Has anyone stopped having a landline and relied solely on their mobile?

[Iceflower]

I look at my Virgin media bill every month and think its mad that I have to pay nearly £50 a month for tv, broadband and phone. I never use the tv but was told I would have to pay more if I removed it from the bundle than to keep it . I rarely use the landline to make outgoing calls, and the only people that ring me on the landline are my in-laws and cold callers!

So it's just the broadband really, and I think nearly £50pm is way too much. Would I be foolish to disconnect my landline and just go for a broadband connection?

Yup. I'm really trying to live on a shoestring at the mo and one of the things I decided to forgo was a bt line (rip off.)
So I do my internet through a £15/month dongle, which I must admit isn't the best in terms of streaming/downloading, but I manage without. And I rely exclusively on my mobile. At the mo I'm tied into a crap contract (£36/month with a not great phone) but I will sort this out when I am able.

I don't miss having a BT phone, but I do find my bill can increase rapidly when I have to call utility companies/car insurance/bank etc, all of whom have bloody expensive 0845 numbers and the like. And, like you, when I did have a landline I found the only people who called me were cold callers, and some mysterious man who would ring EVERY DAY asking for "Mrs. Hands."

My friend's have and tbh it's ruddy annoying because we always have to phone on their mobiles which is expensive. The question is, how much do you want to speak to your in-laws?

We didn't have a landline for about 3 years and it was fine. I have one now but only because my sky package worked out better with it. And even now, the phone had not been plugged in untill a week ago!

I get people to ring me and hang up, and I return their call on my mobile. I have an unlimited package. No one seems to mind and I don't encourage the in laws to phone too much.

I always offer to call people back when they ring me, as I get so many free minutes I don't know what to do with them!

Yes, before I moved in with DP I was living by myself in a flat, I had no bt landline and just used my mobile as I had enough minutes on it and was stuck on a fairly pricey contract. I got internet on pay as you go dongle which was fine as I don't download music on it. The only problem was the 0845 numbers which aren't included on free minutes on your mobile, but if you look it up, a lot of companies have an alternative number. This site might help www.saynoto0870.com/
Now that I have moved here I have my mobile on the cheapest possible tariff and we have the same virgin deal that you have. If you don't use the tv and internet that much you might be better off going back to BT on the cheapest possible landline deal and getting internet from them too. Basically a lot of your deal is paying for the cable tv, so if you are happy to go back to freeview you could save quite a bit.

Yes, a couple of years ago - not for money reasons, it's just not plugged in after we got Sky (it was a new number). Most people have free minutes/texts with their contract so never noticed a problem.

And virtually no cold calling/hassle on my mobile apart from the odd random 'ppi claimNOW' text on my mobile.

We have a landline now, but only because DH works for a provider and gets a fantastic staff deal

We just made sure to always check say no to 0870 before dialling anything that wasn't included in our free minutes, had free Internet with the mobiles and bought a dongle which was £15 a month for websites that were useless on our phones. Never really bothered me, but obviously DH couldn't connect to Xbox live or anything.

When we first looked into it, you can get sky broadband and line rental for about £25 a month, so that may be an option still? I think the person you spoke to at Virgin was just trying to prevent you downgrading, presumably they have customer retention targets to hit

We ditched our virgin package but still pay £22.50 a month just for broadband.
We never used our phone apart from to call virgin to complain ha! Will admit we didn't cancel for the saving, we switched to skygo on the Xbox just to get sky atlantic.

The only ones that phone me on my landline is my parents, cold callers and the schools will try it first and then the mobile. I use my mobile all the time as my ll is very quiet and I can barely hear people on it.

i only have a mobile i can use it like a wireless router and connect to my lap top if i need to use it for the internet.

as for the 0845 number check WWW.saynoto0870.com for most companies and child benefit help line etc.

as my phone is dh's old one i have a discount on my tarif and it only costs 5 quid a month.

i don't think getting a land line would help at all tbh.

Wow - that was quick, thanks for all the responses! There's a part of me that is really scared of letting go of the LL. So apart from numbers excluded from mobile packages, are there any disadvantages, eg security, connectivity, etc?

We have a phone line, but it is for internet only which we use so much that a dongle just wouldnt work.for us.

Never plugged a phone into it though, dont even know my number.

My dmum has a landline and even with strict phone preference type things, 75% of her calls are selling something. Not worth the hassle imo.

Well, just made a phone call to Virgin Media and had a right result . From £49 per month for a medium tv, 10mb broadband and xl phone package, it has now gone down to £30 per month for medium tv, 30mb broadband and standard phone package.

I am a happy bunny!

We have never had a landline and have not needed it!

we just moved and only have bb, as landline would be extra.
we use skype a lot, though.
have to find a cheap mobile contract, though, as still on payg. anyone knows one? it's a jungle out there.

Im on BT Infinity...so can you have just Broadband without having a telephone line?! I honestly thought you couldnt have one without the other! Off to investigate now...

it's possible if you have glas fibre connection (virgin for example) or some 3in1 (tv bb tel) providers.

Yes we got rid of the phoneline about 3 years ago and just relied on our mobiles and it's been fine, if we need to call virgin about the Internet dp's business phone is on the virgin network so doesn't cost anything.

Obviously depends if you are in a good mobile coverage area - it is very patchy where I am. When I was at uni I had to balance on a windowsill to make calls so not great. It also makes it more difficult for some people to call eg relatives whose hearing isn't so good - a landline is almost always clearer.
I wouldn't get rid of the landline, because as someone else said it makes it more expensive for everyone else to call you.

Maybe if I had a lovely smartphone I might feel differently, but I have a very basic mobile (pay about £5 a month), and a landline. If you are with BT you can save a lot of money by prepaying the line rental in advance.

We haven't had a landline for years - the only people who ever called it were sales callers and the in-laws...so we got rid of it! For Internet we have Virgin cable broadband, you don't need to have a phone line, it costs £22.50 per month.

P.s. has anyone noticed that its only the elderly that moan when you tell them that you don't have a landline? It's like they are allergic to phoning mobiles!

I have a landline, but it's only £7.99 line rental a month with Primus and worth it for the occasional long phone call. Then my broadband is only about £6.99 with Plusnet, so £15 for both.

I only ever plug in my landline to phone my mobile if I can't find it
no point leaving it plugged in, it rings all day with cold callers and scammers. Never give the number out, just say I don't have one!

It's something I've thought about off and on, but where we live is a bit out in the sticks and we often get electricity cut off in the winter for hours at a time (longest was four days last winter), so if I didn't have a landline, and wasn't able to charge my mobile, I'd be completely out of contact with the outside world. Therefore the landline stays.

I had a landline and got rid, now survive with just the mobile.

It has all-you-can-eat data so I use it as internet as well (I can connect it to the laptop physically or via wi-fi) so no other broadband charges. In fact, if I switch the wi-fi on, my DD can go online from her laptop at the same time.

For the TV I got a satellite decoder box (about £40-£50) and a small dish (£50) -so I have no TV charges (except the TV licence). My uncle installed the dish for me, took him about 15 mins.

I get lots of free minutes and texts (350 units - a unit is 1 min or 2 texts) and got a free add-on of free calls to landlines at weekends. All for £35 a month (2 yr contract) plus £7 pm phone insurance (which I needed when I dropped the thing down the toilet!!!)

So phone calls, texts, broadband, insurance, tv & tv licence all come to about £50 per month. The cost of the dish/decoder was a once off. I reckon I more than halved my monthly costs (was paying landline, broadband dongle, and cable TV costs). Worth shopping around for.

Only downside I ever found was when buying a new cooker, wanted to get interest free credit (Argos) and the finance company won't even consider you if you don't have a landline! So I waited a couple of months and bought the one I wanted outright instead.