Doing away with the landline

[Draft Dodger]

I have been thinking whether the use of a landline is coming to an end. I take very few calls on my landline and tend to give people my mobile number for my contact. The big thing, however, is the broadband connection which at the moment keeps me attached to my landline. I do not have a modern mobile phone which has internet access. I do like to sit down with my computer, either laptop or desktop, and use the internet rather than use a modern 4G mobile phone.

If I were to get a modern phone with 4G access and link it to my lap/desktop do you think that I can now get rid of my landline. Opinions seem to vary on this, with reliability of connection particularly being used as an argument against disposing of the landline.

I am not a techy and just use the internet.

[Booglebox]

Do you have cable? That's a good way to get fast internet without a landline.

[mike-wsm]

There are several way of getting 3G or 4G internet access.
1. Tethering as you suggest.
2. Dongle.
3. MiFi.
These are very similar but using a MiFi gives you wifi to several devices.

The biggest problem is data cost. Landline alowances can be 10GB/month to 'unlimited' with overrun permitted, but dongles and MiFi tend to be 1GB to 3GB. Overuse is very expensive and sometimes is limited to a few hundred megs. Tethering costs vary a lot, I have heard that contract phones have very limited tether allowances. Dunno about 4G, no experience yet.

The other 3G/4G problem is variable access. You may get oodles of bandwidth at some times and none at others because priority has to be given to voice calls. In theory 4G will cure this by adding bandwidth, but use for tv will soon soak this up.

An unexpected problem is auto transmitter switching causing connections to drop out. I had near perfect operation until they added a mast and I got switched to and fro. 3G was ok but the theoretically better hsdpa dropped me completely. I gave up and am now a happy landline user (but I only plug in the voice phone for outgoing calls).

[mike-wsm]

Trying without buying

To avoid getting committed to a contract and later regretting it you can try dongle and mifi without commitment. My comments here relate to 3G, possibly 4G is similar.

Dongle - simply buy a PAYG pay-as-you-go dongle. This lets you buy small chunks of data (use within 30 days) with no further commitment. Alway useful to have because it works anywhere.

MiFi - get the one month rolling contract. This can be cancelled on a month's notice, so you are only committed to a couple of months. If you decide to cancel, you can keep the device and put in a PAYG sim card, perfectly legal, and then use like the payg dongle whenever you wish. Again useful if you are away from home, the MiFi creates a little bubble of wifi for your laptop, tablet or whatever.

Cost is about thirty quid to get started and about fifteen per month for 3GB.

[green granite]

Do you have cable? That's a good way to get fast internet without a landline.

Does it float or summat?

[Milo Minderbinder]

so just where do you think you are going to get a 4G signal in the UK at the moment?
and where do you expect to get a 4G data dongle and compatible 4G / wireless router from?

whatever the phone companies may say, the technology isn't out there yet in the wild. Give it a year or two, then look at it again

[mike-wsm]

Originally Posted by BBC

4G 4coverage in London, Birmingham, Cardiff and Bristol is currently being tested ahead of launching in "weeks".

Rivals have voiced concerns that EE had been given an unfair headstart by launching first.

Other cities to get the high-speed connectivity are Belfast, Derby, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Newcastle, Sheffield and Southampton.

...and I bet Huawei are waiting with hardware available

[Draft Dodger]

Boogle, Thanks but I do not have cable, I wish I did.

Mike, Thanks for your advice and I will try your suggestions.

Milo, Thanks for your advice as well. I guess that I kind of go along with what you say and leave it a while before abandoning the landline. I will have a go at Mike's suggestions and see how it compares with what I have got at present, which is pretty good.

[jimtherev]

In the UK at least It's courteous to keep the landline for incoming calls. Many people - I do, too - have a 'free' tarriff for phone calls to landlines up to 59 minutes, but are charged for calls to mobiles. It depends on your caller profile, I guess; once the majority of people also have mobiles with unlimited minutes this isn't important, but t'ain't true of the folk who habitually call us, yet. This includes family...

[mike-wsm]

The most discourteous thing a person can do is to telephone someone and expect them to drop what they are doing, interrupt their thoughts, or the music, or the book they are reading and at a moment's notice expect them to focus their mind on some inane and inefficient babble.

Text me, email me, I will read at my leisure and respond likewise, at next to no cost in time and bandwidth.

[500N]

Draft

I am the same as you, only keep the landline because
of my VOIP line / internet.

I will be looking for ways to change this soon to
get rid of it.


Jim
"In the UK at least It's courteous to keep the landline for incoming calls."

Really ? No one has my landline number so no one calls it.


And as Mike said, "Text me, email me, I will read at my leisure and respond likewise, at next to no cost in time and bandwidth."

IF you can't be bothered to call me on my mobile.

.

[green granite]

Text me, email me, I will read at my leisure and respond likewise, at next to no cost in time and bandwidth."

Ah! the modern "fcuk you you're unimportant syndrome".

[mixture]

500N

I am the same as you, only keep the landline because
of my VOIP line / internet.
I will be looking for ways to change this soon to
get rid of it.

Its called LLU Broadband with bundled copper, its been around for a while now, although a bit difficult to find offerings for on residential contracts, although you can sign up residential premises on business contracts without needing to be a business.

[mixture]

In the UK at least It's courteous to keep the landline for incoming calls.

Yes, but it doesn't need to be a landline.... it can be a number provisioned on a VoIP service that you can connect multiple devices too and have them ring simultaneously (e.g. desk phone, laptop softphone, app on mobile phone etc)