Any DSL broadband providers where I don't need to take out a landline phone contract too?

Man of Honour
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I have BT Broadband but I never use my landline. Like many households everyone has their own mobile. I have several mobile phones myself (personal and work) and also a dedicated Skype number that acts like a genuine phone on any online device.I simply don't need a landline and haven't used it in years. Without changing to a fibre provider such as Virgin is there any broadband provider I could switch to just for broadband and not have to pay for a landline? Or is someone like Virgin my only option? Thanks.
 
Man of Honour
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Thanks. I suspected as much. 4G would be an option if it weren't for my son loving online gaming. Apart from the ping I was getting comparable upload/download speeds between my Three 4G phone and my BT Broadband (but ping sucks).

Most people I know tend to just leave their landlines unplugged. It feels like a bit of a scam to insist on charging for one.
 
Soldato
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The line rental charge subsidises the broadband anyway. That's why they now have to advertise costs including line rental.

Even Virgin have the cheek to charge more for their broadband if you don't take their phone service.
 
Man of Honour
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You're using the line, just not for voice. I expect you'd want Openreach to come out and fix it when there's a fault?
I pay for broadband... and line rental. I'd be happy to increase the broadband price slightly and lose the line rental. There is a cost to Openreach running voice connections which I am not using.
 
Soldato
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You aren't paying Openreach, your ISP is.

The Openreach charges are actually quite reasonable, the markup the ISPs put on it isn't. A result of years of them trying to make their broadband look cheaper by overcharging for line rental.
 
Caporegime
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TalkTalk will do you FTTC for £25.45 per month including the phone line, just pretend you're not paying line rental if it makes you feel better.
 
Man of Honour
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TalkTalk will do you FTTC for £25.45 per month including the phone line, just pretend you're not paying line rental if it makes you feel better.
:) Thanks.

Unfortunately Talk Talk is one company I will never use again. I just can't face the problems and absolute lack of customer service. I'd rather pay quite a bit more with someone else.
 
Soldato
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Stop thinking about "having to pay line rental" as if it's a chore... Just don't plug a phone in or use the number.

ISPs have to advertise bundles as a headline price now these days. Just go for the best price/service you are happy with.
 
Caporegime
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It will change in the future when the broadband connection is the primary service, and any telephone line is laid on the top as VoIP, but it takes forever for that sort of stuff to get through Ofcom.

Don’t expect the price to change by any meaningful amount though.
 
Man of Honour
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It will change in the future when the broadband connection is the primary service, and any telephone line is laid on the top as VoIP, but it takes forever for that sort of stuff to get through Ofcom.

Don’t expect the price to change by any meaningful amount though.
True.

This is exactly why I wanted broadband only. Everything I use inside the house is already delivered over IP.
 
Man of Honour
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Thanks. I suspected as much. 4G would be an option if it weren't for my son loving online gaming. Apart from the ping I was getting comparable upload/download speeds between my Three 4G phone and my BT Broadband (but ping sucks).

Most people I know tend to just leave their landlines unplugged. It feels like a bit of a scam to insist on charging for one.

My 4G is just about acceptable for online gaming much of the time - despite being in the middle of nowhere and a good distance from the nearest two masts I currently get:

8214099491.png


Code:
Pinging bbc.co.uk [151.101.192.81] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 151.101.192.81: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=46
Reply from 151.101.192.81: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=46
Reply from 151.101.192.81: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=46
Reply from 151.101.192.81: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=46

Though at peak times it is more like:

Code:
Pinging bbc.co.uk [151.101.192.81] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 151.101.192.81: bytes=32 time=75ms TTL=46
Reply from 151.101.192.81: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=46
Reply from 151.101.192.81: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=46
Reply from 151.101.192.81: bytes=32 time=43ms TTL=46

And I've seen it drop as low as 8MBit down, 2MBit up sometimes at peak times ( https://www.speedtest.net/result/8200336592.png ).

With a dedicated 4G router placed fairly high up in the house. Still not a great substitute for a fixed connection but we need to get BT in to completely rewire our line as it is a mess which is causing problems with errors and low speeds :( (will still only be ~37/5 FTTC even when they've sorted it though).

Far cry from the house I just moved from which had 2 full speed fibre connections :(
 
Man of Honour
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@Rroff I get about 35ms ping on 4G. But if I were forced to play on it then I would. I come from an era when anything less than 100ms got us called LPB's on public servers :D
 
Man of Honour
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@Rroff I get about 35ms ping on 4G. But if I were forced to play on it then I would. I come from an era when anything less than 100ms got us called LPB's on public servers :D

I've become a bit fussy as at the last place the last couple of years or so I had a rock solid 6ms latency to UK servers and rarely any interruptions, etc. on fibre so far fortunately the 4G here is reasonably acceptable but you do get the odd random slight pause or a few minutes where you can tell the latency is jumping around a bit (usually still in the sub 100ms range though) - so far not had anything too bad though in some places I've tried to game on 4G it has been frequent disconnections and latency spiking into the 100s of ms or worse.
 
Man of Honour
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You say you don't use the line. But you're using it 24/7 if you have broadband.
I think people are misunderstanding me or perhaps I have not explained it well enough. I am happy to pay for a line used by broadband but I have no need for the voice part of the service. Providing will not be a 'no cost option' for the provider. It will cost them something to provide. There is hardware and software that the vendor has to pay specific to voice calls. I do not need that. Most people do not need that.
 
Soldato
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Voice equipment is heavily shared between lines. Not having your line voice capable would make virtually no difference to the cost of provisioning the line.
 
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