OT: Fixed phone vs Mobile

When they gave us a fibre there was a box to convert digital to speech for us. After a few months we realised we were paying for a land line service we rarely used, so we dropped it. Both our mobiles will use the wifi for calling when (as is usual) the mobile signal is too bad, and we haven't really missed the landline.

Andy

I've had the same landline number since we moved into this house in

Conversely, outside my immediate family, no one knows my mobile number.

I have an Asterisk / Freepbx server running on a Raspberry Pi All incoming calls are routed to several extensions around the house as well as my mobile phone in case I'm about. Of course if I answer the call on the mobile I have to pay for that leg of the diverted call but as my outgoing provider (discountvoip) charges me 1/3ppm with no connection fee or minimum charge nonsense, I am happy to pay it.

Another advantage of rolling my own VoIP is that I can have multiple simultaneous incoming calls to my number, something that is not possible on an exchange copper pair (obviously), or even what the traditional providers normally offer on Broadband Voice et al.

Not exactly what you asked, just some random observations.

Mobiles are now good for making calls, but you haven't really addressed the issue of a mobile being a single handset and possibly in a remote part of the house so you can't hear rings.

A nice extension to mobile would be to allow multiple WiFi calling handsets, but they haven't really done that yet.

So for people who like the old multiple handset landline, you can port your number to an A&A VoIP number. (£12.00 port then £1.20 a month to receive calls). Plus you need some type of VoIP phone hardware.

When we went over to FTTP last October, I ported the LL number to A&A, using their ‘pay upfront and take the risk that the port can’t go ahead’ option at £11. Promptly on the morning following the last day of my (no longer functioning) landline service, I had an email from A&A telling me the number port was successful and was up and running.

I set the options to go straight to voicemail and email me the mp3 of the call.

I’ve had 13 calls since then, one being a test call from my mobile. Another was from a friend, who rang off and called our mobile number. The rest was from scam calls.

Scam callers hate voicemail and ring off straight away, although the email gives their number. The last such call I had was on December 5th, so almost two months of no calls <vbg>. I guess the word has gone round that our LL number isn’t worth calling.

For a minimal cost of £1:20 a month it’s well worth it, if only as a backstop for any residual callers that might not have our mobile numbers.

Of course, using this system means I can’t call out from the LL number as I don’t have any such phone any more, outgoing calls being made from the mobiles.

An option that might be available is to keep the LL number by porting it to A&A, and receive the incoming LL calls on your DECT system, which will need an ATA plugged into an Ethernet port on your router, with suitable settings in your A&A account.

On 1/31/2025 12:59 PM, Chris J Dixon wrote: t work in the house or garden.

Some years back, we had a Panasonic dect set with, IIRC, five handsets. It had the ability to register two mobiles - the dect handsets would ring when either mobile had a call. I discovered that the unit could handle both lines on a dual-SIM phone, which would let you use up to four different numbers. I don't recall now, if it displayed SMS messages, or simply alerted you to them. I would imagine similar units are still available.

Everyone has different circumstances, but ...

This household was three land-lines with one number DECT'd and is now five mobile phones. One is a 100GB/mo hotspot, two are Lebara unlimited and two are Sim-less spares. I'm not so worried as you are about damaging a mobile whilst working around the house/garden. They're pretty cheap S/H items, nowadays.

PA

If you did want to make outgoing calls, you could always install a SIP client on a PC or smartphone and configure it with the A&A SIP settings.

That can be handy if you ever need to 'prove' ownership of the number, or call organisations that insist on IDing you by the number you're calling from.

Theo

You could:

Port your landline number to VoIP

Get a "ATA" (Analogue Telephone Adaptor)

Connect the existing house phones to the ATA.

That takes care of the landline while retaining the number and proper phone hardware.

You could then also port your mobile number to VoIP (could use the same VoIP account in some cases) - get a new SIM for the phone (different number).

Install a VoIP client on the mobile.

Configure the VoIP service to be attached to a virtual PBX and create two extensions. Configure one to service the ATA, and the other to service the Mobile.

You can then play with call groups and decide what combination of devices you want to ring on an incoming call. You could have either number ring either or both the mobile and the ATA.

You would also be able to call one PBX extension from the other (i.e. home phones <==> mobile) - free when in the house, and nearly free (i.e. the cost of the data) when out and about.

The mobile will then be able to receive and make calls on the original number (or the landline number) via WiFi when at home, and mobile data when out.

In addition it could also make conventional mobile calls on the new SIM (although with a new number).

I ditched the landline for my business line. I now use it via VoIP, currently with two extensions on the same account - one for the ATA (when then feeds my traditional analogue PABX), and the other connected to a softphone on computer.

In message snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, at 12:59:15 on Fri, 31 Jan 2025, Chris J Dixon snipped-for-privacy@cdixon.me.uk> remarked:

I used to like my landline because (a) it had a 1970's phone on it with a very loud bell (b) we got several calls a week from the NHS which needed to be responded to.

How that that my wife passed away, and the phone is attached to a VoIP gadget, on newly installed FTTP, which only provides a feeble ring, I just use my mobile [wifi calling essential] and if people want to speak to me that badly they'll call again. (I agree that absolutely no-one seems to want to leave a voicemail).

Like others I ported my Landline to A&A, reconfigured our router to act as a DECT basestation and installed a Softphone App on our Mobiles. I can now receive the few calls I get anywhere via my Mobile and in the house on my old DECT cordless phones.

Ah, thanks, I’ll look in to that, as you say it could be useful.

Is there a recommended SIP client (easy to configure, etc)?

Many of our incoming LL calls seem to be 'recorded messages'.

Some are from genuine callers, but many (all? not sure.) of our spam calls are also in the form of recorded messages - so their recorded message talks to our answerphone.

The problem that arises is that their message starts playing as soon as to answerphone picks up, but the answerphone doesn't start to record until after the outgoing message has been played. Hence we only get the tail end of most calls. This isn't a problem with spam, obviously, but there have been some important calls where it mattered.

We live within easy line of sight of a mobile phone mast about 500 metres away on top of a hill. But mobile reception, especially for data as opposed to voice, is dire. It got *dramatically* worse after Vodafone switched off 3G.

Outgoing voice calls usually connect, though I've noticed a lot of times when I receive a voicemail message immediately after someone has tried to phone, and there's no missed call showing on my mobile.

I discovered how bad it was when we had a long power cut the other day just as I was about to start a Zoom call. I managed to configure my phone as a mobile hotspot and connect my tablet (on which I was running Zoom) to that, but the quality were very poor, with frequent pauses/freezes in the picture and stuttering sound from the other person, and with my own webcam turned off.

If I switched over to mobile phone/internet instead of landline, I'd need to get a mobile phone modem to plug into my router (I need a router for PC-to-PC LAN connections) and I'd need a decent and consistently reliable signal. I'd also lose the ability for more than one handset to take part in the call, which is dead easy with DECT phones.

Even after copper is replaced with fibre-to-the-premises and phone become VOIP, I'd still want a landline for home use. Mobiles are fine as a standby and for away-from-home usage, but they are no substitute for a

What platform(s) are you on? I use Linphone on Android, can't comment for others.

Theo

Up-to-date iPhone would be the platform of choice.

Software clients will require constant upgrades, including to the platform they are running on. So I bought a Grandstream HT812, and will be disappointed if it doesn't function unattended for at least five years.

iPhones are a bit troublesome because Apple won't allow apps to stay connected in the name of power saving. The apps have to register with Apple's servers to get a push-message that wakes them up when there's an incoming call, which means softphone apps need to have a server backend to connect to your SIP provider and watch for incoming calls (which means the app vendor has ongoing running costs).

The two paid apps I've heard recommended that will do that are Acrobits and Groundwire, but I haven't tried them.

For outgoing calls the free Linphone worked ok, but as above you don't get incoming calls if the app isn't in the foreground.

Theo

Many thanks for your input. I have the impression from reading about VOIP that there are a host of setup and configuration issues that can arise that need to be sorted for the system to work properly, and sometimes this doesn’t always work out well. We don’t make that many calls here, and anyway have the mobiles on unlimited calls and texts (mainly because of the accompanying data packages). So it looks like the status quo is the way to go for now, but I will keep an eye out for any developments in VOIP systems.

Sure there's things that can go wrong with everything, but as far as VoIP phones are concerned, most people plug their phone base into the ISP router and it works. I don't think you should be waiting for something different/better coming along ... likely it won't.

For those that want to take in into their own hands, configure your own ATA/router/PBX/whatever, then it also works.

Most people who hear about "digital" phones not working during a power cut are already f***ed as their current DECT phones don't work during a power cut. If they rely on a working phone line, do they already pay for BT Enhanced Care? If not, why not?

Various battery solutions are available.