Why do I need a landline?

Nilrem

bordercars wrote: »

I can see the OP point. bb comes down a line, why cant the BB fee cover a portion of line rental if you want to go that way, rather than force a phone contract on you. my BT home line also does bt vision etc, we have free evening and weekend calls, but never use the phone. Mistake there, you have to make a number of calls to maintain the free "ness" if not you get charged for not using it. I call my business number once a week now and listen to the answer machine to qualify.

The thing is, it costs the same to keep the line active and in good condition regardless of if it's being used for voice or BB (and with voice they can actually make extra money on it).

IIRC BT etc don't require you to have anything other than basic phone line, which is basically there to cover the costs of the physical line.

Buzby

Satellite Bb is a non starter, and Sky have no satellites - they pay SES in Luxembourg for carriage so will have no interest in such a service. In any event, most services use satellite to only deliver (downlink) data. The user still requires some method of sending data (uplink) and his can be a phone line or ADSL link.

On advice from BT, OFCOM agreed that a phone line remanded mandatory for service, even though it may never be used - this may change in the future, but I'm not holding my breath.