| Computer Related > Broadband & landlines | Miscellaneous |
| Thread Author: legacylad | Replies: 33 |
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New Wed 21 Aug 24 16:05
Broadband & landlines - legacylad
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Feeling sorry for older folks whose contracts are up and automatically renew. I’m not the most tech savvy by a long way, but at least I can use online comparison sites. In a roundabout way. EE want to increase my landline and BB monthly cost from £24 to £37, and I never use my landline. My usage is very light, still have copper wire to my house from the cabinet at the end of the road and don’t require fast download speeds for gaming. When I cba I’ll look into other providers, same as I do with household and car insurance. It just annoys me that as a customer of a few years standing the provider bangs up the price and expects Joe Soap to stump up a lot more money. |
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New Wed 21 Aug 24 16:32
Broadband & landlines - Zero
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My pad...... BT 57-73* Mbs. FTTC, £36.99 Virgin 130mbs. £26 Month, rising to £54 month after month 18. Community Fibre. 150mbs FTTP, £24, 24 months. rising by (currently) £4 month after 2 years No land line, the land line serves no purpose here now. *Their max here Last edited by: Zero on Wed 21 Aug 24 at 16:34
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New Wed 21 Aug 24 17:11
Broadband & landlines - legacylad
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Presumably you can only get BB without a landline if your appliance has wireless connectivity. I have neither laptop nor desktop, just an old iPad…but do have a newish iPhone ! Maybe I should buy a newer iPad… |
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New Wed 21 Aug 24 17:16
Broadband & landlines - Zero
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No, you install a router with E/Net ports, and connect stuff by Cat6 cable. I have e/net cable ports in two rooms. The landline number is now of no consequence to me, phone coms is by mobile
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 21 Aug 24 at 17:18
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New Wed 21 Aug 24 17:21
Broadband & landlines - Robin O'Reliant
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| We ditched the landline a couple of months ago. With unlimited free calls on the mobiles we don't miss it a jot, all we ever got coming in were scam calls. |
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New Fri 23 Aug 24 12:51
Broadband & landlines - legacylad
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>> No, you install a router with E/Net ports, and connect stuff by Cat6 cable. I >> have e/net cable ports in two rooms. The landline number is now of no consequence >> to me, phone coms is by mobile >> So if I understand correctly, I purchase a router with E/Net ports and Cat6 cable ( had to google those things), plug into mains power then buy a Broadband package.....so I will no longer need to pay for a landline number/ phone which I haven’t used in years. My mobile signal in the house with EE isn’t the best, but ok most of the time. I didn’t realise you could get BB without paying for a landline. Regards from the land that time forgot :-) |
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New Fri 23 Aug 24 13:25
Broadband & landlines - tyrednemotional
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No. All you do is select and source a broadband package which will be matched to the connectivity available at your premises. That should give you all you need. Depending on that connectivity this could be by FTTC (Fibre to the cabinet) with the last leg of connection by copper wire. or the rather faster FTTP (fibre to the premises) where the end-to-end connection is by fibre. The former might (or might not) give you the additional option of using the copper as a conventional 'phone connection ("landline" - possibly at a slightly extra cost), either would give you the option (again at cost) of using Voice Over IP (VOIP) for a "fixed" 'phone connection. (Some ISPs offer the VOIP option as part of the package, other don't offer an in-house VOIP service, and if you wanted one you'd have to contract with a third party). From what you've said about your location previously, I think you will currently have the option of a reasonably fast FTTC (copper final-leg) connection with no option of a standard 'phone "landline" anyway (I suspect your exchange is scheduled for copper removal in the near future). Almost every broadband package you sign up for will include a (wireless-capable) router as part of the deal. That will connect/drive your wireless devices without additional kit. You only need ethernet connections if you have non-wireless capable kit, such as a conventional PC, and even then, I'd be surprised if an ISP-supplied router came without one or two such (albeit short) cables. If I'm guessing correctly on your location, the underlying connection will be via Openreach, and you'll be able to play-off multiple ISPs to get the best cost (often going with one that provides your mobile contract will attract discounts). |
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New Wed 21 Aug 24 17:22
Broadband & landlines - Bromptonaut
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If you have fibre to the premises then the copper wire is redundant. We got fttp in spring and got rid of the landline as it was an unnecessary cost. I guess you're too remote for fttp but in your shoes I'd be looking at my options. |
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New Wed 21 Aug 24 17:34
Broadband & landlines - tyrednemotional
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The "landline" is what supplies your standard POTS (Plain Old telephone Service). Broadband can be (and has been) supplied down the same (copper) line with or without you retaining the POTS capability. (There's little downside to your provider in giving both BB and telephone whilst you're copper connected). Broadband can also be provided via a fibre connection (where this is available to the premises). This doesn't have the capability to deliver POTS, and such connections are generally pushed as "without a landline". If you want to keep the nearest equivalent to the older telephone system you need to opt for a VOIP (Voice over IP) service, generally at extra cost, and not all ISPs will provide this in-house (independent services are also available at extra cost). These services use the same IP protocol as the computer systems to deliver telephony. There is a strong push to remove the copper infrastructure (which would eventually duplicate fibre) and though the timescale has slipped a bit, "landlines" will soon be a thing of the past (and for calls people will need VOIP, or simply resort to exclusively using a mobile phone). In either case (copper wire or fibre to the premises) there will be, as now, a modem/router supplied for the premises, to which you can connect devices wired or wirelessly, and where VOIP is opted for for calls, a VOIP capable phone that will look much like your existing conventional phone (but use a different transmission method). |
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New Wed 21 Aug 24 17:49
Broadband & landlines - Zero
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| Either way, essentially you are paying twice for a similar service. Voice via your internet provider (be that VOIP or not) and your mobile phone plan. Makes little sense to duplicate. Unless you have a very good technical reason to need both. |
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New Wed 21 Aug 24 18:09
Broadband & landlines - sooty123
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| We seem to do reasonably well for choice, £30/month for 200mb going upto £50/month for 1gb. |
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 07:37
Broadband & landlines - RichardW
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>> Either way, essentially you are paying twice for a similar service. Voice via your internet >> provider (be that VOIP or not) and your mobile phone plan. Makes little sense to >> duplicate. Unless you have a very good technical reason to need both. >> We've still got both, 'cos the Victorians that built this gaff in 1850 with 2 foot thick stone walls weren't aware of mobiles, and that their walls would be an effective block to 21st Century communications!! And we've got (very) aged contacts that struggle with the concept of a mobile phone.... |
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New Wed 21 Aug 24 18:07
Broadband & landlines - Terry
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When we moved 18 months ago we ditched the add on calls package (the number would anyway be redundant) which was about £13 per month and reverted to smartphones only. We now have fibre broadband 35GB (plenty fast enough for 2 of us) plus a pay per call backup. Very occasionally we get incoming calls - in 18 months no outgoing calls. Cost is £21 per month. The age of wires or fibre to the home may soon end - replaced by a smartphone/router linked to any laptops or other devices, cutting out the cost of maintaining and replacing wires and fibre. Smartphones data only packages of 50GB + are from just £8 per month. More than enough for most unless you spend all day watching movies, simultaneously interacting on Facebook, gaming, X, shopping etc etc. |
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New Wed 21 Aug 24 20:20
Broadband & landlines - zippy
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>> The age of wires or fibre to the home may soon end - replaced by >> a smartphone/router linked to any laptops or other devices, cutting out the cost of maintaining >> and replacing wires and fibre. In an ideal world, but I struggle to get over 5mbs at home on 5g. Also the airwaves get congested. I was in Wembley last month - it was impossible to even get connected to the network. >> Smartphones data only packages of 50GB + are from just £8 per month. More than >> enough for most unless you spend all day watching movies, simultaneously interacting on Facebook, gaming, >> X, shopping etc etc. We easily exceed that - 8k TV (though most content is 4k HDR). Work from home etc. FTTP here at 900mbs for £29.99 per month x 24 months. |
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New Wed 21 Aug 24 21:53
Broadband & landlines - bathtub tom
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I'm currently looking at renewing mine. I'm getting around 35MB down and 10MB up on vodafone FTTP with 24/7 free calls. They want it to go up to £39/month. Virgin are offering 130Mb, weekend calls for £21/month (MSE). SWMBO wants to keep the free 24/7 calls, that'll cost me £28/month with vodafone (upgraded to 130Mb) I've negotiated. We've had the same number (except for a single digit added prefix) for nearly fifty years. We've both free calls/texts on smartphones. I'm tempted to stick with vodafone, despite their annoying habit of increasing the cost mid contract (I thought that was being investigated). I had Virgin many years ago with lousy experience. |
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 06:45
Broadband & landlines - Crankcase
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Sister nlaw has got in a mess with this. She looks after and lives with her 90 year old mum. They’ve had a copper broadband and landline package for years, at about £40 a month. The speed is a wonderful 1.5 Mb. Things like iPlayer constantly buffer, email takes an age etc etc. She asked for a speed upgrade. “Sorry love, we can’t do any faster to your exchange, we don’t do fibre, go somewhere else. But you won’t get a landline. However, we can cut the cost right down and you can cancel the broadband with us, get that via fibre, and then keep your landline with us for buttons”. So she bought fibre, nice and fast. Went to cancel the old copper broadband annd keep the copper landline, as advised, and of course, they then said “sorry, gave you duff info, can’t do that”. So she asked the fibre company for a landline instead. “We can do that, but it’s VOIP so in the event of a power cut, no landline. We can sell you a battery add on, but it will only work for a few minutes at best.” They get a lot of power cuts. She is concerned about the vulnerability of her mum, who is often alone in the house. Icing on the cake - no mobile signal in the house, with any provider we’ve ever found. So now it’s costing her about £65 a month to keep both copper and fibre. What am I missing to help her, I don’t know about this stuff? Last edited by: Crankcase on Thu 22 Aug 24 at 06:47
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 08:02
Broadband & landlines - Bromptonaut
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IIRC the analogue phone service will end shortly. It will be all VOIP with all the problems that go with that in terms of power outages. It's causing a lot of concern amongst those in the campaign/charitable sector becuase of the effect on the elderly and many types of alarm etc that rely on the old style phone line. |
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 08:43
Broadband & landlines - Zero
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>> IIRC the analogue phone service will end shortly. It will end for sure. The "shortly" bit is open to interpretation, many cut off dates have come and gone, in some areas it will be around for a fair while yet. As far as power cuts goes, its possible to keep your VOIP kit up for a fair while with back-up power solutions, but if its a biggy your cabinet is going down anyway |
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 10:32
Broadband & landlines - Falkirk Bairn
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We had aluminium twin twisted pair POTS for decades - 4Mbps was the best - 1 or 2 when there was lots of rain. May 13th saw us connected FTTP £32/month 153 down /28 up. Old house phone moved & connected to Modem - initial issues of OK outgoing call but no incoming phone calls - this was fixed by Sky technician over the mobile. Only 1 issue in the 3 months BB went down one evening for 5 minutes - rebooted modem + SKYQ box as we were watching Olympics on Discovery Plus (Modest Commentary & no round the table talking PLUS 4K Picture) Modest number of incoming calls & Zero outgoing. FTTP 10/10 so far Watch out on SKY Fibre Contract Ordered £32/ month Contract received said £37.50 - they added £5.50 for SKY Boost - technician will come weekends as well as Mon-Fri / they check speeds daily etc etc IMHO a waste of £66/year as I have had a technician fix an issue roughly once every 5+ years and they tell us that Fibre is 5.5 x more reliable. They took the £5.50 off the monthly bill only when I threatened to cancel the contract in the first 14 days. |
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 22:18
Broadband & landlines - bathtub tom
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>>but if its a biggy your cabinet is going down anyway Been a long time since I was involved with distribution, but the cabinets and pillars (are there any pillars left?) had no power supply, they were merely distribution points. Other suppliers cabinets must certainly have had power, as you could hear the cooling fans running. |
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 22:21
Broadband & landlines - Zero
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| BT cabs are now basically full of routers with the fans running. or not in a power cut. |
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 12:00
Broadband & landlines - Terry
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>> We easily exceed that - 8k TV (though most content is 4k HDR). Work from >> home etc. >> >> FTTP here at 900mbs for £29.99 per month x 24 months. >> Enjoy it while you can. Over 50% of UK households rely wholly on smartphones and never use a landline. Data and internet is already going the same way. A little like the recharging networks for EVs, capacity is always going to play catch up with increasing demand. Limitations in 5G coverage, I suspect, are short term. BT Openreach provide most of the UK telecoms infrastructure, employ 35000 staff with total revenues of ~£6bn. As users fall, cost and price pressures on those remaining will increase. If in (say) 5 years the number of users falls by 50%, prices for those remaining may need to double. |
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 12:19
Broadband & landlines - zippy
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>> Enjoy it while you can. >> I understand /appreciate the sentiment Terry. I've had metered (sim based broadband) at this address and the data usage was eye-watering luckily unlimited data sims help and I have a Three sim sitting in a router for backup use as its only £6 a month for unlimited data. I have clients that incorporate sims in to machines that they make and a bit of medical equipment that I use has a sim in it that talks to the manufacturer. Cars will start talking to each other soon using more of the capacity. Perhaps Starlink is the answer but I begrudge giving EM any of my hard earned! |
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 10:43
Broadband & landlines - Manatee
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We just have fttc broadband now from Plusnet at about £25 a month while in contract. When it came to end of contract earlier in the year they only offered broadband, they no longer provide landline or VOIP for that matter. We use mobiles, and VOIP in the form of WhatsApp etc if convenient. When we moved back here after the rebuild, we lost our old GPO number. Never have the new number out, never used it or received calls, so let it go. |
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 11:21
Broadband & landlines - tyrednemotional
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>> We just have fttc broadband now from Plusnet at about £25 a month while in >> contract. >> >> When it came to end of contract earlier in the year they only offered broadband, >> they no longer provide landline or VOIP for that matter. It's very exchange dependent (in this case on Openreach's FTTP roll-out timetable, which rather dictates the timescales for copper removal). My Plusnet contract was renewed in April, and still has the landline. (no call package taken now, but the line is useful for the incoming "spam" calls ;-) ) There are all kinds of inconsistencies, though. I renewed for 12 months*, the cost for that was 50p a month more than an 18 month renewal without the landline! The village here has been largely provided with FTTP relatively cheaply by Connect Fibre, but they use the existing pole infrastructure, augmented by a small number of their own. They don't do subterranean, and guess what, our end of the village is just that. Virgin have recently cabled the remaining bit, but it is more expensive, and as Z notes above, renewal at end of initial contract is uber-expensive. Had a ("non-")sales guy called yesterday trying to persuade me that the renewal wouldn't be that expensive, it was just a sales ploy to make the initial contract look more of a bargain. I have a friend in an area where FTTP is exclusively Virgin, they know, and without competition they won't move on renewal price. *We are on the Openreach schedule for FTTP, not imminent, and I'll sit it out until there's a prospect of competition. Speeds here can only be described as "adequate" on FTTC. |
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 16:39
Broadband & landlines - smokie
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In my experience Virgin will always be open to negotiate renewal price. I'm currently on £45 pm for 250Gb broadband which is plenty for me, a heavy user, and my lot and next door, who share the line (and cost) and do a fair bito of torrenting. Also includes TiVo and telly package - nothing special but not the lowest - and landline with, I thin, free weekend calls (but never used for outgoing). I think the starting point at renewal time was in the eighties. Been with Virgin since cable was laid here by Telecential. Then became someone else then NTL. We have recently had another cable service laid in the road so if I'm really pee'd off I have choices... Last edited by: smokie on Thu 22 Aug 24 at 16:41
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 20:17
Broadband & landlines - Zero
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>> I'm currently on £45 pm for 250Gb broadband which is plenty for me, a heavy >> user, and my lot and next door, who share the line (and cost) You share your Broadband? |
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 23:21
Broadband & landlines - smokie
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Yes, always had a cable running through the loft to next door since the kids used to play some early network games* together in the 90s (?), so seems sensible to share broadband (and cost). I know it's unusual these days but we are good friends (both been here over 30 yrs) and he is savvy enough that anything dodgy is well obscured. * This was on an IBM clone, connected by BNC. Their fav games were Day of the Tentacle and Theme Hospital apparently. Last edited by: smokie on Thu 22 Aug 24 at 23:30
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New Fri 23 Aug 24 08:15
Broadband & landlines - Falkirk Bairn
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Either side of me have Virgin cable - when that goes down I share my BB Connection with them - might be a few hours the odd day. No reason to think they are doing anything illegal. They have done the same for me in the past. I have tried using a phone as a hotspot but the 4G signal in the house is modest at best. Neighbours' BB is pretty good signal. |
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New Fri 23 Aug 24 08:26
Broadband & landlines - sherlock47
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Brings back memories (hazy?) of using bnc coax based adaptors to (LAN) network around the house. Sharing the 56k (dropping back to 9.6k) analogue modem with 2 or 3 computers, mail access, and allowing wife to print on my £700 HP laser printer. Must have been late 80s or early 90s? The 10Mbps limit seemed like lightning for local communication compared to WAN access! |
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New Fri 23 Aug 24 09:17
Broadband & landlines - smokie
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Yea I remember the step change upgrading to a US Robotics 56k Sportster modem in probably 1992, which had absolutely blinding speed compared to the 14.4k that went before. It came at a price though! As did going online. I had a Compuserve account and used chat for quite a few hours most days as I remember it. I think there was a flat allowance with your membership then once you were over that a price per minute. Plus of course the per-minute cost of the phone call. I have a feeling that my total monthly costs in the late 80s/early 90s were in the low hundreds per month!! There wasn't any web then, so it was pretty much just bulletin boards, chat and newsgroups I think. |
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New Wed 28 Aug 24 13:34
Broadband & landlines - legacylad
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Thanks for all replies...appreciated. New 24 month contract now sorted with EE. I have FTTC but free upgrade to FTTP in due course, whenever that may be. No more landline, slowish speeds but ok for my requirements...guaranteed 39 Mbs download but 43/47 expected. £26 month, with £3 annual increase. Ongoing discounted mobile price with free EU roaming, plenty of data for £9.70 month. Probably faster internet speeds available if I gave my head a wobble but it’s nice and simple. For me. |
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New Wed 18 Sep 24 09:50
Broadband & landlines - Falkirk Bairn
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I had my FTTP connection installed in May - others have followed in the last few months. Neighbour opposite went to order about 6 weeks ago. His supplier, Sky, said no connections available at your address. Tried 3 times to say his next door neighbour was installed 2/3 months ago and the box on his wall has 4 connections available a distance of a few metres - no digging needed just a shallow cut in the garden. After much trauma he managed to speak to someone at Openreach. They sent a man round, took 2 minutes to say Openreach's own records were wrong. A similar issue to my faulty connection - their records showed the wrong manhole for my connection in the street. 10 days later installed by a 3rd party technician "Circet?" Openreach is short of staff and cannot cope with the workload - I am sure if their records were correct many issues, and wasted man hours, could be avoided. |
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New Wed 18 Sep 24 20:41
Broadband & landlines - Kevin
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OpenReach finished whatever they needed to do while I was on holiday so I signed up for 500Mb FTTP when I got back about a week ago. I needed to threaten Sky with going elsewhere if they didn't do me a decent deal but they eventually relented. Openreach arrived on Monday afternoon to pull in the fibre but the ducting from the bottom of our garden to the house had shifted at a joint so he came back yesterday to dig up the lawn and re-make the joint. He did a damn good job of relaying the turf so now we're just waiting for Sky to install the ONT which is promised for 25th. |
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