Landline goes... alternatives?

sarahTT

It seems by Jan 2027 landlines will be history. I've looked into alternatives and while I'm willing to move relatives and friends to mobile numbers, it would be better if I could keep our old LL number (some are elderly and really don't like change). So I understand the router would have to be upgraded to support VOIP and if that's done correctly we could just connect our old (well, not so old) DECT phones and it should work.
What I'm less clear about who is providing the actual service, i.e. who do we have to pay for our calls... the ISP? Another company? And also, could we keep our current LL number or would we get a new one? If the latter we might just as well skip that whole VOIP thing and just give our relatives/friends a mobile number and be done with it.

DullGreyGuy

sarahTT said:

It seems by Jan 2027 landlines will be history. I've looked into alternatives and while I'm willing to move relatives and friends to mobile numbers, it would be better if I could keep our old LL number (some are elderly and really don't like change). So I understand the router would have to be upgraded to support VOIP and if that's done correctly we could just connect our old (well, not so old) DECT phones and it should work.
What I'm less clear about who is providing the actual service, i.e. who do we have to pay for our calls... the ISP? Another company? And also, could we keep our current LL number or would we get a new one? If the latter we might just as well skip that whole VOIP thing and just give our relatives/friends a mobile number and be done with it.

No, the router doesn't have to be upgraded to support VOIP, thats just one option. You can also buy an adapter to allow the use of an old DECT phone with VOIP without changing the router or you could replace the DECT phone with a dedicated VOIP phone. We've had the later for 15 years or more. 

Who provides the service is your choice. You can buy it from your ISP as a bundle with your broadband or can buy it from a dedicated company like Voipfone, Vonage or SIPgate.

You can also install a VOIP app on your mobile so your elderly people call your old landline number and your mobile rings.  

iniltous

I suspect you are over complicating this , if your relatives and friends already have broadband and telephone , chances are they pay one company for both services, so  ( when advised ) they simply plug the phone into the router , that’s it , the telephone bill comes in exactly as it does now , if the current router is incompatible the provider sends a new router out before the switch to IP telephony is done , if they happen to be a customer of a company that are getting out of the telephone business ( like Plusnet ) they will offer a change to a sister company, BT or EE or tell the customer is telephone is important to switch to another ISP that does provide telephone services or use a third party VoIP  provider , if the go down the third party VoIP , they pay the VoIP provider for the telephone service not the broadband supplier .

Vodafone and Sky and others already have customers that connect to the router for telephony, so customers not on BT will at some point have to connect to the router , like BT customers do , but it’s not an issue , they have broadband from someone and the same company ( with a few exceptions ) will still provide both services.

The only customers where it’s a challenge to replace an old fashioned landline telephone service are those without broadband, or those that have telephone from BT and  broadband from someone else , and it really depends on who the broadband  is with , for these ‘line share’ customers they will have to pick one company to provide both service , and drop the other one , there are only  a very small number that have BT telephone and broadband from someone else on the same ‘line’ .

With telephone with no broadband from anyone , if it’s BT ( for example ) they have two solutions, the one they will use ( but probably much nearer to January 2027 ) is they connect to broadband and an ATA , but it’s located at the exchange, so from the customer perspective nothing changes , no power cut concerns etc .

There is no need to use a separate Voip provider unless they want to 

sarahTT

DullGreyGuy said:

You can also install a VOIP app on your mobile so your elderly people call your old landline number and your mobile rings.  

That sounds not bad as keeping the LL number is my main concern. No changes for others and  we have everything on a mobile. Thanks for this, will deffo look into it!
Also many thanks to @iniltous for the informative answer!