It's the end of an era.

[presta]

Has anyone got VOIP with permanent number withhold? Some of them won't do it.

 

[Fastpedaller]

There was a story recently about Sharington in North Norfolk, where they have a working red public telephone box. There were only (IIRC) 9 calls made from the box in the last year, so BT were going to remove it. The locals were up in arms, but reached a solution by making over 100 calls, so BT policy meant it was kept working . It reached status of National news!It's only a matter of time before many towns or villages will have only a handful of residents with landlines.

 

[Smokin Joe]

I last used a phone box about fifteen years ago when I was in a village witch had no mobile signal at the time and needed to call home. It was no more than a two minute call and it cost a small fortune, I could barely get the coins in fast enough to say more than a dozen words at a time.

 

[wiggydiggy]

Doesn’t the landline phone number stay with the property? Every house we have lived in the BT number came with the house.

I don't think so, you can transfer your number if you move like doing a mobile number transfer. I've done it a couple times. And when I've had a new line fitted, it gets given a random number to start with.

 

[welsh dragon]

My brother was having a lot of trouble with BT for 2 or 3 years and finally gor rid of Jo's landlines a few months ago

I only ever used mine to talk to my mum and as she passed away nearly 3 years ago, the only people who phone me now are those trying to sell me solar panels or are trying to steal money. I have been thinking of getting rid of my landline phone for quite a while.

I can't quite bring myself to get rid of it totally, not yet anyway.

 

[briantrumpet]

Still mourn when my first very own phone number, Tedburn St Mary 223, had two digits added in the late 80s.

 

[Cavalol]

In the last few years of its use, I called a local phone box a 'smackheads business centre' as they seemed to be the only people using it. Couldn't tell you the last time I saw anyone in there, though.

We got rid of our landline a few years ago now, the only people that rang it by then were spammers and scammers.

 

[annedonnelly]

My parents got a phone in the early '70's. That was a trim phone. It was a 4 digit number. At some point the exchange was changed and a "35" prefix was added to make it 6 digits. In 1978 we moved house and took the number with us. When my dad died in October 2023 I cancelled the BT account. Probably about 50 years with the same number.

 

[raleighnut]

We still have a landline/Internet/TV package with BT......................Maz's Daughter and 2 of her Grand-daughters live down in Wlltshire and our package allows them to talk for unlimited time at any time of the day at no extra charge. Very often Maz and Georgia (grand-daughter no 3) can be talking for 3 hours or more cackling away like mad.
No plans of ever getting rid of the landline or of changing from BT mind Maz gets a healthy pension from them so they're only getting a bit of what they pay her back.

 

[Drago]

I last used a phone box about fifteen years ago when I was in a village witch...

One must ask if the village witch was a willing participant?

 

[Electric_Andy]

I haven't had/used a landline since I moved out of my sister's house in 2008. My parents still have cordless phones but always leave them in the office so takes them an age to answer, then it goes to answer phone.

 

[Smokin Joe]

One must ask if the village witch was a willing participant?

This is west Wales, mate. Every village has it's witch.

 

[briantrumpet]

My brother was having a lot of trouble with BT for 2 or 3 years and finally gor rid of Jo's landlines a few months ago

I only ever used mine to talk to my mum and as she passed away nearly 3 years ago, the only people who phone me now are those trying to sell me solar panels or are trying to steal money. I have been thinking of getting rid of my landline phone for quite a while.

I can't quite bring myself to get rid of it totally, not yet anyway.

As mine turned into a VoIP number when I went full fibre, I decided just to turn off the power for the VoIP box, so the phone was dead, even if I still had the number. In fact, I think it'll still be mine until the contract is up for renewal in about a year's time. I only went for that option in the first place as I thought that calls would be free, but it was only the VoIP bit which was free, not the calls. Easier just to have the one number, to be honest.

 

[tyred]

I don't have any wired telephony services at all here. I just use a 4G mobile broadband thing. Seems to work fine and is good enough to allow me to work from home. There is no phone line at all into my flat as it's a recent build and I don't really want the expense of a connection fee. I don't make very many phone calls anyway at any time.

My Mum insists on keeping their phone line just in case for it's reliability. That would be fine if it was true, but it seems to stop working every time there is a breeze and it takes them about to two weeks for them to fix it!

 

[stephec]

One must ask if the village witch was a willing participant?

I was just going to ask the same thing. 😂