Keeping a land line

Guinness-Cat

We moved into a newbuild house in 2015, and currently, the only internet options on the estate are via OFNL - which limits choice and is a bit more expensive than other providers.

a couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd try out 3 mobile's 5G  service, and it appears to work surprisingly well here and is less than half the price of what we are paying via See the Light.

The only issue is that my Wife is convinced we need to keep a landline for family to contact us. I'm trying to convince her otherwise, but in case I can't, does anyone have any experience of using VOIP companies to provide a landline and whether landline numbers can be ported in a similar way to mobile ones? 

jlfrs01

Many of the carriers have been offering VOIP services to businesses for many years and are now beginning to run these out to home customers too, in fact BT have already started to do this and expect it to complete in 2025. It's called "BT Cloud Voice". From what I've read this is moving the traditional analogue-based landline services to 100% digital at no cost to customers so to answer your question, the landline number should remain the same.

Picking up on your first point though - does anyone actually need a landline? I've not had one in operation in the homes I've lived in for at least the last 5 years, I disconnected my landline phones as the only calls I got were from cold-callers and robots. My mobile phone works perfectly fine and my carrier Vodafone actually highlights any calls from cold-callers and suspected fraudsters so I can decline and block them from calling again.

I use WhatsApp a great deal to make and receive the majoirty of my call, it's free and I can also make video calls.

400ixl

If the concern is that there are family members who need to be able to phone a local rate number and not a mobile number, the a VOIP service and an app on your mobile phones is all that is needed. No need for a physical phone in the house.

Owain_Moneysaver

I've been using a 'landline' from Sipgate for 10+ years on VOIP. 
Yes, landline numbers can be ported to/from/across VoIP operators - subject to porting arrangements.