Do you need a landline?

Mobile phones set to overtake landline usage

Many people are realising that it makes sense to get rid of their landlines, with the costly monthly line rental and expensive calls, in favour of inclusive minutes and low monthly costs with a mobile phone.

9% of UK households rely solely on mobile phones, compared with 7% that only have a landline.

Competition between the networks is keeping prices down for mobile use. You can get a substantial bundle of inclusive minutes to any network for a few pounds a month and often the mobile handset is free too.

There are some drawbacks though. Before considering going mobile-only take a look at your phone bill and analyse the calls that you are making.

If you are calling mainly local and national numbers, for instance to keep in touch with friends and family, plus other mobile phones then you are likely to be better off using a mobile with inclusive minutes.

Make a note of the call durations on your monthly bills to see how many minutes you are actually using and make sure you get a mobile price plan with enough for your usage, plus 10% just in case. Also make sure unused minutes rollover to the next month.

The downside to going mobile-only is that many types of numbers will not be included within your minutes and will be charged for seperately. These include 0870 numbers, often used by businesses to raise revenue from their poor service!

Not only will this type of number be charged outside of your inclusive minutes, the cost per minute for this type of number from a mobile can be staggering.

There are ways of avoiding 0870 numbers - just look on the internet for saynoto0870.com which lists national numbers for companies using 0870 numbers.

Other numbers that will be charged for include premium rate numbers, often used for competitions, and even 0800 (freephone!) will be charged for.

Think also about a spare battery for your mobile. You don't want to be stuck with a dead battery when you need to make an important call.

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