Maybe you’ve just moved into a new house or apartment, or maybe you moved in a while ago and you’ve never bothered to check whether your house has a phone line. This is a pretty common scenario nowadays, as most of us are more than happy to use our mobile phone instead.
And even though it is possible to get broadband without having a landline, this can be difficult to find. Most providers won’t let you have a broadband connection without your own phone line, and many of them will want to sell them together as a package deal.
So, if you’re trying to work out if you even have a phone line, how can you do this? Well, we’re going to look at the easiest way for you to do this.
How can I check if my house has a phone line?
If you want to check if your house or flat has a phone line, then the very easiest way for you to do this is by plugging a home phone into your landline. If you hear a dial tone, this means that there’s a phone line connected to your house.
This is the easiest way for you to check whether if your house has a phone line. If you don’t have a phone line, then you can always borrow a phone from someone else (of you can see Spacehop’s Guide to Home Phones).
How can I tell what company my phone line is with?
If you’ve managed to find that there is an active connection in your house, then the next thing that you’re going to want to do is determine which company the phone is with. You can do this by calling the number 150 from the landline.
Doing this will put you through to the customer service team of whoever your phone line is with. In many cases, this is going to be BT. And if it’s not BT, it’ll be a different company who are using BT’s landlines anyway for the most part.
If you do decide to get a new landline deal, then make sure that you shop around first. For those who are thinking of switching to BT, then you could be charged a pretty high fee for them installing a new phoneline in your home.
This is why it’s worth calling 150 and seeing who your current phoneline is with – in many cases, you can just restart the previous contract with the same company without having to get a new line installed, as it will still be connected with the same company.
It’s also worth looking at deals for longer term contracts of 18 months, as often these kind of contracts will offer free line installation too. Even though it’s a longer month contract overall, if you don’t plan to move, then you can easily save money on a new phone set up.
Do I need a phone line to get broadband?
In many cases, people are looking to get a phone line just so they can get a reliable internet connection. Although in some cases you can find ways around this, it seems to be commonplace that the best way for you to get broadband is by installing a line and making it active in your home.
This is because in the majority of cases, an ADSL broadband connection is recommended to most people. For you to get this type of broadband, you’re going to need to have a phone line set up in advance. The majority (99%+) of homes in the UK are eligible for an ADSL connection.
So, most providers will need a landline to connect your home to the internet. But do all of them? No, there is one main exception to this rule, and it’s Virgin Media.
With Virgin Media, you can actually find no landline deals that don’t use the BT network – Virgin have their own fibre broadband that works independently from BT.
However, it is worth mentioning that the Virgin Media broadband only connection can cost a similar price to a broadband and landline deal from BT. So, it’s definitely worth shopping around to try and find the best deal first.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it’s actually quite easy for you to check if your home has a current line installed, and which provider that this line is with. By simply plugging in a phone and calling 150 you can find out who your current line is with, which can help you get reconnected faster and often for a cheaper price too.
At the moment, unfortunately there’s no online service which automatically checks which provider your landline phone is connected to. So unfortunately, manually calling them up is the only way we can really find out which provider our phone lines belong to.
