Phone line & Broadband for over 75 yr old

DullGreyGuy

EssexExile said:

Age is a strange thing, I'm 73 and use a mobile all the time, my sister is 75 and, despite all our efforts, just cannot use a mobile. I fear something major happening to me in the next year rendering unable to use my phone!

I think a lot depends on what you did when you were younger and your interests.

My mother worked in call centres and had been using a "computer" since the 1980s plus had me at a late age. She regularly uses her laptops, has two as she likes a large one for home and a small/light one to take out. She's late 70s now. 

Her younger sister worked in hospitality for many years, moved into selling new build homes and retired in her early 50s. Didnt know how to use a computer what so ever. She did have a mobile, was a smart phone as she wanted to keep up with the jones, but used it for phone calls and the very occasional text. 

Pete99

A&A voip is the cheapest option, once you‘ve set it up for her to use it’s just like a ordinary landline, you obviously have to buy her a voip phone or an ATA adapter to use an ordinary phone for Christmas and then it’s £1.44 month, 1.5p minute for calls, something I’ve noticed is the speech quality, much, much clearer than the traditional copper wire landline, especially important for the elderly with bad hearing, BT charge like a wounded bull for everything and doing it that way means that you can choose the cheapest broadband available and switch as needed without the ties of a copper landline.

littleboo

Whilst A&A is very good, I often recommend it and use it myself, its not comparable to something like BT Digital Voice, where the service demarcation is the analogue port on the router. For elderly or vulnerable people, what they often want is a fully managed voice service, A&A is not that. And the cheapest broadband available might be an Altnet using CGNAT which can present all sorts of issues. 

Pete99

If it was me I'd get the broadband ordered and set up in her house, then set up a VOIP phone in my own house using my broadband before she returns to her home, choose a number with her local dialling code for emergency services purposes, that way everything's up and running for her to use, from what I gather choosing BT Digital Voice ties you to BT, you can't transfer to another provider and can't transfer the phone number either at the moment, this is the cheapest and easiest way to go, but that's just me.