Do I really need a landline?

oldandgrumpy

After extricating myself from the nauseous contracting situation with Virgin Media, I have found that I can manage all my coms with a 3 dongle (at 3.6 mhz, noticeably faster than VM m ), skype and our mobiles. Why should I sign up for another landline?
Are there any advantages? Most other servers require a BT landline, with associated instalation costs, and it isn't mobile.

KimYeovil

If you don't need the bandwidth you don't need a landline.

Farway

One advantage of a landline would be for people phoning you. calling a mobile is not cheap, and not everyone has contract mobiles with inclusive minutes

But maybe your circle have no problems with this, if so then your no landline route would be fine

macman

One disadvantage with wireless broadband is that one dongle = one computer only connected at a time-not much use for a whole family of simultaneous surfers!

BexTech

Not wireless broadband myself, but cable broadband meant I didn't need a landline, so used VoIP (not Skype which is one of the dearer providers and proprietary) which had no monthly rental and you got for free a local number and if required voicemail and all the calling features.

jhp

If you ever did need to give a landline number in your local area code you could always get a free one from www.sipgate.co.uk , and divert your calls to free voicemail,messages are then delivered to your e-mail account as files.

jennifersaurya

One advantage of a landline would be for people phoning you.so if you feel that you need a landline so what to wait for .......

SemperFi

macman wrote: »

One disadvantage with wireless broadband is that one dongle = one computer only connected at a time-not much use for a whole family of simultaneous surfers!

You can buy a decent router to get around this "issue".

http://www.draytek.co.uk/products/vigor2910.html for example.

Jemma-T

I would dump my landline in a flash but mobile BB is poor here.

3 are starting to sell a router which allows you to plug in a dongle to essentially make it multi-user.

oldandgrumpy

Thanks to all responders. What a helpful lot you all are.

polyalloy

About landline number for people to call you, it's not a problem because you can use your mobile phone to receive landline call.

It has to be a smart phone and support SIP such as nokia n85, n79, e71 etc. You can get a landline number from voip sip provider such as sipgate. By input the necessary parameters in your sip setting, you can receive landline phone calls on your mobile and also call out using voip.
You need
1. landline number from voip service provider
2. a smart phone supporting sip through WAP or wifi.
3. unlimited mobile internet access

conclusion: it's not essential to have a bt or virgin media landline or internet service. Best for light internet user living in area with strong 3G signal. But it's not for every one such as heavy downloaders.