The Telephone!

[Vic Patterson]

Our telephone service provider is thinking of getting rid of public telephones! as they say they are very rarely used, that got me thinking about public phones, I have never used one here in Canada (over 40 years) the last one I used was the one on the Coronation street set while on a visit back home at least 15- 20 years ago.

What a long way telephones have come, I remember going with my mom to the phone box to call my dad who was working in London, (United Bus Service) mom would crank the handle and it was my job to feed loads of those great big pennies into the phone and push the button if she got through, I remember the phone number started with SLOAN and had only 4 numbers.

A couple of years ago I bought a cell phone, supposedly for emergencies! I use it only for texting the kids and I have only made one phone call on it, I don’t subscribe to a plan so it doesn’t get used as a smart phone, our plans are very expensive though you wouldn’t think so when you see the youngsters running around looking for these Pokémon. Most people are not bothering with house phones, computers, GPS and wrist watches seems odd but makes sense I suppose.

[John Fox (foxy)]

My Missus is booked in for surgery  next week Vic, she's been told it'll be quite painless to have the Samsung Galaxy removed from her left ear.

[webtrekker]

One thing I love about my Android phone is the call recording app I put on it. It runs in the background and you never know it's there, but it records every call I make or receive, great for someone like me with a memory like a ... em,  one of those er, things, er, you know, with the holes in them .....

About once a week I clear out the calls I no longer wish to keep so they're not using up memory. It will even record stuff when I access my voicemail so that I can clear the voicemail but still have a copy should I need it at a later date.

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

7 hours ago, Vic Patterson said:

 A couple of years ago I bought a cell phone, supposedly for emergencies! I use it only for texting the kids and I have only made one phone call on it, I don’t subscribe to a plan so it doesn’t get used as a smart phone, our plans are very expensive though you wouldn’t think so when you see the youngsters running around looking for these Pokémon. Most people are not bothering with house phones, computers, GPS and wrist watches seems odd but makes sense I suppose.

Me to Vic - mine goes with me in the car and will be used in an emergency, that is Breakdown & Recovery services and I have made a couple of calls to those services in the last 15 years.

Grandkids I can excuse as that's what they have been brought up on so they do get a text, twice a year, birthday & xmas.

5 hours ago, John Fox (foxy) said:

My Missus is booked in for surgery  next week Vic, she's been told it'll be quite painless to have the Samsung Galaxy removed from her left ear.

I have been know to have quite long conversations on a phone, landline of course, with Friday night mates and me ear was throbbing after them. Normally it would be - 'see you in The Shoes at 20:30, Ok' - end of call but when we were after a change of venue it was - 'What pub then?'  - pause to listen to reply, then - ' Ok, The Old Fat Ox at 20:30'

Can't ever remember asking any mate - what did you have for tea then?  

[Canny lass]

Got rid of our house phone too. It was just standing there like a white elephant collecting dust. We manage just as well without. We've always had two mobiles, though. One for work and one for personal use. The work phone is, and always has been, switched off between the hours of 5pm and 9am and doesn't accompany us on holiday.The Chinese, Russians and Americans don't appear to realise that my old man lives in a different time zone to them.

I worry about where the i-phone is taking today's youngsters. A few months ago I sat in a waiting room and watched two young girls, obviously friends, text messaging each other for almost 15 minutes. There was only ONE seat between them.

[Canny lass]

I forgot to add, we use Skype for many of our personal contacts as most of them live in other parts of the world. It works well, is cheap and it's lovely to be able to see who you are talking to or to show something you are talking about. I'd recommend it to anybody.

[Christopher Doyle]

I personally can't wait till the "home Phone" and "The Internet" are adopted as separate entities by the suppliers. I personally hated having a home phone, as it was simply an inlet for cold calls.

I don't even have it connected any more, yet still have to have a "weekends and evenings" package with my internet supplier.
When I ask about it, they simply reply "That's how OpenReach want us to sell it to the customer".

Am I right in thinking Virgin is the only internet supplier that does an "Internet Only" package? or have I read into it wrong?

My mobile number gets changed every few years as it gets around the marketing companies. My last number lasted 7 years before the cold calls became too much. I guess I'm learning not to put it into those webforms you need to fill out more and more often now!

(Just for the information, The only real change I made was to NOT put my number into the confused.com and meercat websites, making them use my email for contact. SUCH a difference. I'm sure, although those sites only share your details with the insurer, those insurers sell on my details. I believe the cheapest quote always gets your details so they can follow up as part of their agreement with the websites being able to get quotes from them. They don't abide by the privacy policy of the comparation website.
I have several "throw away" hotmail email addresses just for these types of site.)

[mercuryg]

The reason you have a calls package with your net provider is because they use your phone line to supply you, so they are keeping your phone line live. 

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

20 hours ago, Canny lass said:

I forgot to add, we use Skype for many of our personal contacts as most of them live in other parts of the world. It works well, is cheap and it's lovely to be able to see who you are talking to or to show something you are talking about. I'd recommend it to anybody.

It's bad enough having me ear throbbing on a phone but allowing people to see me react like 'Kevin the Tennager' on Skype whilst they rabbit on!

But seriously Skype is brilliant and I do, occasionally use it, for free, from my desktop PC. Even my non PC wife, that prefers to prattle on phone has enjoyed Skype. Our youngest had a humanist wedding ceremony - King Pin bowling suite, Tavistock Hotel, London, and the misses (having experience the other kids, 1 church, 1 registrar & 1 pub meal + pint to let us know they were moving in together,) didn't know what to expect. The humanist ceremony would be followed up the following year by a 'legal' ceremony with one and only vicar Elvis in Las Vegas. 

The youngin amazed and delighted her mother with what she had arranged (she arranged, we paid). Humanist ceremony (chat with the guests from aisle two of the 4 lane private King Pin executive suite) so different from being preached at in a church pew, even the 80+ year olds enjoyed the event.

What followed in Las Vegas, followed at midnight our time on Skype, made the misses even happier. There was I in dressing gown ready for bed and the wife in her full outfit watching, via Skype for free, Elvis in the Doo Wap Diner doing his duty.

So Skype saved the day and I even did screen dumps as the event went on, but I was still forced to buy the official CD and photos.  

One of the Skype screen dump/print screen images :- 

[Canny lass]

I don't know if this will help, Chris, but when we abandoned the house phone we bought mobile broadband 4G. Internet via the phone company cost us the equivalent of 30 quid a month and they promised a speed of 8Mbit/sec. We never managed to get more than 2Mbit/sec (between 1 am and 8am andwith the wind in the right direction) but most often it was below 1Mbit/sec giving extremely poor quality. OK, it was an unlimited amount of surfing but that's not so important for us.

Internet via mobile broadband 4G costs us about 15 quid a month. The speed has never been below 23 Mbit/sec and is more often around 30 Mbit/sec. The quality is superb. However, we do not have unlimited access. We buy 50 Gbit/month and it's enough for our needs. Hubby watches a couple of hours international TV each evening via the net and surfs around about an hour a day. The grandkids probably use the same amount. We've never managed to reach the limit. We have an option of 'topping up' at extra charge should we need to, or we can buy more on a regular basis: double up (100 Gbit/month) would cost us 30 quid but we are offered a 20% discount because of our 'advancing years'. We shyed away from getting rid of the house phone for years purely because of losing Internet but we haven't regretted it. Definitely worth looking into.

[Canny lass]

21 minutes ago, Eggy1948 said:

But seriously Skype is brilliant and I do, occasionally use it, for free, from my desktop PC.

Yes, it's free for you but you don't have to have your hair done and a new dress everytime you Skype a friend. You men have all the luck!