Day one without a landline :)

Contract coming to an end so yesterday I sorted our broadband and mobiles out, saved just over £40 per month. One of the savings was to get shut of the Landline which we only kept because my wife liked to speak to one of her sisters in Australia a couple of times a month who refuses to use a mobile or learn how to use one, they are now going to write to each other.

None of my immediate family have had a landline for years, feels strange but good especially as about 50% of the calls are scams :)

It does show how we can waste money on phones etc if we don't keep on top of them.

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Originally Posted by TheTigerUK

Contract coming to an end so yesterday I sorted our broadband and mobiles out, saved just over £40 per month. One of the savings was to get shut of the Landline which we only kept because my wife liked to speak to one of her sisters in Australia a couple of times a month who refuses to use a mobile or learn how to use one, they are now going to write to each other.

None of my immediate family have had a landline for years, feels strange but good especially as about 50% of the calls are scams :)

It does show how we can waste money on phones etc if we don't keep on top of them.

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Id be too worried of the “what if”

We're with Virgin so have to pay for a landline as part of the contract. We last used it in 2008 and haven't had an actual wired phone since 2010.

Nice to see letter writing is still a thing.

I have kept mine and use it at home all the time.

I think its free I am not paying much anyway.

Ditched ours a year ago. Just have fftp now - copper connection gone.


Sent from my iPhone using TZ-UK mobile app

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Originally Posted by TheTigerUK

Contract coming to an end so yesterday I sorted our broadband and mobiles out, saved just over £40 per month. One of the savings was to get shut of the Landline which we only kept because my wife liked to speak to one of her sisters in Australia a couple of times a month who refuses to use a mobile or learn how to use one, they are now going to write to each other.

None of my immediate family have had a landline for years, feels strange but good especially as about 50% of the calls are scams :)

It does show how we can waste money on phones etc if we don't keep on top of them.

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You can call an Australian landline from a UK mobile, I’m fairly certain…………

Think braodband was cheaper with a landline for some reason so w e've still got one. Haven't had a proper call for probabaly a year, just idiotic Amazon scammers and such like.

Mrs K likes to keep it operational 'in case it's the hospital' (waiting for an appt. though it never is and they have her mobile number anyway) . Always me who has to answer and she's not happy when I give them any abuse.

I ditched mine a few months ago.
I’ve lived in my current house for almost nine years and I have never even plugged a phone in to the wall. I have not the faintest clue what my phone number is / was.

Haven’t had a landline with a wired up phone since 2022.

We do have to have a landline but for the broadband only

None of us have missed the phone as we all have mobiles but I still have 3 wireless Siemens gigs set handsets stored somewhere. I really should get rid of them!

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Originally Posted by Franky Four Fingers

Id be too worried of the “what if”

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What is the “what if” to worry about?

Ditched landline in 2005.

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Originally Posted by M1011

What is the “what if” to worry about?

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I’ve got elderly in-laws with more health issues than Mr Burns. We’ve had several early morning calls where we’ve needed to rush over to one of them. Most of the time our signal is just about ok but it can just disappear. Despite numerous complaints to Virgin/o2 it’s never been sorted. Losing the landline would be unthinkable currently.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Such a shame your wife’s sister will not use a mobile, Face Time is a game changer for relations down under, I speak to my cousins every week, so much enjoyment for all

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Originally Posted by hilly10

Such a shame your wife’s sister will not use a mobile, Face Time is a game changer for relations down under, I speak to my cousins every week, so much enjoyment for all

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This. Family all over the world. Love a bit of FT and WA video calling. No landline here.

Seems to be a bit of a generational thing, generally... folks into their 50's and beyond generally can't get past the idea of not having a land line but then also only want to spend the bare minimum on a mobile contract with virtually no data, etc. I have been landline free for at least 13 years and it has yet to bite me!

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Originally Posted by hilly10

Such a shame your wife’s sister will not use a mobile, Face Time is a game changer for relations down under, I speak to my cousins every week, so much enjoyment for all

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I was going to suggest a £4/month second sim card with 100 minutes International calls included from Lyca mobile. But Face time, Zoom, Teams, or Skype would be an even better option.

Note: Lyca mobile uses the EE network, so the phone signal and 5G package is great. But their customer service is very hit and miss, bordering on none existent. Their website crashed halfway through an order and it took me 6 attempts (about 3-4 hours in total) over several weeks to cancel the second sim ordered in error.

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Originally Posted by Franky Four Fingers

I’ve got elderly in-laws with more health issues than Mr Burns. We’ve had several early morning calls where we’ve needed to rush over to one of them. Most of the time our signal is just about ok but it can just disappear. Despite numerous complaints to Virgin/o2 it’s never been sorted. Losing the landline would be unthinkable currently.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Do your mobiles and network not have the WiFi calling option?

We have zero mobile signal where we live, but with WiFi calling they work just like they’re connected to the network, even text messages with one time passcodes etc.

The copper cable landlines will be obsolete by end of 2025 anyway. So the only way to keep a current landline number open will be via a digital phone connected to fibre broadband.

Business numbers and home landlines will all be using WiFi calling in future.

Been without a landline for about 20 years now.
I used to work shifts and it would be ringing with spam calls during the day and waking me up so I unplugged it.
Still paying line rental for the broadband, fibre was meant to hit the village in May last year but still waiting.
The bonus is I have a phone number that I can put on forms safe in the knowledge that I won’t get a call.

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Originally Posted by hilly10

Such a shame your wife’s sister will not use a mobile, Face Time is a game changer for relations down under, I speak to my cousins every week, so much enjoyment for all

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My wifes other sister is just down the road from the sister who won't use a mobile and she and my wife sit on face time for what seems hours at a time.

I remember in the 80s/90s I would stand over my wife while she was ringing OZ and time her for five minutes :)

International calling should all be Internet based now. It's crazy not too.
You can use, WhatsApp, Skype, Gmail, Zoom, MSteams, almost everyone has some solution which will be free for a long call, just using broadband data. Videos calls nearly free too.
Even cellular data for a voice call is probably 1Mb for a minute or 60Mb for an hour.
Mobile contracts are giving 10Gb for £10 now.

Summary, voice calls using Internet are virtually free. Landlines with copper are deader than a dodo.

4,287 days without a landline for me. Don't miss a landline one little bit.

We moved house last year, wasn't worth setting a landline up, in the previous house we hadn't had a phone plugged in for a long time.

Our landline was part of the deal,it’s not plugged in ,not used in years anyway.

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Originally Posted by Franky Four Fingers

I’ve got elderly in-laws with more health issues than Mr Burns. We’ve had several early morning calls where we’ve needed to rush over to one of them. Most of the time our signal is just about ok but it can just disappear. Despite numerous complaints to Virgin/o2 it’s never been sorted. Losing the landline would be unthinkable currently.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Enable WiFi calling on your iPhone?
Mobile signal in my house can be a little ropey, but it’s crystal clear when on WiFi.
Settings > mobile service > WiFi calling if you’re unaware.
I never used the landline when I moved in here, just went straight to fibre.

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Originally Posted by Reeny

The copper cable landlines will be obsolete by end of 2025 anyway. So the only way to keep a current landline number open will be via a digital phone connected to fibre broadband.

Business numbers and home landlines will all be using WiFi calling in future.

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Vodaphone, our BB provider has just sent us a plug in between the router and phone to use Voip instead of the BT plug, Ive not bothered, only one person rings the house number these days and that can be rectified easily.

Calling the unaswerable doctors yesterday I used my land line and mobile for a better chance to get through.

If the signal goes I still have a phone, plus its clearer and easier to hear with.

If my mobile battery goes down I still have a phone.

Nuisance call I dial 14258 and auto block it.

I only use it for UK calls.

It costs me £30 a month for Broadband,TV and land line.

I got my first mobile phone in 1997. Some time after that I moved out of my parents’ house. I’ve never had a landline. I miss it about as much as I miss cheques.

Zen swapped me over to voip a few months ago. The landline costs £6/month for free calls. Prefer it to mobiles any day.

Not had a landline in 15 years. My parents insist on keeping theirs, despite both having mobiles closer to hand.

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Originally Posted by Onelasttime

We're with Virgin so have to pay for a landline as part of the contract. We last used it in 2008 and haven't had an actual wired phone since 2010.

Nice to see letter writing is still a thing.

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Pretty much the same thing here. Haven't bothered with connecting a landline phone in years now. I can't really see the point.

Going to be ineteresting in the future, my folks are in the middle of Norfolk and can't get a cell-phone signal worth anything inside their house. I think they can get O2 in the front garden and something else the back garden. If you sent them a txt message they usually don't get for 24-48hrs until they go to the local town.

We tend to contact them via Facetime as they have an iPad and Wifi in the house but 90% of their calls are via landline as all of their friends (local) have the same issue and find the landline phone easier than fiddling with a cell-phone.

I still remember when I was little we had a 3 digit number......

if you have no need for one you wont miss it, i have a 94 year old dad who insists on calling on the land line, his home phone has large numerals, he cant see a mobile to dial or even use!, he has no internet and never had any internet , to get him to use anything else is not going to happen now!, i am researching the new digital phones but transition if it happens wont be easy for him!

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Originally Posted by mitch1956

if you have no need for one you wont miss it, i have a 94 year old dad who insists on calling on the land line, his home phone has large numerals, he cant see a mobile to dial or even use!, he has no internet and never had any internet , to get him to use anything else is not going to happen now!, i am researching the new digital phones but transition if it happens wont be easy for him!

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There must be a market out there for those large buttoned phones but modernised to be digital. With an ageing population and the speed at which tech is changing things, it won’t be many years until the kids of today are in the workplace wondering how we ever coped.

Looking forward to trailing M365 AI in my work though to see what it can help with.

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Originally Posted by Tooks

Do your mobiles and network not have the WiFi calling option?

We have zero mobile signal where we live, but with WiFi calling they work just like they’re connected to the network, even text messages with one time passcodes etc.

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Yes they do however for some reason when on WiFi calls both of our mobiles drop out after 20-30 seconds, it’s very strange and again something which they dont seem to be able to fix.

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Originally Posted by Mj2k

There must be a market out there for those large buttoned phones but modernised to be digital. With an ageing population and the speed at which tech is changing things, it won’t be many years until the kids of today are in the workplace wondering how we ever coped.

Looking forward to trailing M365 AI in my work though to see what it can help with.

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My 95 year old dad did away with his landline last year. He was on Vodafone for his WiFi. Don't ask me how it works but Vodafone offered him a service where his old landlines phones are plugged into the router and you can still call him on his old landline phone number. And he can ring out on them of course. So it does exist in some form.

What's a landline? To be fair we've not had one for about 10 yrs

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by Normunds

Ditched landline in 2005.

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Me too. Never missed it

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Originally Posted by Ruggertech

My 95 year old dad did away with his landline last year. He was on Vodafone for his WiFi. Don't ask me how it works but Vodafone offered him a service where his old landlines phones are plugged into the router and you can still call him on his old landline phone number. And he can ring out on them of course. So it does exist in some form.

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Isn’t that precisely how Sky Q works? I can’t say for sure as I don’t use the landline.

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Originally Posted by learningtofly

Isn’t that precisely how Sky Q works? I can’t say for sure as I don’t use the landline.

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Me nor my dad have Sky Q so can't confirm or deny sorry.

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Originally Posted by Ruggertech

Me nor my dad have Sky Q so can't confirm or deny sorry.

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I’m fairly sure it is, i.e. VOIP.

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Originally Posted by learningtofly

I’m fairly sure it is, i.e. VOIP.

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Just googled that quickly, that's must be it or something very similar. But it's not the ability to use an old landline phone through the router that I found remarkable, it was more that he is able to use his old landline number despite not subscribing to that service anymore.

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Originally Posted by Ruggertech

...it's not the ability to use an old landline phone through the router that I found remarkable, it was more that he is able to use his old landline number despite not subscribing to that service anymore.

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Zen as well, seemingly.

You don't have to change your landline number... or your handset If you already have a telephone number that you'd like to retain then you can port your telephone number across to Digital Voice for free. And you can keep your current handset!

https://www.zen.co.uk/phone/digital-voice

https://www.zen.co.uk/blog/posts/zen...phone-service/

Another who hasn't had a landline for approaching a decade and haven't missed it for a second. For those nervous about the thought, in all that time I have never once been unable to make a call from my mobile.

Slightly different topic but related to the need to have a landline for the Internet, in my former home (rural Gloucestershire) I used the various 4G services as my internet solution. In my current home (nearer to central Cheltenham) I now use Vodafone 5G for my internet.

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Originally Posted by petethegeek

Zen as well, seemingly.

You don't have to change your landline number... or your handset If you already have a telephone number that you'd like to retain then you can port your telephone number across to Digital Voice for free. And you can keep your current handset!

https://www.zen.co.uk/phone/digital-voice

https://www.zen.co.uk/blog/posts/zen...phone-service/

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Probably normal and common, just a new one me.