BT Landline replacement-

meg00

Elderly couple have been informed that BT landline will be pulled soon. BT also supplies internet access.

I am looking for a mobile replacement that will fill the gap.

Requirements are:

2 handsets ( upstairs and downstairs)

Largish screen

Voicemail messages

Contacts list

AND some sort of permanent charging hub that the phone will sit on, so they don't have to remember to charge them.

Cost is not an issue as they are currently paying over £280 per quarter for landline & internet access.

 Couple have PC's, laptops and tablets so are reasonably media savvy, but rely on landline for mostly day to day stuff, particularly GP & Hospital contacts.

Thanks in advance. MEG.

littleboo

By "pulled", presumably they mean it will be migrated to Digital Voice. Is there any reason they wouldn't use that? And they shouldn't be paying £280/quarter

elsien

Digital Voice | Digital Home Phone | BT

p00hsticks

littleboo said:

 And they shouldn't be paying £280/quarter

I imagine that that will include call charges so it's very much going to depend on how much they use the phone and who they are ringing....  

Olinda99

Get them to switch to BT fibre 1 or BT fibre 2 they will pay about 29 pounds a month

This would include landline - they can either use a new handset (supplied free) which connects to the router via Wi-Fi or they can plug their old handsets into the back of the router

movedto03

Check what they are paying for their call charges.

A few short weekday daytime calls per week to ordinary landline and 03 numbers charged at per-minute rates soon exceeds the monthly cost of an anytime 'unlimited calls' package.

If they are calling mobile numbers, the package needs to offer inclusive calls to those: many landline providers now have this.

If they are calling premium rate 084, 087, 09 numbers or DQ 118 numbers they need to stop doing that.

Are there any other expensive calls being made? Offshore? International?

J_B

We have the little known BT package of 700 minutes per month to land and mobiles - cheaper than 'unlimited'

Internaut

When they switch you from copper to Digital Voice, you should just be able to plug your landline phone plus adapter into the POTS point on your smart hub. BT should supply the adapter. 

It’s survivable, but bearing in mind POTS could survive human extinction, quite frankly bloody awful and short sited. 

movedto03

It's supposedly called "progress". And, as with all such miracles of modern technology, comes with a long list of drawbacks. 

VoIPMan

In reality the loss of power problem for the landline has been an issue for decades. Anybody that uses DECT phones - the cordless ones that have a base station and extensions that sit in charging cradles when not in use - would find that their phones don't work in a power cut. 

Anyway, that aside. the simplest way of keeping everything as it was when changing to FTTP is to use an adapter and plug your DECT base station into it. BT would try to keep you on their service but personally I'd look around for alternatives that give decent customer support and don't get you tied into BT for years.