Do you still have a house phone ?

Ridiculously I have four, and the ringers are turned off on all but one, which I never answer, as when I view the numbers they are always spam!

Can't remember when I last had a genuine call which was years ago for sure.

No.  Got rid.
I had it for PokerStars playing poker back in the day.  Dial-up phone charges were about €300 a month on top of my "winnings" (tbh losses).
The final straw was close to the money bubble in the $215 Sunday night tourney I had a 35 minute phone out.
I got back in to see the last of my chips disappear.  About $1,000 not won due to the phone line outage.

been thinking about this for sometime now. Line rental is one of the main earners for providers and has been noticeably going up in the past few years. I imagine that most people could get by easily using mobile phones and do away with the home phone. Sky/talk talk/BT etc probably maintain that broadband provision is dependent on phone lines and would probably justify charging line rental. Cable/Virgin however use a separate line for the phone so I imagine it would be easier to do without a phone line. That would cause them some grief if it caught on.

Having a fixed phone line is looked on as a positive by credit rating companies.

Very good point TB....

i use mine as a back up  in case my cell phone is playing up ,or left in the car . But i'm the last people left in the UK with one so i can't make a call

don't get any nuisance calls these days

theyre are damned expensive to use anyway  - average call per min on a cell phone is maybe  3 pence a min  for me , it is  10p a min on home phone -sods to that

imo line rental is one of the greatest cons out there.

i just count it as 'internet'  costs


phone is used by companies to sell on your data
home

Never been without a home phone - old school and prefer chatting on this than the mobile - 60 minutes free, 01/02/03 all free - 0870 also free and if it's 0845 I use the phone at work.. simples. If I phone mobiles then it's mobile to mobile

If everyone ditched their landlines, wouldn't the phone companies just raise other charges to compensate?
If you are on cable or have a decent 4G signal maybe, you can do without a land line.

Aspro, those mins aren't really free are they? Surely they are just included as part of the obscenely high line rental charges.

I pay £15pm for those mins and I usually take advantage. Dad isn't well and I speak with him most nights these days for anything up to an hour so at present, with all things considered, it is a good deal. Not sure what my line rental is but with Broadband, Phone and TV I pay £50pm.

I got rid of mine over 3 and a half years ago.

A total waste of time if you're not a 'phone person' - which I'm not.

I've had 'internet through the wall' ie Virgin (originally NTL) for 11 years and will NEVER subscribe to the Murdoch Machine, so why pay £200(+) in rental charges for a landline I have no interest in whatsoever?

It's nothing but a massive con these days, especially with mobile calls being so cheap, no matter how many free calls you get with a landline 'deal'.

I just did a quick search and you can get a mobile sim deal for £12/month with unlimited minutes, texts and 2GB of data. Not sure if that's the best.

http://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/sim_only_deal/3fce8b2cb73d242d4e5d0e8b3615597d543ef0cf?page=%2Fmobiles%2Fcompare%2Fsim_only_deals%2F&position=1

Line rental would be at least £12 per month on top I would think & maybe up to ca. £18. (You can normally save a bit if you are able to pay for the whole year at once)

In January I'm switching my mobile over to 3's 3-2-1. 3p per minute, 2p per text and 1pm per MB of data. I don't use the internet, only use my phone if I really need to and send about 10 texts per month. Worked out I'd be paying on average £4pm instead of £25!

Aye Aspro, everyone's need and usage of various telecommunications are different and it's well worth sitting down for a while and studying what's best for you.
You can save bundles of cash by doing so.

Indeed TT (hope all is well btw). I spent an age going through the deal some months back and the above deal is superb for my usage. Roll on January

Aspro, don't know what plan you're on with the tv part - or how much it is necessary for you - but if you changed to Giff Gaff - and got your dad to do the same - all your calls would be free to him, any time of the day.
All Giff Gaff to Giff gaff calls are free.

You can get a 'hokey cokey' from them for a fiver a month, which includes 250 texts, 100 mins of calls and so many mbs of internet - plus free minutes for anyone not on the network calling you.

Everything is grand at the moment, Aspro, thanks.
Hope the same for you too.

It's a fair point TT but Dad is in final stages of heart failure; it could be days, weeks or (hopefully) months... we just don't know. I have seen Giff Gaff and weighed it up and it is a good suggestion too but with things as they are, I think he'd prefer to keep what he has got. Sad but true.

I hope he's reached a ripe old age.

Understood, Aspro, and you have my sympathies.

Although nowhere near the good deals you can get these days, I worked out when my mother was alive that we'd have been far better off just having mobile 'phones - but didn't bother suggesting it as she was so used to a landline.

Same here TT - Old habits and all that. He's 77 Stow but he's had what I believe was a reasonably good life; he didn't want for much.

My dad went at 51 Wouldn't quit smoking. All the best.

That's sad; I lost my mum when she was 44 so very glad to have Dad go into old age. Mum never quit either but Dad did but unfortunately he's had a couple of whacks on his heart and that has taken its toll. 51 is so young considering I'm fast approaching 53 myself. Soz to hear that Stow.

my old mum used to have a bt phone on line rental ,she couldn't get out and hardly used the phone anyway  and asked me to pay her bill at  the post office ,when I looked at the total her actual calls were around £3 for the quarter and the bill was for £60 odd quid  made up of line rental phone rental ,friends and family ,and they charged her £6 for the privilidge of paying the bill at the post office ,soon cancelled and bought her a pay as ya go mobile much cheaper

House phone is a clearer signal, doesn't fry your brain, doesn't cut out on you because you forgot to charge the battery, and allows you to use your mobile at the same time.

I'm sure I had a delivery not so long ago where they demanded a land line number.