Been paying Virgin for landline for years, and in the past they've said as it's part of a package, my overall cost would go up if I dropped it.
This year it's different apparently. My cost would go down ( - but given they just sent a letter saying prices increase of £3.50 from 1/10 maybe not by as much as I'd hoped!)
Anyway hardly anyone calls us on it, only daughter and brother in law. We never ever use it for outbound calls as the mobile plans are always cheaper.
So why would I keep one these days, when we both have mobiles? (Excepting of course the days when both our networks go down simultaneously or some other unlikely disaster strikes). It isn't required for cable broadband.
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I still use ours as the signal in the house is poor and drops out quite often.
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We rarely use it. Couple of incoming calls from Mrs RP's side of the family. Odd call to 0800 numbers etc. The habit of leaving the mobile in the kitchen would probably have to stop though !
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>> I still use ours as the signal in the house is poor and drops out
>> quite often.
Pretty much mirrors my experience. OK in some rooms upstairs but can be very droppy and distorted downstairs. Better at back where we have a line of sight towards Northampton and M1. When I call home leaving work it's always to the landline - kids use it too.
Mobile certainly not good enough for data so I need a landline for that. Need to re-sort it though, I'm still getting the landline from one supplier (Talk-Talk) and ADSL from another (Demon).
Mrs B keeps suggesting we need the fibre to cabinet service that would considerably advance ADSL speeds. She bases this on slow downloads of documents - we don't game, stream films or (in any quantity) music. I suspect issue for her is slow servers in academia: I don't have issues with Parliamentary website, various legal and campaign sites etc from which I keep myself professionally informed.
OTOH it's not as if we can't afford the extra cost so perhaps I should just 'go for it' and start watching Netflix to boot.
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>>so perhaps I should just 'go for it' and start watching Netflix to boot.
We have Netflix. It's quite good but you have to watch it on purpose. It's not like the TV where you can switch it on, flick through a few channels, watch something for 20 minutes and then wander away again.
It is absolutely for intentional viewing. As such it doesn't suit me all that well. Or my children. Buy my wife loves it.
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I'd be OK without one, except that our landline handsets are capable of a combination of hands-free and increase volume, which taken together mean I can easily hear conversations.
My mobile also has an app which automatically turns on hands free when a call is initiated and received. This helps, but even at maximum volume it's a bit of a strain. Obviously privacy, using the phone as a phone while out and about is affected!
We pay Vodafone £20 for the fibre broadband and landline package, plus £1 for caller ID and £8 for "anytime calls", making the package £29 per month.
WE NEVER use eight quid's worth of outgoing landline calls in a month and really it's a complete waste of money.
I am trying hard to persuade Dee that we should do without the anytime calls element and rely on our giffgaff goody bag's 250 minutes per month, per mobile.
She likes the "security blanket" of a fixed cost all-in landline feature though.
The fact that she struggles to answer an incoming mobile call before it goes to voicemail may also be a factor. (I've already increased to maximum the number of rings, or seconds, before voicemail kicks in)
Last edited by: Roger. on Sat 1 Sep 18 at 13:51
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The only reason I have a landline now is because it's required for fibre broadband (with TalkTalk in this case at £22.50 a month including line rental; Anytime calls to mobiles and landlines would be £5 a month extra).
Otherwise I'd be very happy with using just my mobile (£10 a month with GiffGaff for unlimited calls and texts, plus 3GB of mobile data). The latter is not important as there are so many wi-fi hot spots and I have a VPN (free version of ProtonVPN) for obvious reasons when using them.
The way the cost of communications overall has dropped in recent years by, say, using WhatsApp or Messenger for phone or video calls to anywhere in the world has been quite remarkable.
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This is probably not a consideration for many, but for me it is far cheaper to call a UK Landline than it is a UK cell phone. Anywhere between a half and a quarter.
Typically I get much better quality connections to landlines as well.
Finally, and this matters much more here than perhaps in the UK, in the event of a disaster the cell phone networks get buried almost instantly and on occasions disabled.
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Ah yes, I have an old school chum whop calls from Arizona once a month or so, always on the landline cos it's much cheaper for him (and I never ever call him!!)
But we can get round that with WhatsApp or Skype.
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>>But we can get round that with WhatsApp or Skype.
I call the UK pretty much every day at least once, and probably make a dozen or so other international calls in a typical week.
WhatsApp is utter, utter rubbish. If I tried to explain how bad it really is you'd just be seeing a line of asterisks in this post.
Skype is better, but not always great. You also have to go to the effort of maintaining credit on your account etc. etc. And I would forget.
But yes, you can get around a landline.
It depends how much it or its cost bothers you really, I guess. I'm all about mindless convenience even if don't cost a few quid here or there.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 11 Sep 19 at 10:27
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>> WhatsApp is utter, utter rubbish. If I tried to explain how bad it really is
>> you'd just be seeing a line of asterisks in this post.
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>> Skype is better, but not always great. You also have to go to the effort
>> of maintaining credit on your account etc. etc. And I would forget.
>>
>>
I found ringing home when abroad the reverse to be true. Although I was using skype through my laptop, complete garbage. Near useless, whatsapp was ok, definitely more reliable.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 11 Sep 19 at 10:27
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I wouldn't rely on either, quite frankly.
I rarely use Skyp, and then only when someone calls me and while its not very good, it does work.
If someone calls me on WhatsApp it rarely works at all.
Perhaps it varies by location.
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No mobile signal here.
No extensions in other rooms.
No central bell in the kitchen, audible throughout the house or outside if the door's open.
No nice antique telephones.
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....and no butler to answer either ?
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>> WhatsApp is utter, utter rubbish.
Not in our experience, we have no problems here in Austria. Our mobile reception is mostly 4G.
>> Skype is better, but not always great. You also have to go to the effort
>> of maintaining credit on your account etc. etc. And I would forget.
I have a Skype subscription of £2.40 per month for unlimited landline calls to the UK, which automatically renews each month, so it's no effort at all. I use Skype on my smartphone and I get good quality voice calls to the UK.
Perhaps it's the mobile infrastructure in your part of the world that is the root cause of your problems? Or perhaps your phone?
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 11 Sep 19 at 10:25
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WhatsApp's crappiness absolutely could be down to the cellular infrastructure here, without doubt.
Skype is probably not, I find it a pain.
I doubt its my phone since the international solution I have works jusy fine.
All down to compression approach, ratio and repetition I expect
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I hate mobiles! - they are everywhere, and they turn folk (especially younger ones) into seemingly mindless zombies with their faces or ears glued to them, plus folk can always get in touch with you and to "coin a phrase" there is no peace for the wicked! - give me a landline anytime! (I do have a mobile but it's only switched on or used WHEN need it) !
Last edited by: devonite on Sun 2 Sep 18 at 08:56
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>> I do have a mobile but it's
>> only switched on or used WHEN need it) !
>>
If you have gone off on a three week motoring trip around the UK, how do we get hold of you to tell you that Granny Devonite has died?
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>> If you have gone off on a three week motoring trip around the UK, how
>> do we get hold of you to tell you that Granny Devonite has died?
>>
BBC special announcement:
"Would Mr Angus Devonite, now believed to be touring in the Highlands region, please contact the North Devon District Hospital, where his grandmother, Mrs Amelia Devonite, is dangerously ill"
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Id forgotten those announcements!!!
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Me too.
I found this article about them which you might find interesting.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35815747
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What an interesting little side piece of history, I don't remember them though, bit before my time.
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Anyone else misread the subject header as having a landmine, not landline?
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>> What an interesting little side piece of history, I don't remember them though, bit before
>> my time.
>>
They ended in 1993, according to the article.
It's funny, it suddenly came to me, I think I picked up the wording and the special tone of voice they used, as a child. Like the shipping forecast and football results, and commodity futures market reports, I loved them without needing to understand what they meant.
Likewise the special voice that telephone operators used, in the days when you picked up the phone and waited for the operator to say "Number please?". They got cross if you were impatient and pinged the chrome button. Like waitresses and shop assistants in aspiring smarter establishments, they put on a sort of grotesque posh voice.
Phoning long-distance I could never overcome the giggles at having to say "Trunks please" - it was mixed in my mind with buying games and swimming kit for first day at school.
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Are there downsides to not having a landline? - sooty123
