Home phones have come along way in the last 20 years, back in the days you use to have to use your fingers to spin a rotary dial to make outgoing calls. Finding a home phone package was much simpler then, with no competition in the telephone market, a simple call or letter to British Telecom was enough to set up a landline in your home.
However, today things have completely changed, there are a countless number of options available to the consumer when it comes to choosing a home phone packages. There is a variety of benefits such as free evening and weekend calls, cheap international calls, free daytime calls the list goes on, it depends entirely on what your looking for.
Land Line Home Phone
The most popular way to recieve home phone is through BT's original copper lines, which is now available to 99% of UK homes. With the increased competition over the last couple of years BT have changed their packages to suit any budget. For the price of the monthly line rental you can get unlimited off peak calls to UK landline numbers, which is great for those who talk on a regular basis.
Many Internet Service Providers have also started to lauched their own home phone packages on top of their broadband packages, with just one provider you can combine home phone and broadband in one package, giving you the convenience of just one bill to pay each month. Some companies such as Virgin Media, BT and Sky have packages where you can combine home phone, broadband and digital TV, which is a great way to make savings
These packages usually offer added benefits such as unlimited evening and weekend calls or cheap international calls should you require them, and prices and services vary so it's worthwhile comparing the best deals and finding the package that suits you best.
Cable Home Phone
Virgin Media are currently the only provider to offer cable network. Their network covers around 50% of UK homes and is constantly growing. Virgin Medias home phone line is provided by an undergrounfd optic fibre cable. You will need to pay for installation but there is a great range of choice in terms of their phone packages, which of course become better value if you purchase them in conjunction with other services like broadband and TV.
Virgin Media offer a variety of free off peak and free anytime calls to UK land lines, as well as combined mobile phone and landline packages which offer either 200, 400 or 800 minutes of FREE calls each month. These packages can be slightly more expensive, but if you need the minutes to call an expensive number frequently then the benefits are worth having.
VoIP Phone Calls
VoIP is a connection which allows you to make cheap calls through your broadband connection. For those who dont know VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. In order to make calls with VoIP you need some form of VoIp equipment such as a VoIP router, headset or even your mobile phone.
If you have a mobile phone contract that allows access to VoIP services, then you can make further savings as you wont need your BT landline.
Signing up for a VoIP phone service like Skype is easily done through your broadband connection. Skype and other VoIP service allow you to make free calls to any other PC or VoIP network in the world, any time any where, although you will be charged for landline calls.
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