Living without a landline - Can you/Do you do it?
Comments
-
I know a lot of people who have done away with their landline but it is not for us. I hate talking on a mobile and much prefer the landline and Mr H is hard of hearing so has real trouble with a mobile phone. I do know some younger people who say that
they only keep their landline in order to speak to their mother!0 -
Most broadband suppliers insist you have a landline to access their services.
so how do you access the net without a landline broadband connection at reasonable speeds.
i realise you can access via a mobile network,but not at comparable speeds.
0 -
We very rarely use the land line phone, but need it for the broadband Internet, so it has to stay.
0 -
We have taken a 2 year deal with SSE that gives us landline and broadband for £12 per month, with weekend calls included.
We only use it for weekend calls as it is expensive otherwise.
Then we moved both our mobiles to 3, just PAYG sims as we are not big mobile users either, It is still cheaper to use the mobile to call than the landline.
We use internet a lot when at home, so a mobile package for that would be no use to us.
We were always with BT before, but their prices became rediculous.
0 -
We are on the most basic landline deal packaged with our Virgin Media subscription. As we tend to have mobile contracts with 'free minutes', we make it a house rule to use our mobile for phone calls until the minutes run out. When that happens we use each
others mobile. Only if all mobile minutes are exhausted to we use the landlines. We tandem to keep the landline just in case of emergency - if we can't get mobile signal then the landlines is a back-up.David
0 -
Yes a landline is needed for Broadband but you don't need to add a phone contract to it,we are getting rid of our landline,I'll miss talking to all those lovely folk offering to fix my windows
0 -
Yes a landline is needed for Broadband but you don't need to add a phone contract to it,we are getting rid of our landline,I'll miss talking to all those lovely folk offering to fix my windows
.......give them time and they'll start ringing your mobile instead. I get the odd few....
David
0 -
Although we both have Mobile all inclusive contracts with our mobile phones, I still like the covenience of having a proper landline phone on the office desk and a couple of wireless phones in the rest of the house. . The landline package also includes
Internet and a few bells and whistles.So in answer to the OP's question. I could live without it -- but prefer the convenience of having the landline.
K
0 -
What triggered my thoughts, apart from the opportunity of saving money (always a big incentive), was that recently I have gone over to Three. They are now doing PAYG and contract packages that include being able to tether your phone to a tablet or PC without
restriction in the UK. This morning I gave it a try and was surprised to find that it was a faster connection than my normal broadband, in fact I’m using now. For not a lot of money I am getting “all you can eat” data and text plus 200 mins a month. I only
send about five texts a year so that’s wasted as are most of the monthly phone minutes. The data however will be used mainly when we are travelling, and travelling abroad using their “feel at home” service. Now I’m keen to use the package at home and dump
the landline.this is the same process i use when away in the van, i have 4gb with my vodafone mobile deal and am now using this for this post...home wifi turned off on the ipad and instead tethered to the iphone...
seems to work fine...
so....do i need a landline....not to do this or make phone calls, no.
however, we have a sky service with loads of interactive facilities....streaming movies etc, we also have netflix which uses the same router.
could they be thethered to this iphone? how much data would i need? would a data only sim/mifi be any better?
i reckon its doable but data (tethering) and costs need to looked at closely...
thing is, if the reception signal weakons or fails, you will have lost access to all your services....
an interesting conundrum and i will give this more thought, too..
0 -
When I was working, I had my landline rental and a percentage of calls paid for, it was a necessity of my post. When I was given a work mobile, this ended, so we gave up our landline and stuck to mobiles. That was back in late 1990's. We opted to install
VM cable services for our BB, TV and the phone came free as part of package. We rarely use it, odd call at weekends when calls are free. Last month we gave up the TV package, and asked if we could save on monthly payments if we also gave up landline. Strangely,
for some reason, it is cheaper to keep it!But I would say yes, if it saves money, then do without!
0 -
We need our landline for our broadband which, in spite of living out in the wilds of Northumberland is super-fast fibre optic - 38Mbps download 9Mbps upload.
Living out here we don't get anywhere near that from the couple of mobile providers who actually offer any sort of coverage - one of which is only 2G when the wind is in the right direction!
Cheers
Bugs
0 -
I can't live without my landline. Speeds of up to 38mbps.gives me good connections - love it, can watch streaming video, NFL, MBL, motor racing, sports games etc. When, however, I caravan my phone is tethered to my laptop and speeds - whilst not great -
are better than what the club offers.0 -
What triggered my thoughts, apart from the opportunity of saving money (always a big incentive), was that recently I have gone over to Three. They are now doing PAYG and contract packages that include being able to tether your phone to a tablet or PC without
restriction in the UK. This morning I gave it a try and was surprised to find that it was a faster connection than my normal broadband, in fact I’m using now. For not a lot of money I am getting “all you can eat” data and text plus 200 mins a month. I only
send about five texts a year so that’s wasted as are most of the monthly phone minutes. The data however will be used mainly when we are travelling, and travelling abroad using their “feel at home” service. Now I’m keen to use the package at home and dump
the landline.Be careful there, DD.
I also have a Three contract that gives 'all you can eat data' and 200 minutes of talk. But the 'personal hotspot' facility that enables you to tether tablets etc is limited to 4Gb each month. You can quickly go through that if you stream a lot of stuff.
0 -
Interesting thread this.
I wondered about getting some sort of 'mi-fi' package for home and just use our mobiles for calls. We get wn excellnt Three signal at home.
But could a PC use a mi-fi?
And what sort of packages are available i.e. how much internet access for how much? I'd need to be able to use the PC and a couple of tablets and connect YouView TV and sometimes NOW TV.
I'll have to do some research on this.
0 -
Interesting thread this.
I wondered about getting some sort of 'mi-fi' package for home and just use our mobiles for calls. We get wn excellnt Three signal at home.
But could a PC use a mi-fi?
And what sort of packages are available i.e. how much internet access for how much? I'd need to be able to use the PC and a couple of tablets and connect YouView TV and sometimes NOW TV.
I'll have to do some research on this.
We don't have aland line and haven't had one for 15yrs. We just used to use our mobiles but now have a MiFi on a 2 yr contract which gives 15Gb per month for about £20 pm and I am on my laptop at the moment. We can run our i-pad at the same time too.
0 -
DD, email addresses are another consideration.
i have an old 'freeserve' address (we were with lineone, wanadoo, freeserve, orange now EE) which might not be supported if we were to dump the landline....though if we were to go over to contract phone with EE with loads of data (currently with Vodafone)
they might play ball.we also have gmail addresses which would continue unchanged.
0 -
We use quite a mixture of suppliers but the BT landline rental seems to be the most expensive bit. Where we live mobile phone usage can be patchy, ours is ok, our neighbour's isn't. It makes me realise that people in good signal/broadband areas have a better
deal all round.0 -
...they certainly have more choice, Brue....especially if there is more than one mobile provider that gives good 3/4g reception.
0 -
I can't see me giving up a landline. I much prefer to use a landline telephone as I can hear it ring anywher in the house and garden. I don't carry my mobile around with me at home. The mobile signal would have to a whole lot better as well as often in the
house it can be quite poor. I have fibre broadband and given the mobile signal strength I doubt I will ever get anywhere near the download speeds I get with the landline. Also the data allowance via a mobile would have to be a whole lot better. The reverse
of this view was when my son moved into a new house and his mobile signal was faster and more reliable than the landline. I suppose at the end of the day its horse for courses and no one solution will suit everyone.David
0 -
Nellie, has anyone or any organisation tried to insist that you have a landline before you can use their service, etc? Also what email provider do you use?
Have had that in the past, eg when I tried for a CC Crdit Card a long while ago, but I think that they now accept mobile numbers. We are on 3 Mobile and can get 4G at times. We've used it all round the country, although occasionally at times it is difficult
to get a signal. The mifi has a good enough signal for me, at home, to use both the laptop upstairs and OH the i-pad downstairs.0 -
Interesting thread this.
I wondered about getting some sort of 'mi-fi' package for home and just use our mobiles for calls. We get wn excellnt Three signal at home.
But could a PC use a mi-fi?
And what sort of packages are available i.e. how much internet access for how much? I'd need to be able to use the PC and a couple of tablets and connect YouView TV and sometimes NOW TV.
I'll have to do some research on this.
You can connect your PC and tablets to a mi-fi dongle. Some dongles can also be connected to a router to extend your options.
When we were looking a few months ago Three were offering 20gb for around £20 a month. This could be an issue if you stream a lot of video.
We need our landline for our super slow 4mbps broadband as we can't get Virgin in our estate. I don't think we have used the house phone more than a couple of times in the last year.
0 -
Certainly where we live the speed of mobile wifi is much less than the 14mb we get on standard broadband. Even if it was fast enough, as we download a fair bit of TV and films, any package would have to be unlimited, as an hour of HD can be 2gb, which would
rapidly eat into most allowances.0
