HANG UP THE LANDLINE

As the good old landline becomes almost redundant in many homes is it time to go totally mobile?

The home landline is going the way of the phone box – a historical curiosity children might see in a museum.

smartphones are becoming increasingly cheaper – and mobile bundles providing more and more at lower and lower prices with all you can use data and voice calls – many people could save by ditching their landline to prevent paying for call packages twice.

Millions now only have a landline for broadband – one in five homes, according to the broadbandchoices website, haven’t used fixed phones in over six months.

An even greater number say they will go mobile only in the future with only a third of under 35s now using wired lines.

And a huge number say the only time the phone rings, it’s a nuisance caller selling double glazing or trying a scam. One advantage of going mobile only is fewer unwanted callers are likely to have your number.

Every home is wasting £20 a year – that’s nearly half a billion across the country – on landlines they do not use, according to comparethemarket.com. That’s an average, in properties where the landline is never or hardly ever used, the wastage approaches £80 a year.

But while the technology is there – and will be even better when 5G is rolled out – most phone providers have yet to promise meaningful savings to households which ditch the landline.

Virgin is one of the few to offer broadband without the need to pay for landline rental – with some others, it can still be as cheap, if not cheaper to take a phone, TV and broadband package even if you only want the internet connection. However, that could change with improving technology and new companies entering the market.

Besides the potential cost saving, abandoning landlines has other advantages. Mobiles allow you to see who is calling – it’s built in to the phone rather than paying extra for caller ID. It’s easy to see your call log – in both directions.

With mobile only, you only have to give out one number rather than two. You don’t have to worry about anyone calling your home number when you are out. And you are maximising what you paid for.

But there are downsides as well – at least for now. Call quality can be poor on mobiles – many homes have rooms, sometimes the whole property, where the signal is patchy or non-existent. The same applies to mobile broadband where speeds remain slower and more expensive.

Mobile phones are easy to steal or to lose. But the biggest disadvantage of all is that you have to remember to charge the phone regularly or carry a

back-up battery.