UKC

Are there any issues not having a fixed phone line - in terms of proving you live at an address, maybe for credit checks, etc, or anything else where you know you need to provide one ?

In order to save cash I recently decided to move my home phone & broadband provider. Vodafone ( or Openreach, or possibly a combination ) have screwed up, and 2.5 weeks after my supposed go live date I am still without broadband, phone is fine. In order to access the internet in those 2.5 weeks I've been using my mobile data ( which I've had to buy more ) - the thing is, I've technically been managing fine, and I'm wondering if I should just cancel the fixed line and broadband and just use the mobile.

I'm in line of sight to a 4G phone mast, get a download speed to my phone of over 60Mb, I then use my Android phone to act as  hotspot and it transmits wifi around the house for other devices to pick-up. The transmit speed seems to be about 31Mb ( does that sound right, ie phone only transmitting 50% of what it's receiving ? ).

It would cost me less to get an unlimited data SIM only deal from my provider EE (£34/month) than the sum of my phone & broadband deal plus a low data SIM-only only deal.

I live alone, so if I'm out, there's no wifi in the house, but that's fine I don't think I need it - no controlling heating over the internet, etc, etc.

Will I hit any problems if I go down this route in terms of not being able to provide a home phone number, or any problems with running wifi long term off the phone ?

To be honest I've pondered the same arrangement, since 4G became more reliable than home broadband. The only reason not to go for it has been that I like to have a backup connection.

If you have utilities, bank account and council tax in your name, registered to your current address, I doubt you would have any difficulties without a landline.

It is now common for people not to have a landline.

Correct me if I'm wrong folks !

We don't have a landline - all our TV and Internet comes via Virgin Media cable.  We moved in over 3 years ago and it hasn't caused us a spot of bother in terms of not being able to provide a home phone number.

I haven't had a home phone for 10 years and it hasn't been a problem.

Download is often designed to be faster than upload since we tend to do a lot more downloading than uploading. Related but not the same as mobile: The A in ADSL internet stands for asynchronous - meaning a faster download than upload.

Yes - these unlimited data deals seem to have become noticeably more common and cheaper in the last year and it will only keep going one way. Indeed in some developing countries that don't have the history of wired infrastructure, the mobile is the primary way they access the internet - they skipped desktop PCs entirely and went straight to mobile.

Asymmetric! You're explanation is right, just the wrong word.

(We've got a phone line but only because our mobile signal is so bad, otherwise we'd not bother)

Is using the mobile as a hotspot to broadcast wifi similar to upload ?
In my non-technical-network mind they were different, ie the upload is sending data back over the mobile signal to the mast and on over the network, whereas the hotspot is independent of the network mobile signal, but is transmitting a "new" signal and perhaps limited by the capacity of the phone in some way. I'm probably way off the mark here..............

I have fibre to the home which comes with a phone number but I've never plugged a phone into it.  This has never caused me an issue, and I didn't have one plugged into my BT line for years before that.

I'm not 100% sure what you're asking but if you're using your phone as a wifi hotspot, the wifi signal goes from your laptop (or whatever you are connecting) to the phone and then the phone sends the data via 4G so it still means the download speed will be higher than the upload speed because there is a hop that goes over 4G.

Going back 10 years in my old place I dumped my landline.  I used a mobile broadband dongle instead. Plugged directly into my computer.  Then I switched to a router that worked with the dongle plugged into it.

Nowdays there are the little mifi gadgets which give you wifi from a sim.

I would go down this route rather than use your phone as a hotspot as it tends to suck the life out of your battery and leaving it on charge makes things worse.  I ended up with a phone that wouldn't hold charge for long.

Didn't miss it and probably wouldn't again.

None of consequence. Save money, less nuisance scam phone calls, one less contract to have hassel with, it's all win really.

If you really need a backup, get a data dongle for your laptop.

Depending on how much data you use, you might not even need unlimited data. My Sim is 20Gb and it's only £10 a month and even when I use it pretty heavily, I never come even close to using the 20Gb.... I guess maybe it depends on how many films you are watching too.

Maybe look at home-fi from three uk.

I ended up with standard broadband tho as I wasn’t happy that they could give me guarantees about uptime and each way transfer speeds. Also they refused to let me try and buy so game over. Other mates said dongle as posted above. Edit: typo

It's funny in this digital age, but if I'm looking for a plumber, a washing machine repair service, a bricklayer etc I'll plump for one with a landline. An old habit but one which will die hard I expect. 

One reason to keep a landline is that in the event of power failure you can still use a traditional corded phone, because the phone lines are powered from the local exchange, which will have backup power. Whether that's worth the expense is another question of course. 

£34 seems a bit pricey, Virgin do 45GB for £18 pcm (the current special offer varies randomly).

Check you current usage, you might not need unlimited. My old deal was EE and poor so I transferred the number over to Virgin.

ADSL is copper landline to the exchange so little relevance to operation of 4G radio waves.

My phone with a good 4G signal just gave me 9Mb/s down & 7 Mb/s up so not very asymmetric and I'm jealous of your 60Mb/s.

I don't see why WiFi within home should be slower than 4G, it might just be something in the phone doesn't have the oomph to keep up with shunting data between the 4G network and the WiFi network.

Wasn't that just the use of a 'corded' phone vs cordless home phones, when they came out?  Last time we had a power cut, my mobile worked fine and was used to talk to the power company at 3 in the morning!

You'll probably get a better performance on WiFi using a proper 4G router. You could also use your phone at the same time then.

Many thanks for all replies.

I agree that using the mobile phone as a hotspot does chew thru the battery in a few hours, so a separate router would be better, but then paying for 2 SIMs rather than one. 

3 have a home mifi router, with unlimited data, for £20/month - need to check what 4G data speeds are like for 3 in this area.

Yes, it was.  Mobile phone masts have UPS backups so are no more likely to fail than the landline network.  Later cordless phones had base station battery backups to resolve this issue with those.

I mostly DIY "trade" stuff (other than gas) but I would be more likely to want one I could communicate with by e-mail than phone on an inconvenient landline.  Having to use the telephone at all is for me a massive black mark against any business.

I am on my 3 mifi now, far better than my BT connection that drops out all the time & is twice the price but the son pays for that

I've not had a land line for about 12 years at a guess. No downsides if you have the signal.

Managed with a dongle for years, but got a mobile hotspot thingy a few years ago. Generally speaking, its very good, though I get the odd day when the signal drops and things get a little slower. Never had a problem playing videos etc really though. If your indoor signal isn't brilliant, though, it might be frustrating. I'm not on an unlimited contract, think its 30GB or something, never got knowing near the limit. I'm not someone who watches much TV/Film over the internet though.

That rather depends on the length of the power cuts. My understanding is that the masts only have backup power for a few hours. During floods the other year our local masts went off. 

One downside to mobile data is the high latency compared to xDSL or fibre.  Consequently it's worse for gaming.  5G will slash the latency to below that of landline technology, thus enabling stuff like driverless cars.