Do I need my home phone . . . land line . . . both or either?

The_Salad

We subscribe to BT Total Broadband package Option 2. So we have land line for phone and broadband. The Mrs is just about to buy her first smartphone and looks like to go for a Samsung Galaxy II with T Mobile for £26 per month (2 year contract) which gives her 2000minutes talk time each month.

Based on that new smartphone deal we're thinking . . . . . do we really need a landline or home phone anymore?

Any thoughts . . . ?

macman

No line rental = no ADSL broadband.
Wireless internet is rarely an adequate substitute. And you don't say what data allowance you will get with the smartphone. You may get 2000 mins talktime, but that won't get you online.

The_Salad

The smartphone deal is unlimited data . . . .

I think we'd keep the line rental for Broadband for the laptop, which is £129 per year. But can you just pay for line rental . . . . so could we get rid of the home phone which is £15.15 per month?

Heinz

Your line rental is your home phone.

System

To get broadband on the laptop, you will need to pay
(a) what is misleadingly called line rental. In fact, it's a minimum charge, irrespective of what services you want. As you say, with BT it's £129 (if you pay a year up front).
(b) the charge for whatever broadband option you want. BT's option 2 including up to 40GB usage a month costs (subject to offers and special deals) £18 a month. For that, BT throw in unlimited incoming calls and calls to honest 01 02 and 03 numbers evenings and weekends.

If you have aged friends or relatives who do make calls from their landline, they can call your landline at zero marginal cost to them at least evenings and weekends, and possibly 24/7. Calling a mobile from a landline will cost them a minimum of 20p (including calls answered by your voicemail if you are cruel enough to have voicemail switched on on your mobile).

The_Salad

Heinz wrote: »

Your line rental is your home phone.

Yes but no but yes but . . . . we pay £129 annually for line rental. And we pay £15.15 per month for the home phone. Can't we do away with the £15:15 and just pay for line rental?

System

What exactly is this package for which you are (currently) paying £15.15 a month? It sounds like a broadband+calls package. There is no BT calls package which costs anything like £15.15. Anytime calls to honest 01 02 03 numbers costs £4.90 a month.

And includes, within monthly limits, calls to the revenue-sharing 0845 numbers used by banks etc. These are likely to cost your wife 30p a minute, or more, from a mobile.
http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/landline/line-rental-and-calling-plans

psychic_teabag

£15.15 did strike me as quite a lot for a calls package. With your line rental you are probably getting weekend calls free, and possibly evening calls. Unless you make a lot of calls during the day, £15 seems expensive. (And you could use things like 18185 to make cheaper daytime calls. Or use a VOIP service.)

Looks like BT charge £5/month for anytime calls.

Perhaps you're also getting things like caller ID and whatnot.

Herongull

You can get plusnet broadband for £6.50 per month, so why pay £15.15?

Sounds very expensive unless you do lots of streaming or whatever......

keystone

Herongull wrote: »

You can get plusnet broadband for £6.50 per month,

On top of which you still need to pay for the copper that brings you the broadband. Surprisingly enough that would be line rental.

so why pay £15.15?.....

What does £ 6.50 plus the cost of line rental add up to? Its more than £ 15.15. Your logic escapes me to be honest.

Cheers

psychic_teabag

OP is paying £15.15 plus the cost of the line rental.