Landlines are nearly dead. Long live landlines
Discussion
So who is really going to be paying EE, BT etc the prohibitive new costs for what is literally just call routing VOIP which could be done via mobile?
My old landline cost was 28.99 then 30 with provider INCLUDING Broadband originally, then has shot up recently to over £60 as no longer in contract so now forced to assess my options, and what do you know, they are so limited they barely are worth thinking about ( already have full fibre but no the fastest by any stretch)
Think I will extend until Jan 2027 when all lines die and then go for as cheap BB deal as I can and screw your money for old rope relaying calls over existing broadband for a fortune, whilst you don't have to maintain any infrastucture as its already over braoadband ??
Which my wife for instance does on such messenger apps. Personally I will regret the demise of old style ability to call, but sod them and what they are doing to it I'm not going to be funding the thin option they replaced it with at a fat wedge of cost.
Amazingly I found out that Zen are still going and quite affordable. Might be one to return too and sod this BT based lot, although obviously Zen will also be having to use their infrastructure but at least are independant.
My old landline cost was 28.99 then 30 with provider INCLUDING Broadband originally, then has shot up recently to over £60 as no longer in contract so now forced to assess my options, and what do you know, they are so limited they barely are worth thinking about ( already have full fibre but no the fastest by any stretch)
Think I will extend until Jan 2027 when all lines die and then go for as cheap BB deal as I can and screw your money for old rope relaying calls over existing broadband for a fortune, whilst you don't have to maintain any infrastucture as its already over braoadband ??
Which my wife for instance does on such messenger apps. Personally I will regret the demise of old style ability to call, but sod them and what they are doing to it I'm not going to be funding the thin option they replaced it with at a fat wedge of cost.
Amazingly I found out that Zen are still going and quite affordable. Might be one to return too and sod this BT based lot, although obviously Zen will also be having to use their infrastructure but at least are independant.
I don't mind the line rental, but the call costs are insane per minute. We have an inclusive call package but they've messed about with that now.
I've held on to it as mobile service is iffy at home, although Wi-Fi calling seems more reliable now - incoming calls often used to go to voicemail.
I've held on to it as mobile service is iffy at home, although Wi-Fi calling seems more reliable now - incoming calls often used to go to voicemail.
daytonavrs said:
So who is really going to be paying EE, BT etc the prohibitive new costs for what is literally just call routing VOIP which could be done via mobile?
This is assuming you have a mobile signal - we don't. When our landline is disconnected we will have no contact with the outside world in a power cut (which are all too frequent during winter).I understand the infrastructure is expensive to maintain, and that we are an edge-case, but there should be some sort of better contingency than VOIP, which obviously requires electricity to run. The beauty of landlines was that they were powered from the exchange which had it's own battery backup, so even in an outage, the chances are the land line still worked.
I shouldn't have to go down the UPS route as they are expensive and have quite a short useful life (like any battery).
Our solution now is Starlink, with an additional Starlink Roam (5V USB-C powered) we can run from a car as our backup. Once my contracts expire I will be completely biffing off our legacy communication providers.
WH16 said:
This is assuming you have a mobile signal - we don't. When our landline is disconnected we will have no contact with the outside world in a power cut (which are all too frequent during winter).
I understand the infrastructure is expensive to maintain, and that we are an edge-case, but there should be some sort of better contingency than VOIP, which obviously requires electricity to run. The beauty of landlines was that they were powered from the exchange which had it's own battery backup, so even in an outage, the chances are the land line still worked.
I shouldn't have to go down the UPS route as they are expensive and have quite a short useful life (like any battery).
Our solution now is Starlink, with an additional Starlink Roam (5V USB-C powered) we can run from a car as our backup. Once my contracts expire I will be completely biffing off our legacy communication providers.
We recently switched to BT full fibre (fttp) and Digital Voice. I told BT that we had no mobile signal, and they gave us two UPS units - one for the fibre box, another for the router. No cost to us.I understand the infrastructure is expensive to maintain, and that we are an edge-case, but there should be some sort of better contingency than VOIP, which obviously requires electricity to run. The beauty of landlines was that they were powered from the exchange which had it's own battery backup, so even in an outage, the chances are the land line still worked.
I shouldn't have to go down the UPS route as they are expensive and have quite a short useful life (like any battery).
Our solution now is Starlink, with an additional Starlink Roam (5V USB-C powered) we can run from a car as our backup. Once my contracts expire I will be completely biffing off our legacy communication providers.
During the recent storm, we had a couple of 12 hour power cuts. The battery backup meant that we had phone and WiFi throughout.
The fibre box kept going for the full 12 hours.
The router UPS needed a top-up from our Jackery power bank after 8 hours.
We powered the coffee machine from the car via a 13A extension lead
clockworks said:
We recently switched to BT full fibre (fttp) and Digital Voice. I told BT that we had no mobile signal, and they gave us two UPS units - one for the fibre box, another for the router. No cost to us.
Vodafone were supposed to provide a UPS, however I was told by them that it is only for rural properties, and despite essentially being a small farm surrounded by moorland, 10 miles from a town and an hour from a motorway, I'm not rural enough!WH16 said:
Vodafone were supposed to provide a UPS, however I was told by them that it is only for rural properties, and despite essentially being a small farm surrounded by moorland, 10 miles from a town and an hour from a motorway, I'm not rural enough!
That's crazy.Were you "forced" to switch to digital, or was it your choice?
We are in in a village, 5 miles from Helston, Cornwall.
We can just about make mobile calls on Vodafone if we go outside and walk up and down the road, but no signal indoors. Other networks no signal at all.
Since they switched off 3g, there's no mobile data, just patchy 2g for SMS.
Local exchange is switching off the copper lines soon. BT wanted to switch us over when I renewed the contract. I said "yes, but only if you give us battery backup".
WH16 said:
Vodafone were supposed to provide a UPS, however I was told by them that it is only for rural properties, and despite essentially being a small farm surrounded by moorland, 10 miles from a town and an hour from a motorway, I'm not rural enough!
I got a flat "no" from BT. I already had a UPS for my IT stuff as we get fairly regular glitches so plugged everything into that. As it happens, only power cut we've had since fibre was installed was while having a smart meter fitted.When our exchange went full digital, our Broadband provider simply sent us a new router/modem with a socket to plug the phone into.
The irony was, the old router also had this socket, but covered by a blank sticker.
That was with Vodafone broadband. Not full fibre.
The whole thing is a non-event for most people.
The irony was, the old router also had this socket, but covered by a blank sticker.
That was with Vodafone broadband. Not full fibre.
The whole thing is a non-event for most people.
Must admit, we haven't used a landline for over 10 years. We don't have a great mobile signal in the house so we have used WiFi calling (with EE) and WhatsApp audio, and to be honest it all works perfectly. I get that some mega-rural places might have frequent power cuts but a UPS isn't colossally expensive (and just look at what you're saving on property prices!)
OutInTheShed said:
When our exchange went full digital, our Broadband provider simply sent us a new router/modem with a socket to plug the phone into.
The irony was, the old router also had this socket, but covered by a blank sticker.
That was with Vodafone broadband. Not full fibre.
The whole thing is a non-event for most people.
Its not completely a non event because the suppliers are limited, so for instance looks like they are only mentioning EE (or BT) its not like a list of broadband suppliers VOIP providers is forthcoming for easyThe irony was, the old router also had this socket, but covered by a blank sticker.
That was with Vodafone broadband. Not full fibre.
The whole thing is a non-event for most people.
Maybe you were already on Vodafone and it was already an option. In this case they are referring to another party as its not supported by them, which means a change of provider, router, contract terms and possible headaches.
Its also considerably more expensive, without the plusnet introduction I think its like £5 for the service and £15 for unlimited calls. +£20
I currently pay £0 for rental, evening and weekends in with the broadband and was quite happy with that, bearing in mind hardly use it.
Its strike me they don't even have to manage any infrastructure as its just using the broadband network right?
Nah, getting sacked in 12 mths.
The call pricing model has definitely moved to be more like the mobile networks, PAYG calls on a landline are stupidly expensive, but call inclusive packages can be pretty reasonable, eg Vodafone are £10/month for all your calls and you get an Apple TV box with 3 months subscription as a gift.
In terms of finding providers who offer landlines, go to a comparison site and filter for providers who include calls surely? If you’re actually planning to use the phone then presumably you’ll want an inclusive call package.
In terms of finding providers who offer landlines, go to a comparison site and filter for providers who include calls surely? If you’re actually planning to use the phone then presumably you’ll want an inclusive call package.
alangla said:
The call pricing model has definitely moved to be more like the mobile networks, PAYG calls on a landline are stupidly expensive, but call inclusive packages can be pretty reasonable, eg Vodafone are £10/month for all your calls and you get an Apple TV box with 3 months subscription as a gift.
In terms of finding providers who offer landlines, go to a comparison site and filter for providers who include calls surely? If you re actually planning to use the phone then presumably you ll want an inclusive call package.
Not really bothered, already have/ pay for inclusive mobile minutes, the landline was sort of useful and sometimes convenient in a basic way to not have to rely on a mobile ( is it charging etc)In terms of finding providers who offer landlines, go to a comparison site and filter for providers who include calls surely? If you re actually planning to use the phone then presumably you ll want an inclusive call package.
But not the end of the world....they are the ones sacking it really, as I suspect many others will feel driven by "do I really need this" and cost...if they come down to be reasonable/ or packaged into more reasonable BB costs
Some just like to fritter away money not minding how they spend...old mans the same he with BT and I dont think he does TV packages or anything and they just mentioned £300 a quarter seems expensive £100 a month, he will only be having broadband like me but does have fully inclusive calls with them...I'm happy with eve+weekends as mostly overlaps with when you are working anyway.
I don't need unlimited, so I don't fit well into their "here pay £5 to be hooked up to digital calls then £15 unlimited" nah but thanks
Google and find comparison on landline
https://www.uswitch.com/broadband/compare/home_pho...
All results are VIRGIN
https://www.gocompare.com/broadband/home-phones/
A bit more impartial....only results are now BT or Virgin...both 3 star support companies out of 5....hard pass.
It could be a greater emergence of separated offerings for voice related perhaps like this, might even be by then my supplier has caught up and others too -so rather than only offering fibre in their case, they may parallel with BT like voice offerings with cost savings / competition by Jan 27 perhaps.
Too much like a monopoly between just BT and Virgin for me at the moment...and I'd rather set my hair on fire than be with either of them directly.
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