What options are available should you ditch your phone line?

[#1]

I am tempted to upgrade my broadband, as the speeds advertised are attractive, but my phone, presumably, becomes defunct, I think.  What are you supposed to do if you no longer have a land line?  Do I enter the realms of manic mobile phone users?  I have a mobile phone, but I rarely use it.  I would go so far as to say I dislike the damn thing, but is this the only option?  How do others manage who have upgraded in the same way?

[#2]

@Bluesplayer 

You go VOIP if you want to keep your landline. You can port your number within 30 days if you wish to keep it. Note that VOIP doesn't work during power cuts.

There are many VOIP providers but A&A seem to offer good deals and have good FAQ pages.

https://www.aa.net.uk/voice-and-mobile/voip-information/

Brian

[#3]

What you do is port your landline telephone number to a VoIP provider (such as A&A or Voipfone).

VoIP is a digital replacement for your existing analogue landline telephone, which works over the internet.

Therefore, you will either need a VoIP (ATA) adaptor to allow you to plug your existing telephone handset in to your broadband router, or you can buy a new VoIP phone system that simply plugs in to an ethernet socket on your home network.

BEWARE - do NOT try and port your phone number before making changes to your broadband, as removing the phone number from your Plusnet connection will cause your account to cease and you will lose your broadband and email, etc.

What you do is 'upgrade' your broadband FIRST to a broadband only connection (i.e. SoGEA 'fibre', of FTTP 'full fibre'), THEN once the upgrade is complete, you have 30 days in which to port your (disconnected) telephone number to a VoIP supplier.

[#4]

Cheers.

Never heard of VOIP.  I am dead keen on upgrading my broadband, and VOIP is the way to go, by the looks of it.

I am looking forward to the speed increase

[#5]

Good luck !

What are your broadband speeds now, and what are you hoping to upgrade to ?

[#6]

I am on this ...

Unlimited Fibreinc. Line rental
36 Mb estimated download speed
£26.88

The option is this ...

Full Fibre 300

300Mb estimated download speed

£31.99

[#7]

That looks like a good offer !

It is unusual for existing customers to be offered a contract price lower than new customers !

Don't hesitate too long as offers like that don't stay around for long !  😲

This is the new customer deal advertised right now -

[#8]

@Bluesplayer 

Only think to note with switching to VOIP is that unlike a landline phone your VOIP phone won't work if there's a power cut.  You can add a battery back up to keep it working for a short time.  May not matter to you if you don't often get power cuts though (matters to me mainly because we regularly lose power here).

[#9]

No [-Censored-] rings anyway bar for nuisance callers.

[#10]

@Bluesplayer 

With FTTP an Optical Network Terminator (ONT) is fitted to the inside of an external wall. There is a bit of leeway as to where this goes if you want to move your incoming connection but you would only find out on the day as to what's possible. The ONT requires a power source. The router is connected via an ethernet cable so can go anywhere you're happy to run cable.

FTTP should be more resilient in a power cut than FTTC as the Exchange will have better back up options and may not even be suffering a power cut at the same time. To keep a phone going you'd need power backup for the ONT, the router and your phone if it's a powered model.

If you use house extensions then you need to get the installer to leave the original master socket in place but disconnect the incoming copper cable.

Finally, what's your WiFi like? If poor, you might what to think about running ethernet cable to WiFI access points to give solid starting points. To get upstairs and external cable could be run. Not the cheapest of options but does give solid signals elsewhere in the house.

Brian