A landline phone that alerts when free call period expires?

starblood

A lot of telecom companies do a free 1st hour, but start charging if you continue the call beyond that.

I know a lot of phones will time the duration of a call but is there any phone on the market that will actually alert you (audible beep?) so you can hang up and redial before incurring charges?

It is for my elderly mother. She is the sort who will intend to make a 5 minute call and will lose track of time and stay on there for 2 hours. I know there are redialling services out there that do not have a time limit, but I would like a solution for the provider she is with at the moment.

Figgerty

I'm not aware of the existence of such a phone but I sometimes use a mechanical 59 minute timer if I do not wish to exceed the one hour call limit. Also, as my extended calls are usually to friends and they have similar call packages, they often remind me of the call length, and I in return remind them when they phone me.

jhp

If she is with BT and you could get her to put 1899 in front of geographical call she could speak as long as she liked 24/7 for just 5p a call.
www.1899.com

MyMateMartin

Attach a heavy-ish weight to the handset, so that after a while it gets too heavy to hold (tic).

I use the built in timer in my phone.

starblood

Thanks for all the replies. I've not come across a phone that does the alert thing but thought it would be worth asking.

I thought the phone makers would've got onto this with a lot of the telecoms only giving the first hour or so free - perhaps it is worth an email to a few of them