit more for everything except your calls to the Internet, but going back to the full Videotron tariff will preserve its integrity and keep things as they have been since you first signed up to them.
From my mailbox the people who have asked CWC to put them back have been put back immediately. The problem, as ever, is the people who don't realise that breaking up the Videotron tariff may well have unfortunate results in the future.
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