Features - QOTW: Do you still keep an active landline?

[truk007]

Over here in the US, I bought an Obihai 100 well over a year ago. I paid $44.00, connected it to my Google Voice account, and have had a free landline since. The downside is that my landline is not connected to the local emergency service. I still need to use a cell phone for that.

I have only once, for a couple days, had service problems that ended up being related to the wireless router it was connected to. Otherwise, the call quality is excellent.

[Percy1983]

I actually use mine.

Currently got uncapped internet and land line with free evening and weekend calls with talk talk for £16.00.

Does it get used? it certainly does, I just it for calls out to be people I know with land lines and many ring me on it, it helps having a land line for running my business too.

[crossy]

True; but if you want virgin TV, you need a phoneline. This is the only reason I have one. Correction, I do occasionally use it to find my mobile...

Actually that's not the case if you've got Virgin's cable service - it's only relatively recently (last year) that I switched my phone connection over from BT to Virgin.

That said, the sodding local distro box keeps flooding so I get to listen in on other folks' calls for a while before eventually the darned thing fails altogether. Ah well, time to call them out for the third time in a month.

So, yes, I've still got an active landline, but at this rate I'm not sure for how much longer. To be honest these days mobiles seem to make more sense. Speaking of which, what ever happened to that idea that you could buy a particular mobile number (from OfCom?) and then that'd be your permanent number? That sounded like a good idea to me - especially if you're one of those folks who schlepps around with a private car registration too (I'm not).

[pp05]

Yes we have one.
Yes it gets used a lot.

[Lazy148]

Yes we have one, although the majority of calls are incoming. When outgoing calls are made they're usually done on a mobile.

[Onkston]

We do have one, but it's never been used for calls, we haven't yet got around to buying a phone to plug into it lol.

[flufflogic]

Yep. I use it for the free local calling, and 08 numbers.

[SpeedyJDK]

I didn't think anyone still had those. We got a box for our fiber.

[burble]

Is that supposed to be possible? - I also have a friend who cancelled his sky package including the phone... The phone line still has dial tone, but when you try to do anything it has a recorded message saying it's disconnected.... However... His broadband still works and has done for the last year lol... So of course he's never bothered saying anything and is getting free broadband LOL

The voice part of the line can be disabled remotely but the ADSL part requires an engineer visit to the exchange. It isn't uncommon to have no voice but functioning ADSL but it is quite unusual to have a disconnected voice service but still receive ADSL.

[Scribe]

If it weren't for ADSL I would't have a phone line, both at home and for business. It doesn't get used, at home it's mobiles only and at work it's all VoIP, as it's cheap no matter where you call in the world. Sadly no fibre for me in either location, BT has been very selective to ensure it misses out places that won't turn a healthy profit, AKA many business parks and out-of-city towns with partial virgin media coverage already.

[shamus21]

I would love to get rid of the land line it just don`t fit in with the way you use and make phones calls today. The extra cost of line rental is a waste of money now.

[WritersBlock]

Haven't had a mobile for four or five years; it works surprisingly well, I even get to speak to friends face-to-face.

A truly remarkable innovation.

[pipTheGeek]

We do have a landline, despite having four contract mobiles in the house. It even includes "free" any time landline calls. We did try and save some money by dropping to only free weekend calls but it actually put the price up. VM actually charge more for broadband if you don't have a phoneline. Just another of their crazy (money grabbing) billing oddities.

[uksnapper]

I pay a total of £17.50 for a landlines and totally unlimited broadband at 15 meg. Don't use calls at all. This is cheaper than Virgins 60 meg package and due to their 75% throttling on high users there is no point to pay more for that service. Yes it's annoying that line rental is 'dead money' but it's still a cheap option in comparison

Who with,Id like to leave Virgin,their service has become progressively worse and more expensive.

[deejayburnout]

I would love to know as well, as I might leave VM as well.