Do you still have a landline?

[Don]

I still have a landline...much to my annoyance. I'd like to get rid of it but can't for the usual fibre broadband reason. Since the calls are free I keep it on.

I could get an EE box for £44 a month that does 50GB a month over 4G but I use about four times that amount as almost all the entertainment we watch is streamed so unlimited broadband is important and, at the moment, that's only available over fibre.

[marcusgrant]

No.

Don't even have a phone point in the house. Didn't like where it was when I was doing the lounge up so just removed it and plastered over. There's enough spare cable outside the house (I think) if the next person wanted it back.

Just have virgin fiber. Keeps going up in price though!! Something like £34 now which seems very pricey

[fangio]

Nik da Greek said:

She still thinks mobile phones were co-created by NASA and Satan

She's so right!

[ReallyReallyGood]

Makes it all the more ridiculous that Broadband providers advertise their fees without including the landline figure in the headline cost, which is the only reason most people still need it these days.

"Get unlimited Broadband £6/month!!!!!!!!!! (small print: Excludes monthly land line cost of £2343/month)"

[Cybertronian]

No landline for me.

Moved into my house last March and was all set for Sky and BT Openreach to get me connected. Informed Sky there was no existing connection to the telegraph pole and cutting a long story short, it turned out it was the wrong type of telegraph pole and needed a cherry picker to do the job. Minimum 2 week wait. Decided to pay the extra £12 and jumped to Virgin and haven't regretted it, even with the impending price hike on the horizon.

Parents are also with Virgin, but are paying for the phone service. They barely get or make any calls on it now, and for international calls to family abroad, they can use Skype, FaceTime, Whatsapp etc. I've tried convincing them to ditch the phone service, but they've had a landline forever and really don't want to cut the cord.

[MarkRSi]

Wobbegong said:

Dejay1788 said:

SlidingSideways said:

Only because we need to pay for it to get broadband.

This. Never use it, don't even know the number.

And another, only seem to get spam calls (so much for the TPS) so just ignore it these days.

[bazza white]

Virgin fibre with line for free weekend calls. Never laughed a phone in and not a clue on our phone number.


Need to change as it's gone from £14ish all in to £4x.00 now the contract has ended.

[anonymous-user]

MarkRSi said:

Wobbegong said:

Dejay1788 said:

SlidingSideways said:

Only because we need to pay for it to get broadband.

This. Never use it, don't even know the number.

And another, only seem to get spam calls (so much for the TPS) so just ignore it these days.

The landline is dead. They shot themselves in the foot by allowing spam calls and not policing it, and sold out to 0898 numbers in the late 80's and tried to cover that up.

[anonymous-user]

The landline isn't dead, everything else will be when the power goes off but not the landline. The landline is powered from the exchange which has a much bigger backup capacity than the average mobile phone base station.

[anonymous-user]

Good point. But worth the rental just as backup?

[anonymous-user]

I presume the question how much are you prepared to pay when the st hits the fan and your mobile doesn't work. I would expect a direct correlation between level of risk to life, limb and property and how much people will pay.

[anonymous-user]

Out-of-reception areas maybe but otherwise rental costs and daily scam calls all in case a tree falls on s power line?

[MitchT]

Yes, because the mobile signal is dire where I live.

[Derek Smith]

I have BT fibre optics for down/uploading mainly. I do videos that last and hour and a half and at 3gig a time, two every weekend, I needed it. Well pleased with it. Both my wife and I have mobiles on contract and I infrequently go over my 10gig limit and my wife never on her 2gig. We always use landline of an evening and weekends, with out kids scattered all over it keeps the price down.

I run three websites and also send work off so need something reliable and fast. I've had no problems with downtime although, oddly enough, I was unable to access my email for around 2 hrs today. This is the first time I've had that problem.

I had one email hacked two and a half years ago and that took BT nearly five weeks to sort. I thought I must have downloaded malware or some such but now the revelations about Yahoo! are coming to light, I believe I might have been innocent.

I'm going to migrate to gmail for my main two email addresses. A lot of work involved with regards contacts.

[judas]

Needs a 'Yes, but not for much longer' option on the poll since Virgin raised their prices again

[survivalist]

ReallyReallyGood said:

Makes it all the more ridiculous that Broadband providers advertise their fees without including the landline figure in the headline cost, which is the only reason most people still need it these days.

"Get unlimited Broadband £6/month!!!!!!!!!! (small print: Excludes monthly land line cost of £2343/month)"

Isn't this all stopping fairly soon though? Seem to remember reading something about the regulator forcing providers to provide a single transparent cost.

In answer to the question, yes we have a by line but only use it for fibre broadband. Essential given that about 50% of tv in our house is streamed and the construction (steels, concrete and foil backed insulation) means that mobile signal is awful (it's excellent in the garden) so the ability to use wifi calling is invaluable.

[RobDickinson]

Yes

Mostly because it was the only service we had working after the earthquakes and was vital in being able to contact people.

[Who me ?]

gottans said:

The landline isn't dead, everything else will be when the power goes off but not the landline. The landline is powered from the exchange which has a much bigger backup capacity than the average mobile phone base station.

You hope, but then most BT exchanges have /used to have emergency generators, and possibly mobile phone base stations have similar.But then, what powers the digital equipment hidden in boxes in the ground, when mains goes phut.
I pulled the plug on a landline years ago, as I/we don't make enough calls to justify the line rental. For £5 a month we have a Vodafone family plan that lets us make calls to 4 mobiles, and for another £5 we have a Sim card that lets us make calls at a set price /minute. No additional cost to tell me the number calling me, or blacklisting that number.

[RobDickinson]

[quote=Who me ?]

gottans said:

The landline isn't dead, everything else will be when the power goes off but not the landline. The landline is powered from the exchange which has a much bigger backup capacity than the average mobile phone base station.

You hope, but then most BT exchanges have /used to have emergency generators, and possibly mobile phone base stations have similar.But then, what powers the digital equipment hidden in boxes in the ground, when mains goes phut.
I pulled the plug on a landline years ago, as I/we don't make enough calls to justify the line rental. For £5 a month we have a Vodafone family plan that lets us make calls to 4 mobiles, and for another £5 we have a Sim card that lets us make calls at a set price /minute. No additional cost to tell me the number calling me, or blacklisting that number.

Having been through a significant disaster the land line is the only thing that survives.

Cell network stayed up for hours but was so flooded it was useless. 3-4 days later they started getting it back online using generators at the towers, that took a while and was flaky at best.

[CR6ZZ]

Still have a landline and use it frequently. Use landline almost exclusively at work. Use mobile as little as possible (texting mainly) due to the terrible quality of sound on pretty near every cell phone call I have ever received. Maybe it is because I am partly deaf, but I like the immediacy and clarity that appears to be only available on landlines. (Yes - I'm a luddite)