OT: dumping a landline

"DervMan" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Periodically crappy mobile signal?

On Fri, 22 May 2009 18:59:39 +0100, DervMan mumbled:

My brother's not had a landline for about 4 years now. Doesn't cause him problems. He has a mobile phone and one of those 3 3G dongle things that costs him about a fiver a month.

Mike P

Big limitations on broadband usage? And your speed will vary depending on number of users as well as your signal.

Some places still insist on you having a landline contact number when you take services out. Can't remember who, but something I bought/subscribed to recently did. You couldn't get Sky without a phone line.

Only speed and ping.

Yes you can but unless you buy or provide your own box, you pay a lot for the installation.

Some limitation - 3 offer a 15 Gb package for £15 a month for two years. We typically use 4 to 6 Gb a month, hardly heavy users.

Yes, there is that, but doesn't Sky use a 'phone line?

Untrue, there are also download limits. I've got real no-limits broadband and I can't get any such tariff for 3G.

Apparently some of the credit checking agencies take a dim view of those with no land line. Just having a mobile is seen as being a bit 'fly by night'.

This is all according to yer man Martin Lewis, the Money Saving Expert.

Could all be bollocks of course.

Are you genuinely thick? Can't see why else you would post such a stupid question.

Good old Mr Lewis, the person that told people on forums to invest in a bank in Nigeria! He also told people to PAY EXTRA for the promise of a lower gas and electric bill instead of changing to a much cheaper supplier. He only gives and promotes information that suits him and is in accordance with his sponsors and advertisers. A good deal of his information is misguided, inaccurate and costs people a lot of money if they follow it.

He also gave the fantastic advice to spend your Tesco clubcard vouchers at entertainment venues as they get you more in waxworks than food. Hmm in an economic crunch would you rather eat or see a fake "celebrity"?

Since we've not met in person, I guess you won't know how I'd respond to this question.

In that case, either you have the social skills of a drawing pin backed up by plenty of opinions, or you are yourself a little on the dim side. :)

I don't need to justify asking this question, but since you took the time to ask me why, it's because although I already had a list of potential disadvantages, one of the advantages of knowing and having met lots of the people in here is that I respect their opinions (even if I don't agree, heh). Quite often, different people have a different perspective on something and approach it from a very different angle.

Call it a decision sanity check, if you will. Quite common in my line of work.

Ah, I meant transfer limits. The mobile providers only offer a couple of GB per month. Fine for emails and general surfing I guess but for anything else it's not enough IMHO

You can get a subscription? Didn't know that. I guess Multiroom is out of the question though, and maybe Sky+?

That's a decent package, most others I've seen are just for a couple of GB per month.

It depends. We peak at between 4 to 6 Gb a month, but quite often it's closer to 2 Gb.

3 are offering a 24 month, £15 pcm, 15 Gb contract. Two years is a long, long time, however. But 15 Gb provides plenty of headroom for downloading MP3s on Amazon.

Yes - it's cheap. 3 offer plenty of packages including 1, 3, 7 and 15 Gb usage. They're doing a special on the 15 / 15 deal for the rest of the month, but it's not expensive the rest of the year anyway.

Of course, it depends on the signal strength and speed. Fortunately, York is well served by 3G...

Do they do it with a free laptop or anything daft like that?

I use 3G / HSDPA a lot.

Speeds (not looking at peak downloads, looking at overall speeds when browsing etc) vary from OK, to frustratingly slow. It's not as stable, either, you get a lot of random dropped connections.

Vodafone and Orange have "unlimited" tarrifs.

And I won't get into the "unfair charges" crusade he started which will result in all of those who abided by the terms of the agreement paying through the nose as "free banking" comes to an end.