OT: Landline phones with bluetooth?

Can you renew your contract before then? Mine was due to go up from £31.96 to £47.54 but has instead gone down to £23.99, obviously this will go up again by the 14% but it'll still be 14% cheaper than I'm paying within my current contract (I will end up on an 18 month rather than 12 month contract).

I have a gigaset with bluetooth, you can pair a mobile phone to the base, this allows you to answer mobile calls on the DECT handsets (and i think vice-vera) but the quality is absolute rubbish, so I unpaired it.

But limit you to a single handset with poor usability.

I have an idMobile account which costs £6/month, I also have a plusnet landline. I always use the landline when I can, the handset works better, the sound is better, *everything* is better.

why not just get a 4g modem with a POTS port on it and plug a BT style phone into said 4g router?

I have a Huawei 4g router that has a SIM in it and a BT phone plugged into it. The Phone takes on the "mobile phone number" of the 4g SIM.

Yes.

No.

I get the reverse, with the landline with a very decent Panasonic cordless phone.

I did renew 3 or 4 months ago, and the cost of my BB and line rental went down at the time. I'm happy with that - even +14%. But Anytime is an add-on, and wouldn't be any less if I did renew again.

That's interesting - and the sort of thing I'm seeking to do. Any idea why the quality was rubbish? After all, pairing a mobile with in-car systems usually works ok.

It's a different solution, but another option would be to get a VOIP box which accepts an analogue landline and a VOIP connection. eg Gigaset have some that act as a DECT base, so you pair your DECT phones with that. Or others have a socket into which you can plug your existing analogue phone(s).

Typically the VOIP box will cut over to the landline if there's a power failure or the VOIP server cannot be contacted. Otherwise calls can go to either landline or VOIP connection depending on a 'dialplan'.

Then sign up with a VOIP provider (which can have no monthly fee if you don't want an incoming VOIP number) and configure the box to route your outgoing calls over the VOIP connection not the landline. Incoming calls can come from the landline, and a VOIP number if you have one. Typically VOIP calls might be about 1p/min to landlines and 3p/min to mobiles. Many of the providers allow you to register a number you control for use as outgoing CLID.

It's not free, but works out cheaper than any landline providers' tariff unless you make hundreds of minutes of calls per month.

Theo

Yes, but if the SIM monthly price is low enough you can dedicate an old mobile to the job, leave it in one place where there's a good signal, and make calls on it from any of several DECT handsets around the house

- always assuming that DECT systems with bluetooth still exist!

I have a Plusnet landline *and* a Plusnet mobile SIM in my unlocked phone. The phone SIM costs me £6 per month for 5GB of data plus unlimited calls and texts - including calls to mobiles. So £10 a month for Anytime calls on the landline - excluding calls to mobiles - seems like pretty poor value in comparison. But it would cost even more if I paid for each call rather than having a package - at 20ppm plus a 30p setup fee, calls now cost a minimum of 50p each.

Phone type --- This is a retro styled GSM mobile phone / GSM desk phone. This means it is a telephone that can be used exactly like a classic landline telephone but requires a SIM-card

Retro Design --- like old desk phones this wireles landline phone comes in great design. Just plug in a GSM SIM card and your SIM desk phone is all set! Then use it like a desktop phone!

Contents --- The wireless landline phone / wireless telephone comes with PSU-charger, inbuilt Li-Ion battery, manual and paper phone regsiter. Everything you need to use your cordless desk telephone

Technology For Today --- The PushMeFon mobile / desktop mobile phone supports call center operation, telephone tone menus, telephone banking, etc. Phones quad!

Simple Use --- The mobile landline is not SIM-locked and can be used as soon as a SIM-card has been inserted. Its usage is identical to that of a landline telephone.

That's interesting. I have a 4G router at my other property, which isn't used very much, so I could possibly bring that back here. That router doesn't have a POTS port per se, but I use POTS handsets with it via a PAP2T ATA. But I then have to pay for a VoIP service (which costs a

Your solution sounds as if the POTS handsets can use the call allowance provided by the router's SIM without requiring a VoIP service. But that wouldn't actually solve my problem because the handsets plugged into the router couldn't also take incoming calls from the landline - unless they each supported two lines.

you can actually buy a VOIP account and port your Plusnet Phone number to that VOIP account.

I in my other house had Virginmedia telephone provided over copper wire and Internet provided over cable internet.

I had fibre to the house installed by Vodafone and the Vodafone router has POTS port on it.

I was able to port the number we had on Virgin copper wire over to Vodafone's router so it became VOIp over fibre.

so another option is to change your internet provider to one that can provide VOIP and port your PLusnet number to that.

The rear of my Huawei router looks like this:

and the rear of my Vodafone router looks like this:

(there is an ONT between the fibre and the blue WAN port on said router, ONT = Optical Network terminator)

I have never found ithat a glass slab works well as a 'phone. Holding the right bit to my ear at the same time as talking into another right bit just doesn't work for me. I suspect that's why so many people now use their mobile on speaker and hold it out flat in front of them. However that does tend to pick up background noise which can make it difficult for the person at the other end.

I also find answering a mobile doesn't always work as smoothly as it should, not to mention that the way to answer a call seems to change rather frequently.

I have had several different mobiles (Nokia way back, Moto E, Moto G and now an Umidigi Bison running Android 11), I still much prefer the quite old Gigaset handsets we have on our landline.

It was surprising that it was bad, it's not like it's a distance thing, the mobile could be upstairs near the DECT base phone, and I'd answer it downstairs on a DECT handset which would sound perfect if it was answering a PSTN or VoIP call.

But callers were complaining when I used the bluetooth feature, possibly a firmware upgrade or having changed mobile phone since then might help, I've never got round to trying it again ...

I have found that it works a lot better than the panasonic cordless phones.

Works fine for me.

I do mostly do use both on speakerphone except when I am out in public and don't want to irritate others more than I need to.

And when using the mobile at home when sitting in the big armchair with my feet at as I mostly do, I normally rest it on my chest so I have both hands free because I usually do play freecell pro when talking to people for more than a short time.

Depends on the mobile. The best ones don't have that problem.

Never get that problem with my iphones.

Doesnt happen with iphones.

Like I said, I have had the panasonic cordless phones over all the time I have had mobiles, nokias initially and then iphones and much prefer the iphones. Vastly better when another call comes in while you are on a call to send the new call to voicemail, anwer the new call when putting the old call on hold and when making a new call while putting the original call on hold or doing a conference call. The panasonics use cryptic key combinations that I can never remember in that situation, The iphone allow you to tap on a well described icon.

Contacts and history are vastly betteron the iphones too and trivial to look something up and sms or messenger while talking to the other person you are talking too as well.

The panasonics are a pain in the arse to keep the contacts in synch between the handsets and impossible synch with the mobile.

A voip phone on the internet connection. I'm fully expecting Virgin to do much the same later in the year with their telephone line costs. Now they are in with O2, I can see them coming up with a mobile deal and then they can scrap the landlines. It would all be a great pity though, since as it stands the landline seldom dies if there is a power cut, but often mobiles do for two main reasons. Discharge and the local cells go unavailable. Brian

My experience with bluetooth was latency. a huge delay and echo in your ear makes you speak like you are drunk!

Brian

Don't get anything like that with bluetooth earphones or headsets with smartphones.

Same here. But using a Bluetooth speaker with the TV is for some reason rubbish.

I think that’s probably just a reflection of the rubbish chip-sets that they seem to reserve for any TV with “smart” in its name these day.

Tim

I am very concerned that we seem to be married to the same woman. She distrusts any phone that doesn't have a curly cable as part of its construction. However we only have (&pay for) the "Evenings & Weekends" package.