Loss of landlien concern?

[#1]

Is it necessary to have VOIP for residential use or can you get by using only a smartphone. We don't make that many calls, but the concern is organisations having only our landline number however I guess we could work around that. 

If we go fibre only and lose the landline, the monthly price drops down to £26.99, but if you add on the cost of subscribing to VOIP that is about another £10 and in addition probably the cost of calls.  Together this may exceed our current payment of about £43.

If we have VOIP and are phoned by a relative living in Africa, would they incur international call charges.  Same applies if someone living in the UK phones us.

Not sure if it would be advantageous to us to subscribe to VOIP as we use Whatsapp a lot.

[#2]

If we have VOIP and are phoned by a relative living in Africa, would they incur international call charges.  Same applies if someone living in the UK phones us.

If you have voip with the existing UK landline number ( or any UK landline number ) then the costs to call that number from anywhere are no different to what they would be calling a normal UK landline number from that location. So to take your example, yes calling from Africa would involve the same international call charges.

[#3]

@Surfer 

After any set up and equipment costs A&A appear to charge £1.44 a month. You then pay for any calls made (assuming you don't use your mobile).

https://www.aa.net.uk/voice-and-mobile/voip-information/

As far as I'm aware you are not charged for incoming calls.

Brian

[#4]

Thanks for the replies, but would we need VOIP at home if mainly using Whatsapp via mobile phone? Thanks.

[#5]

@Surfer 

Anyone who has your existing number would still be able to contact you.

I'm not at all sure how it works but you can sometimes use your mobile to answer calls. Others may have more details.

Brian

[#6]

I'm not at all sure how it works but you can sometimes use your mobile to answer calls

Assuming its a smartphone, you install a voip app such as zoiper https://www.zoiper.com/ . You then configure that to connect to your voip account. You can then make and answer calls just like you would do on a phone connected to say an ATA. The smartphone obviously needs an internet connection to do this, in theory that could be a wifi or mobile data connection. TBH though mobile data transmissioncan be subject to 'jitter' and whilst that doesnt matter too much for browsing it can seriously affect voip calls.

Note that some voip accounts will allow you to connect multiple devices simultaneously to an account , so you could use an ATA connected phone and a mobile. Incoming calls will ring all connected devices and the first to answer will get the call. Any device can make an outgoing call, and you can even make calls from mutiple devices at the same time. A & A accounts will allow this but I know that Sipgate accounts wont.

[#7]

Not sure if I have it correct.  If I have VOIP for some calls I can bypass it to use the data allowance on my smartphone to use Whatsapp for international calls without incurring the VOIP international costs. 

Maybe forget about VOIP altogether and jsut use our smartphones through the router?  Saves on the cost of the VOIP?

[#8]

Whatsapp only allows calls between whatsapp users. Fine if all your contacts use whatsapp. Voip allocates you a conventional phone number so you can make and receive calls to/from any other phone.

[#9]

Thanks there is now a glimmer of understanding this VOIP thingy.  We will probably be in contract to Plusnet for the foreseeable future.  If we go the VOIP route we will port our current number to the VOIP provider if it is possible. 

Obviously we don't want to incur A&A charges when connecting to Whatsapp connections.  All our international calls are to relatives using Whatsapp so no issue there.  We also use it for relatives living in the UK. 

[#10]

@Surfer 

As I understand it if you use an app for your VOIP you still pay for out going calls. But it allows you to receive them without having to upgrade your phone equipment.

Brian

[#11]

It beginning to look as if there is no point in having VOIP? 

[#12]

VOIP is good if you want to 

1. Keep your existing landline number.

2. Have a UK landline number.

Use your mobile (using your call bundle) for all outgoing and WhatsApp calls

If you just have the landline because you had too and no-one called you on it, let it go!

If you do let it go, remember to inform all your contacts that used it to update the contact number.

If you go down the VOIP route, with A&A you can set up a 'answer phone' which answer after x seconds (or right away). This is then emailed to you as an attachment so that you can play the message. No extra hardware/software needed.

[#13]

Thanks "mystreet1" as very helpful like other posts.  We would like to go full fibre, but if we do, we lose our current phone number altogether.  It is my understanding whether correct or incorrect that we would then use our Smartphones for all calls.  Our calls are mainly social as we are both retired.

Our concern is that currently we use Whatsapp on our Smartphones to connect to people overseas and as we have poor mobile signal we communicate using the router and this no cost to us.  I am not sure where VOIP would fit in as we do not want to be paying the VOIP provider for overseas or local calls.  We do not make a lot of calls overseas, but we often send Whatsapp messages with occasional call.  We do use Whatsapp a lot for local calls. 

If we are able to update everyone with Smartphone number, then do we really need VOIP as it would only be for personal use.  I am aware that we could port and our current landline number to the VOIP and using an adaptor use our current phones.  We would probably need VOIP for several months due to medical and similar issues until everyone is aware of our Smartphone numbers.  

[#14]

Our concern is that currently we use Whatsapp on our Smartphones to connect to people overseas and as we have poor mobile signal we communicate using the router and this no cost to us.  I am not sure where VOIP would fit in as we do not want to be paying the VOIP provider for overseas or local calls.  We do not make a lot of calls overseas, but we often send Whatsapp messages with occasional call.  We do use Whatsapp a lot for local calls.

To be clear, you can still use Whatsapp exactly as you do now. Voip will not affect that. Voip is purely(mainly) a means of retaining access to a landline number.

[#15]

As @MisterW says, use WhatsApp as you do now.

Think of VOIP as your landline, it's just provided by a different means.

Currently you have a 'line' that provides both phone number and broadband.

FTTP is a line that provides broadband, which has a way/route of having a phone number provided over it.

Therefore if you do have VOIP, use them in the same way as you do currently.