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back to article Landlines: The tech that just won't die

For a huge number of Brits, mobiles have become our primary way of communicating, even when we're at home. When a call comes in, we know it's ours. We can reply with a text, or use apps like WhatsApp to communicate with friends abroad. Increasingly, we don't rely on our landline phones and, thanks to lax policing of the …

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  1. Tsung

    With Virgin Media you can have a broadband line wtihout a telephone. It might look more expensive that the "bundle" option, but the bundle prices rarely include the £16.99 (i guess) extra line rental fee.

    Once you add that back in, you're back to or exceeded the broadband only cost.

    I don't have a land line, it's great no cold calls at any time.

    8 1 Reply
    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      I get no cold calls on my ADSL landline 'cause I don't have a phone plugged into it!

      18 0 Reply
      1. Number6
        Reply Icon

        I have an Asterisk PBX controlling my landline (and a bit of VoIP too). The general principle is that it looks up incoming CLI in a database and anything marked as a scammer gets answered with a recorded message (the 'weasels' one, for those who know Asterisk) and it hangs up, all without ringing the house phone. Very efficient. I also wrote a little app for the PC that logs all calls and pops up a little message from the system tray with the number and the results of the database lookup, so if it's a known wanted number, it'll be clear that I probably ought to answer the phone, otherwise I plug the number into Google to see who it is while the answerphone deals with the call itself.

        3 0 Reply
    2. Nigel Whitfield.
      Reply Icon

      Back before the merger, when I enquired about broadband and TV (just after OnDigital had packed up), I stressed that I didn't want a phone line, as I was perfectly happy with the ISDN. At that point, I was told that if I didn't have the phone line, I'd have to have the most expensive TV package.

      In the end, it was pointless anyway - they claimed they didn't have the budget to cable all five flats in the house, so I couldn't have service. No one else actually wanted it, but they said it was their policy to do the whole building, and they couldn't afford that, so I couldn't get service.

      That dates back to when they cabled the street, and we didn't sign the papers for wayleave, so they just left the little flap at the end of the garden, and that's it. Even now, if I check the coverage on the website, selecting my house number says I'm not in a Virgin Media area, while the houses on either side are able to get everything.

      2 0 Reply
    3. MatthewSt
      Reply Icon

      Same Costs

      The Virgin Media point illustrates perfectly why this still happens. Not providing you a phone line and phone service doesn't decrease the costs to these companies as the amount of kit involved and the amount of wiring to do is identical. So the cost to the providing company is going to be the same whether you take the phone service or not.

      This means that the cost they charge you is going to be the same whether you want the service or not, therefore why (in the case of BT/Openreach) should they offer it separately.

      Let's face it, companies like Plusnet wouldn't be able to offer Broadband at £2.50 per month if you weren't paying line rental. That wouldn't even cover the initial cost of someone ringing up going "can I use it yet?"

      4 0 Reply
      1. Nigel Whitfield.
        Reply Icon

        Re: Same Costs

        Certainly, you won't be £2.50 broadband without some sort of rental. But it's the slow creep that is so objectionable and the piling on of things like that compulsory weekend calls bundle that is objectionable - and dishonest, to a degree.

        Of course many firms do this. My mother's phone is on Orange on what used to be a 'Virgin Equivalent' price plan. In the name of 'simplification' that now bills not by the second but by the minute or half minute.

        Bundling things together can be a good idea and save people money. But in not allowing unbundling, firms like BT are just using it to hike their margins while they cling to old business models

        4 0 Reply
      2. Sam 15
        Reply Icon

        Re: Same Costs

        "Let's face it, companies like Plusnet wouldn't be able to offer Broadband at £2.50 per month if you weren't paying line rental. "

        £2.50 per month to start, but do look out for the 400% increase after 12 months.

        0 0 Reply
    4. jde96
      Reply Icon

      I recently ceased our landline and TV with Virgin Media, and went for Asterisk SIP over the broadband, which works quite nicely.

      However, I had Virgin come back on a couple of days later and say that if we kept the landline, we could pay about £7 LESS a month than just having the boadband on, for 12 months, with no extra commitment etc. Obviously we said yes, then just didn't plug the landline back in.

      3 0 Reply
    5. James O'Shea
      Reply Icon

      Cold calls?

      I get cold calls all the time. Well, I used to. Not so much anymore, they no longer love me. Perhaps it has something to do with the way I'd answer them.

      1 if i had some time to spare, I'd do my very best to keep them on the line for as long as I possibly could. Every second I spent talking to them was a second they weren't making money. I would drag the call out, and drag it out, and drag it out some more, until _they_ hung up on _me_. After a while, those twits would stop calling.

      2 if I _didn't_ have time to spare, I'd use the air horn I kept near the phone. There's nothing like a nice high-decibel blast straight into the earpiece to get your point across. For some reason, those twits would stop calling after a few times, too.

      A very nice young man cold-called me on Friday. Apparently I'd requested that he call when I registered at one of his company's 'affiliate websites'. By the time he finally hung up, I'd got a nice list of websites to never go near again, and his sales average for the day was shot. Poor boy. I'll bet that his supervisor isn't going to be happy with him after reviewing the recording of _that_ call. How sad. Too bad.

      5 0 Reply
      1. Martin Budden Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Cold calls?

        Easy way to deal with cold calls:

        "Hello? What's that? OK, yes that does sound very interesting, hang on a moment please there's someone at the door, I'll be right back........"

        Then you put the phone on the table (don't hang up!) and walk away. I've no idea how long they keep waiting before they hang up, but it works :-)

        2 0 Reply
    6. Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face
      Reply Icon

      I've done this for the last 6 years. We bought a set of VOIP phones (Siemens Gigaset somethingororther) and used DrayTel to get a geographic PAYG number. I seem to remember my last BT phone bill was about £56 for the quarter, with next to no calls. Oh, and with DrayTel we get caller ID thrown in and cheaper call charges. The whole thing paid for itself in under a year.

      0 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Simpler and cheaper than VoIP?

        "We bought a set of VOIP phones [...] my last BT phone bill was about £56 for the quarter, with next to no calls."

        OK, but alternatively punters could skip the VoIP, use kit+services they already have (existing or new phone with anon rejection, existing line rental with BT), and use one of the cheap calls providers (Brand X Telecom etc) for outgoing calls. (This only works with BT [1], other telcos can and sometimes do choose to block the indirect carriers). Just dial the alternate carrier's prefix and your call is routed via them rather than BT, and the call is charged accordingly:

        Brand X Telecom: UK landline calls for 5p or so for an hour?

        BT UK landline calls (out of compulsory-but-unwanted bundle): 15p (?!) setup (!) charge plus per minute charge as well?

        How's that supposed to work, Mrs Ofcom?

        [Brand X Telecom isn't a real company name, but my previous post with the real company name in it has vanished without trace, despite other vendor names such as Gigaset seemingly being acceptable in this topic.

        [1] Since the original version of this was posted and deleted, I've also spotted that Mr Ofcom (as it then was) has withdrawn the requirement for BT to not block indirect calls providers. Nice. Fortunately mine still works. For now. ]

        0 0 Reply
    7. Badvok
      Reply Icon

      "Once you add that back in, you're back to or exceeded the broadband only cost."

      At the moment VM 152Mb broadband only is 50p cheaper than broadband + phone. Personally, I think having an emergency phone line is worth the extra 50p, I just wish they'd be a bit more honest in their pricing (silly me, this is the UK broadband market after all).

      0 0 Reply
  2. TheProf
    Unhappy

    Call filtering

    A problem is that a lot of phone calls from institutions don't have a caller ID for the filtering system to pick up.

    I've had several NUMBER NOT AVAILABLE or WITHHELD displays on the phone that turned out to be important calls from hospitals or credit card companies.

    Also some bogus insurance calls are using fake numbers. I've been getting ones starting with 0151, the prefix for Merseyside numbers.

    19 0 Reply
    1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Call filtering

      This was an argument I had with the BBC for many years when I worked there: most internal phones had direct dialing incoming, but when dialing out were sent with no CID. This was claimed to be because of the group hunting on the outgoing exchange, but it would have surely been in the bounds of possibility for the main switchboard number to have been sent.

      If an IP address from behind a firewall and an NAT router and an ISP can survive the journey, I'm sure that the same can be done for a phone number.

      14 0 Reply
      1. chivo243 Silver badge
        Reply Icon
        Unhappy

        Re: Call filtering

        If the company/organization can/will not identify themselves I simply don't answer. My company is one of the will nots, as is my car dealership, my airline of choice and another that slips my mind at them moment.

        7 0 Reply
        1. Barry Rueger
          Reply Icon

          Re: Call filtering

          Years ago I figured out that a call coming from a toll-free number, or a blocked number, or no ID at all, is one that can safely be ignored.

          If, by some miracle, it's a call that I actually would have wanted, they'll leave voice-mail.

          To me a phone call with no proper ID is the equivalent to an email that has been spam filtered - the only way I'll bother to look at it is if it can give some real evidence that it's worth my time.

          I'm not alone - if you've ever worked for a polling company you'll know that significant portion of the telephonic population simply don't answer any call that they don't recognize on Caller ID.

          (Note: the term "land line" is a bit much these days, at least in Canada, where large chunks of the population get their "home phone" from a cable TV company or other non-copper provider.)

          (And yeah, we get shafted by all phone companies, repeatedly and with great passion. My favourite is a voicemail package that only allows three messages at a time, forcing you to cough up $5 or $10 a month for a "real" mailbox.")

          2 0 Reply
        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Call filtering

          " I simply don't answer."

          Not necessarily a good approach. Our GP doesn't give CLI. It's easier to answer the Withheld calls than find a new GP.

          I get very few - almost disappointing few - nuisance calls these days. I think I must have got myself on a do-no-call list....

          3 0 Reply
          1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: Call filtering

            Not necessarily a good approach. Our GP doesn't give CLI. It's easier to answer the Withheld calls than find a new GP.

            My GP doesn't call me out of the blue. Obviously if I've called someone to make an appointment and am expecting a return call, or if I'm waiting for a delivery and know the driver will phone to say "just where is your house?" then I may answer.

            I get very few - almost disappointing few - nuisance calls these days. I think I must have got myself on a do-no-call list....

            Mine come in bursts, I can have a month with 3-4 every day, then a month with none. Going to my online account with a local supermarket and replacing my number with that for their own complaints department made an amazing difference to some marketing calls, it was clear who they were selling my details to.

            3 0 Reply
        3. AndrueC Silver badge
          Reply Icon
          Facepalm

          Re: Call filtering

          and another that slips my mind at them moment.

          GP's surgery perhaps? A lot of them withhold their number. Mine does although the receptionist apparently hasn't grasped the basic principals of why it seems. She left a message on my answering machine saying asking so-and-so to call the Dr's surgery to discuss the results of their test. It was a wrong number.

          0 0 Reply
        4. Glenturret Single Malt
          Reply Icon

          Re: Call filtering

          I used to have a 1571 reply message set up saying "If your number is not clearly shown, I will not be answering and you have now wasted the cost of a call. If your call really is important, please leave a voice message." Unfortunately, I had to abandon that when they started charging for 1571.

          0 0 Reply
    2. A Non e-mouse Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Call filtering

      I've had several NUMBER NOT AVAILABLE or WITHHELD displays on the phone that turned out to be important calls from hospitals or credit card companies.

      The police have this annoying habit too for sending no number - ever. Why can't they at least send their main switchboard number? If it's coming from their main control room, why not get them to send 999 and enforce the telcos so that ONLY the police can send a 999 CLI?

      At work I occasionally get calls to trace 999 calls from our system (usually just some Muppet not able to use a fax machine) The police give you bugger all information about themselves and the only way to prove it is the police is to call them back on 101. But they then take ages (15-20 minutes) to answer. And then they don't always recognise the reference they give you. Then they phone you back and complain that you didn't call them back!

      The police really don't help themselves, do they?

      25 0 Reply
      1. Andy Non Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Call filtering / police

        The police can be very difficult to contact unless you make a 999 call. I tried to make a non-urgent call to the "local" police in Derby some time ago; number taken from phone book. No answer after 30 minutes so I rang their head office number. The operator there sounded exasperated when I explained that there was apparently "nobody there" and she tried to connect me. Took nearly an hour to get through. One way of cutting down on crime figures - make it very difficult to report problems.

        18 0 Reply
      2. Alan Brown Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Call filtering

        "The police have this annoying habit too for sending no number - ever."

        My Fritz system diverts all non-CLI calls to a message telling the caller to redial with it enabled, or dial a £1.50/min 070 number instead.

        To their credit, the police do actually do call back with cli enabled. Most other outfits won't and don't call the 070 either.

        2 0 Reply
    3. Nigel Whitfield.
      Reply Icon

      Re: Call filtering

      One way round that is to filter to an IVR, which is what I do.

      If a number's withheld or unavailable, it can go straight to voicemail, which is what I do on my business number.

      But on the number in the phone book, people get a message telling them to go away if they're a cold caller/survey, to press one number to reach me, and another to leave a message.

      On the ex-directory number, they get told to enter the results of a bit of maths. I don't see why I should have to speak to stupid people :)

      And, numbers for the elderly and/or technologically bewildered members of the family are whitelisted.

      8 0 Reply
      1. phil dude
        Reply Icon
        Joke

        Re: Call filtering

        I like the "bit of maths" and would throw in lines from Red Dwarf....

        P.

        4 0 Reply
      2. chivo243 Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Call filtering

        @NW

        Also adding an outgoing message on the landline, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, you know my mobile number, please call me there." If they aren't friends, they can leave a message and you can decide if their call has merit and deserves a return call.

        0 0 Reply
    4. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Call filtering

      I've had several NUMBER NOT AVAILABLE or WITHHELD displays on the phone that turned out to be important calls from hospitals or credit card companies.

      I don't answer any calls which present no number, or show a number I don't recognize. That applies to landline and mobile.

      If the call is important, they'll leave a message. If they don't leave a message the call is clearly not important.

      18 0 Reply
      1. Dr Paul Taylor
        Reply Icon

        Re: Call filtering

        The problem with not answering a call from a WITHHELD number is that it may really be important. Once I did not answer such a call because I was being pestered by someone else who was withholding their number. However, that call turned out to have been from the hospital where my father was, to tell me that he had suffered a life-threatening incident. (He actually died six weeks later.)

        When companies (hospitals, universities) send out letters they do so on headed notepaper. When they send emails they use their own domain names. How is it acceptable that, as policy, their outgoing phone calls look like scams?

        PS The most effective way to stop cold callers is to get a new phone number, not have it in the directory and never write it on forms.

        17 0 Reply
        1. resudaed
          Reply Icon

          Re: Call filtering

          Unfortunately not publishing your number wont help much. I work or a small telco and we routinely spot spammers sequentially dialing through ranges. The active ranges themselves are also easy to find, Ofcom publish the active ranges on a few giant CSVs on their website.

          As far as filtering goes, the CLI is easily faked when the call is originated via SIP.

          7 1 Reply
          1. Nigel Whitfield.
            Reply Icon

            Re: Call filtering

            Yep; I can easily spot the sequential diallers, as my SIP numbers are the old ISDN MSNs, so ten in a sequence.

            Before I put in the aggressive filtering, it was not at all uncommon for me to get a call on two of the lower numbers that I currently use, and find it silent, before finally, when it rang on one higher up in the sequence, to have some useless telesales wonk on the end of the line.

            You can fondly imagine that not giving anyone your number will help, but it doesn't. There are a huge number of companies out there that just don't give a damn about the TPS. Yes, some of them are abroad, but many are in the UK too. As them the name of the company, and they'll hang up damn quickly if they think you're about to complain.

            The TPS and ICO really don't seem to give a shit about this, their blather about how it's hard to stop overseas calls merely helps to disguise the fact that they do sod all about the ones in the UK as well. Given that the TPS is run by people who actually think 'Direct Marketing' is a good idea, it's not that much of a surprise.

            15 0 Reply
            1. Dr Paul Taylor
              Reply Icon

              Re: Call filtering

              You can fondly imagine that not giving anyone your number will help, but it doesn't.

              Obviously I tell my friends what my number is. I admit that not putting it in the directory or on forms does not completely eliminate nuisance calls, but there are very few of them.

              4 1 Reply
            2. TonyHoyle
              Reply Icon

              Re: Call filtering

              The TPS is simply not enforced.. it even says when you report a violation (or said, about a year ago before I gave up on it) that individual reports are only aggregated.

              In fact, a quick google shows it's worse.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22833965

              You're *more* likely to be called if you're on the TPS, because the 'direct marketing association' just sent out a big list with your number on it..

              8 0 Reply
              1. Jim 59
                Reply Icon

                Re: Call filtering

                The TPS was excellent until 3 or 4 years ago. When I joined in 2004 (or whenever), spam calls dropped to zero immediately. Then is seems they stopped policing it. The reasons for this need to be investigated. Perhaps by an intrepid Reg reporter...

                4 0 Reply
                1. werdsmith Silver badge
                  Reply Icon

                  Re: Call filtering

                  Some time ago I worked for a company that provided data-mining tech for direct marketers. TPS was applied religiously to the point of disciplinary action for failure, along with other suppressions such as Mortascreen (so people wouldn't call to speak to the recently deceased). It's not hard to do, but it does cost money and I suspect some are cutting corners to save cash.

                  There is even an indicator to restrict calling to "not during live football" or "not during Coronation Street" etc.

                  0 0 Reply
        2. AndrueC Silver badge
          Reply Icon
          Stop

          Re: Call filtering

          How is it acceptable that, as policy, their outgoing phone calls look like scams?

          I think it's mainly to protect patient privacy. Not everyone wants their partner or family to know that they are awaiting the results of a test especially since the only reason ours calls is if the test shows a problem. Some people might not even want family to know they've been to the GP recently.

          3 0 Reply
      2. htq
        Reply Icon

        Re: Call filtering

        Hopefully you'd never have to call 111. When they call back it is listed as number unknown.

        0 0 Reply
    5. Jason Hindle
      Reply Icon

      Re: Not had any fake insurance claim calls for a while.

      At home, I string them along with the story about me being left a paraplegic, having been run off the road by a police car. After I get to the punchline*, they usually hang up and don't call back.

      * And then the corrupt bastards arrested me; two counts of driving s stolen vehicle and driving without a licence.

      9 0 Reply
    6. illiad
      Reply Icon

      Re: Call filtering

      you dont have to be a tech wiz or that rich to filter out the nasties...

      just search for 'call barring phone' will get many, including this.. :)

      http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1637753

      If you go for the Panasonic, you will get a great quality DECT phone, that will bar 20 numbers! (it looks like your number is 'busy' )

      you can set up 'night mode' so that if the number is NOT in your phone book, it will not ring, but will 'light up' and go to voicemail.. If you want to block 'withheld' nums, some models will block those..

      Android has 'afirewall' that can customise what happens..

      0 0 Reply
  3. Andy Non Silver badge

    I cancelled my landline a couple of years ago.

    Here in France, Orange has something of a monopoly on land lines and in rural areas the only internet available until recently was dial-up or expensive satellite. Cable will never reach isolated rural properties. I had to put up with very poor quality dial-up until two years ago and pay through the nose for a land line that we rarely ever used but was needed just for internet access.

    Finally, technology has caught up and SFR produced a mobile internet gadget. It is essentially a mobile phone that sits on the window ledge and broadcasts WiFi. Don't know the technical term for it. However, it allowed me to cancel the land line and to have fast internet. Much cheaper, more reliable and faster than the crappy offerings of Orange.

    3 1 Reply
    1. Timbo
      Reply Icon

      Re: I cancelled my landline a couple of years ago.

      Orange and Vodaphone (and others I'm sure) have devices that provide wifi access to your laptop or tablet. They work over the 3G network (and I'm sure in time, 4G).

      One of the more common units is the Huawei E585, but there are others.

      So, if you only need internet access, there are options available so you don't need a landline. Once 4G is available in my area, I'll just use the tether on my mobile and get rid of the landline and the expensive monthly cost.

      1 0 Reply
      1. Andy Non Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: I cancelled my landline a couple of years ago.

        Yes, mine is a Huawei box. For international calls we use Skype. Great not be reliant on the land line any more. It used to cost €34 per month for the land line plus another €20 per month on top of that for poor quality unreliable dial-up internet. Now we have 3G internet capped at 12 GB per month for €25. Half the price for a far superior service! It got to the stage with dial-up that it needed to be connected almost 24/7 just to keep up with system updates! Much of the time it only worked at 22k; but then the phone lines are very old and badly maintained - the line is dangling from the telegraph pole up the road so the cows can play at skipping with it. Orange weren't interested in repairing it because "it still works".

        1 0 Reply
      2. Sarah Balfour
        Reply Icon

        Re: I cancelled my landline a couple of years ago.

        Vodafone is the spawn of Satan. I was mugged a couple of years ago, and had my, rather expensive, North Face rucksack nicked with just about everything I owned of any value in it. I did everything you're supposed to do; went to the plod, got a crime ref, went to the local Vodafone shop (this all happened in Sheffield), and told them to close my account (or so I thought) after providing them with the crime ref.

        I guess it was partly my fault, because I didn't ask the jobsworth to provide me with written confirmation that he'd closed the account, but I'm autistic, I'd just had all my worldly goods nicked, so I wasn't exactly thinking straight.

        I somehow got my mother to cancel the direct debit, but for months and months afterwards, we were receiving letters from DCAs and, every time they sent one, the cunts added £100 or so to the total! In the end, I was staring down a bill for almost £3k, which my father ended up paying just to get the fuckers off our backs!

        What's their current slogan - 'More Power To You'…? I don't fucking THINK so! I only went with them because, at the time, they were the only MSP to offer a 'non-contract contract', i.e. you still paid monthly, but you weren't tied to any specific length of time.

        Then, a few days later, I was walking down Fargate, when I noticed a Vodafone receipt on the ground. On the back was printed: "Proudly Supports The National Autistic Society" - they couldn't have cared less that I was autistic; I was in that shop, trying to sort out not getting whacked with a massive bill, and at least three times I was threatened with having the fuzzies called on me! They didn't, but it was a similar story in Starbucks when I was forced to kip rough one winter. It was well below zero, and I didn't dare try to kip in case, well, that was it. I accidentally fell asleep, and the next thing I knew I was being knocked to the floor by 3, not exactly small, fuzzies. The manager yelled at me, "We don't want your type in here; you're filthy, you stink, you never buy anything and you're bad for business. Regulars won't come in if you scum are, they're afraid they'll get robbed!" It was December, as I recall, and who do Starbucks always support at Crimbo…? Shelter.

        Going back to Vodafone, I don't understand WTF Ofcom can't force 'em to quit penalising crime victims; what if I - or anyone - had been seriously injured, spent several weeks in hospital, only to come out to find a £££s bill…? I REALLY don't get the point of having a regulator if it won't (can't?) regulate. It's not just me, it's happened to thousands.

        8 3 Reply
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I cancelled my landline a couple of years ago.

      Much cheaper, more reliable and faster than the crappy offerings of Orange.

      You're lucky. I had slow (nominal 1Mbit/s, often shaped to give 10 kbit/s or worse) DSL from Free and tried to switch to SFR, who offered me 2Mbit/s + a 3G dongle for my laptop. After 8 weeks of regular calls every Monday to check on progress, always answered with "there's a technical problem, someone will call you" (they never did) SFR simply cancelled my order on the pretext the the line wasn't 'suitable'.

      I went to Orange, signed for their DSL at 11am, and took the router away with me. At 7pm the same day I had a 2Mbit/s working line, no traffic shaping. Orange did in 8 hours what SFR couldn't do in 8 weeks. It's now running at 4Mbit/s after I called their technical support line and pointed out that my line (also wet string strung from poles) should be able to do better judging by the noise figures.

      0 0 Reply
  4. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

    Line installation

    I recently moved into a new gaff. I was gob-smacked by the extortionate installation fee BT wanted to charge to re-connect the line. I think it was around £150. Fortunately, A&A charged a somewhat lower fee for their no-calls line ;-)

    6 0 Reply
    1. Nigel Whitfield.
      Reply Icon

      Re: Line installation

      Yep; it used to be a lot less if the line was already there, but that seems to be one of the ways they're making up for losing business elsewhere these days.

      0 0 Reply
      1. Vince
        Reply Icon

        Re: Line installation

        They still do offer this - if you move into a property with an available line (eg it's still connected all the way back to the exchange...) you'll get reconnection at wholesale level for a lot less (whether your provider passes that on is another matter...)

        1 0 Reply
    2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: A Non e-mouse Re: Line installation

      ".....I was gob-smacked by the extortionate installation fee BT wanted to charge to re-connect the line....." A mate moved into a flat "with a BT line" just outside the M25. Unfortunately, the previous tenant had unbundled the line to another provider, run up a massive bill calling Pakistan, then skipped the country without paying. My mate was told the phone company wouldn't release the line for BT to reconnect unless someone paid the outstanding bill (plus the £150 BT reconnection fee you mentioned as a "new line"!). My mate told them to get stuffed, got a Vodafone dongle for Internet access and used his mobile instead of a landline, he says he doesn't miss having a landline at all.

      2 0 Reply
      1. SolidSquid
        Reply Icon

        Re: A Non e-mouse Line installation

        Whoever it was was bullshitting your mate. I just moved into a place and TalkTalk had put a hold on the phone line because money was owed. I'd already contacted Plusnet about getting internet, and when I found out about this I called Plusnet to let them know and they got the line transferred. £150 to reconnect the line is news to me too, the only charge they mentioned was something like £50 for connecting a new line if it turned out the previous tenant had damaged the line themselves rather than it degrading (there were line problems that needed some repair work)

        0 0 Reply
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ooops

    Excuse that on a "morning after" bleary Sunday morning but i read the title as "Landmines, the tech that just won't die".... which I did find quite an appropriate title knowing how much damage these buggers do every year.

    5 0 Reply

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