Phone bills

[Sheila]

We have our landline, internet and both mobiles with Plusnet.  I have had an initial email saying the costs are going up and while they haven't sent me the details yet, it looks as though the bill is going up by about 25%.

I may be asking for some advice when I get more details.

[Scrumpy]

I have Virgin for Landline.. Internet and mobile phone.. plus tv..
I can't be arsed to keep searching and then changing for something cheaper.. Even the so called 'bargains' shoot up at some point..

[-Oy-]

We haven't had a landline since we all got mobiles years ago.

O2 for mobile and Virgin for Broadband only.

[Sheila]

I like the landline for two reasons.  The first is that my younger daughter is always very busy and when she talks to me on her mobile, she is dashing round doing jobs and I can't always hear what she is saying.

The other thing is our package includes free phone calls of up to an hour.  I was chatting to my other daughter for 45 minutes the other day.  She works strange hours and sends me a message saying when she is free for a natter.

Virgin doesn't seem to work very well round here according to the local Facebook page.

[klondike]

I was with Plusnet who were good but wouldn't move on their price to match a cheaper deal from TalkTalk so I moved to them. TalkTalk were pretty useless when I had a line fault.

Virgin doesn't seem to work very well round here according to the local Facebook page.

Virgin performance is very localised. There are technical reasons which I won't bother to go into in any detail. They have fibre to a local street cabinet - the optical node - which shares that bandwidth out over coax to to other more local street cabinets using many TV channel sized digital streams. If that gets overloaded it can take them months to sort the problem out. That was why I ditched them plus their business model of constantly locking you in contract or charging over the odds grated with me.

I took non BT full fibre which comes with a landline connection through the router. I didn't take any call package as unlimited calls on mobiles is dirt cheap these days. That had a fairly small cost of living increase at the end of the first year. What I do at the end of the second depends on their pricing. It is insanely fast which I like but don't come anywhere close to fully using.

[-Oy-]

The other thing is our package includes free phone calls of up to an hour.  I was chatting to my other daughter for 45 minutes the other day.  She works strange hours and sends me a message saying when she is free for a natter.

Our mobile contacts have unlimited calls and text.

For family calls - especially with more than two callers -  we use Facebook Portal. Some of us haver a small camera on top of the TV that zooms into a person and follows you around the room. Great when little Grandson is playing with anew toy etc. Have a look...

Facebook Portal

[Jacqueline]

I like my landline at least I don't have to remember to charge it up.  Went to use the mobile yesterday and flat as a pancake, I don't use it enough to remember to charge it, not only that it's too complicated by far for little old me.

I have been waiting to change over to BT for Fibre Broadband, this is taking forever, they now tell me 19th July, I do hope they do it this time.

[Alex]

My landline is with TalkTalk, I've been with TT for years.  They were crap at first, but then got their act together so no probs, fingers crossed.  My mobile is Tesco I pay monthly for unlimited calls and texts.  I've never thought about dropping the landline    Make most of my calls from Whats App

[Michael Rolls]

Glad to hear TT have improved. We were with them about 10 years ago and they diabolical
Mike

[klondike]

Like all these companies if you never need to call them they are doubtless wonderful....

[Sheila]

Thanks for your advice.  I think we may get rid of the landline.  Paul already has unlimited calls on his mobile so I may change mine.  BT internet may be the way to go.

Surely the changeover should be ok as Plusnet is part of BT??

[klondike]

You'll still need the physical landline for ADSL or VDSL broadband although it will be included in the price. You need not take a call package though and may, depending on the deal, still be able to take incoming calls. BT tend to be one of the more expensive ISPs. They leverage their name.

Surely the changeover should be ok as Plusnet is part of BT??

Most ADSL/VDSL broadband uses the same Openreach infrastructure. Openreach BT and Plusnet are all part of the same group but all individual companies. Openreach are not public facing are are legally bound not to favour any of the companies using their infrastructure.

[Scrumpy]

I prefer a landline.. It is so much clearer than a mobile..

[Sheila]

Thanks klondike.  It's rather complicated for me.  

[klondike]

Try a comparison site. Bear in mind that they tend to recommend only those that give them a back hander though.

Maybe https://www.uswitch.com/broadband/
or https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/compare-broadband-deals/
 although google will show plenty more