Hi.
Talktalk have emailed me to ask if I want to keep my landlines or get rid of it and just have full fibre without landlines. Keeping landlines will cost us £12 a month.
Can you see a time when we might need the landlines? We don't use the house phone and we are not wired up to any alarms or anything.
I would just be happy to get rid of the house to stop the nuisance calls.
All down to personal preference. We haven't had a land line for almost two years, but there is one potential downside.
Financial and government systems may only have your landline number, especially if you have a long relationship with them and you haven't updated your records. Some security systems may call the landline number and cancelling the number could cause problems, so check you records before cancelling.
We found this out with a Premium Bond account of a relative. It was a painful process to reset the online account as without the landline number security access was blocked.
It is my understanding that the old copper wire telephone system will soon be abolished and to continue with a landline will mean having a phone operating over fibre. I believe you will be able to keep your old number. However, in an emergency when there is a loss of power, the phone will not be able to work.
Personally, I am keeping our landline as the internet works through it as well. It is still cheaper for me (just) to work this way. I will consider changing only when obliged to do so.
Just changed to full fibre last month.
In our circumstances, we decided we don't need a land line. Over the past couple of years, all we've had is spam and advertising phone calls, so getting rid was a no brainer.
We're on a 300mb full fibre contract which is actually cheaper than our old one.
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I think 2025 is a crunch year for getting rid of the old telephone system, at least most of it. With full fibre you can still have a landline but it runs via VOIP over the internet. Most big companies have been using this for years. I suppose it depends whether you have a cherished landline number and how good your mobile signal is? If you do want to keep your landline, especially the number, you have to be very careful that any new internet supplier understands you want to "port" the number across. I am with Plusnet and unfortunately they won't be changing landlines to VOIP and in future will only offer a basic internet service. It looks as though I will have to swap to BT (I have a long standing btinternet.com email address) At the moment we are on FTTC but it seems that BT have run fibre optics into our estate but haven't as yet confirm when we can buy the product.
Quote: Originally posted by David Klyne on 28/1/2025
If you do want to keep your landline, especially the number, you have to be very careful that any new internet supplier understands you want to "port" the number across.
Yep. I switched to a 900mb full fibre connection a couple of years ago now - ditched the traditional landline at the same time and signed up to the VOIP service provided by the fibre internet provider.
They transferred my existing landline number over ( which previously was on a standard copper "BT" telephone line ) so no pain and no changes at all, just a huge saving each month on line rental / phone calls etc. £3 a month for the phone / line with inclusive evening / weekend calls.
Effectively it's always £3 as I never make phone calls using the landline, but for some reason it's comforting to keep my old number which I've had for years, although the only people who call it are scammers and spammers!
Quote: Originally posted by David Klyne on 28/1/2025
I suppose it depends whether you have a cherished landline number and how good your mobile signal is?
David
If you have internet and wifi you don't need a mobile signal. Calls from the mobile will be VOIP over the wi fi network.
Only time this is an issue is if your internet goes down and you need a mobile signal to call the ISP or check online for any network issues.
Hi Ian, please can you explain to.a non techy how you did this. Don't tell me to ask my husband, he has even less idea than me! And I have a BT router, what happens with that?
Quote: Originally posted by Mrs. Bonce on 29/1/2025
Hi Ian, please can you explain to.a non techy how you did this. Don't tell me to ask my husband, he has even less idea than me! And I have a BT router, what happens with that?
Post last edited on 29/01/2025 07:31:47
First stage is to find out if your area has been upgraded to full fibre network, this replaces the old BT copper wires to new Openreach fibre.
If it has you can upgrade to full fibre. A new fibre cable (which is thinner than a piece of spaghetti) will be installed by Openreach and your modem replaced. You then decide which internet provider you want to contract with and advise them you want to keep an existing landline and number.
We have had full fibre for years and it was taken over by Virgin Media several years ago. We still have our landline but that was converted to VOIP two years ago. All we had to do was unplug our phone from the old telephone socket and plug it into the router instead. Nothing changed and we still have our old telephone number. I haven't noticed any difference whatsoever, although I do know that if our internet goes down now or the power goes off, we will lose our phone line. My wife has a mobile so it isn't really a problem.
I think the recent THREE debacle should serve as a warning to relying on a single phone network, what happens in an emergency when your ONLY phone doesn't work!
Despite being in the burbs of London, my mobile coverage at home is rubbish and I can't walk around the house without risk of dropping the call! And the house alarm is linked via the landline, so absolutely no desire to ditch the landline even though I don't actually use it much as a phoneline these days.
Quote: Originally posted by Mrs. Bonce on 29/1/2025
Do you have to inform BT or whoever you are with? It seems too simple and I think that with my non techy brain something will go wrong
You don't have to inform BT, they will inform you.
All landlines in Britain are going over to the VOIP system eventually, so you really have no option other than to do away with your landline if you don't want to go to VOIP. The old system of copper wires etc is gradually being switched off. Our provider is Virgin, and we received a letter from them saying that our old system in our area was being switched off on a certain date, and when that came around we were to unplug our phone and plug it into the socket provided on the router. That was it, nothing too technical, and it all works exactly the same as it did before. The only minor problem for us was that our router is in our office upstairs and our main phone was downstairs. This meant that our main phone and answering machine had to go upstairs and one of our other cordless phones had to come down to replace it. We have a cordless phone system with 3 phones dotted around the house.
Thanks Colin, we hardly ever use our phone or get calls other than the usual scammers and loft insulation. We both have mobiles. I hardly ever use my laptop either.
Quote: Originally posted by Mrs. Bonce on 30/1/2025
Thanks Colin, we hardly ever use our phone or get calls other than the usual scammers and loft insulation. We both have mobiles. I hardly ever use my laptop either.
I quite agree about the scammers, that is mostly what we get these days. When we do get calls from our friends and family on our landline their names come up on caller display and we don't pick it up if its just a number unless they start to leave a message.
I think a lot of people are doing away with their landlines these days as probably the majority have mobiles. I do have one but it is really ancient and not a smart-phone and I only really keep it for emergencies. It's rarely even switched on if I'm at home, I just take it out with me in case I need to call emergency services, or call my wife if I am going to be unexpectedly delayed getting home. My computers however get a lot of use as I find a keyboard much easier to use than a phone would be if I had one.
I am in the process of switching from TalkTalk to BT after my no-so-pleasant dealings with TalkTalk's customer service team when I needed to access my account to download a bill for proof of address purposes.
I chose BT and opted for landline instead of wireless broadband, as the latter is supplied by EE, and my mobile phone is with EE.
At this moment in time, I don't want to put all the eggs in one basket; in that if and when EE goes down, which had happened too frequently for my liking, I would lose the ability to make calls or access the internet.
For 5.00 GBP a month to keep the landline is a small price to pay for the assurance that I shall have the ability to make calls using the landline and be able to access the internet in the event EE goes down.
5G has not reached my area yet. Neither has full fibre for the last half a mile or so.
Luckily I don't get many scammed calls.
When the landline rings, I would pick it up and stay silence until the caller either hangs up which is the norm; or asks to speak to me for market research purposes (I respond curtly citing no time and put the phone down).
DK
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Topic: Talktalk full fibre.
via mobile 28/1/2025 at 2:37pm
