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Child Item

The Humble House Phone.

Duke of Url

Is it still a a thing within Irish Households or has everyone gone mobile?

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Jimbob1977

Remember when phoneboxes were a critical means of communication. Until around 1999.

If you were going to be late home or needed a lift, it was the only option.

The eircom £5 or £10 phone card, the "A" button and the mysterious "B" button.

Elwood_Blues

Jimbob1977 wrote: »

Remember when phoneboxes were a critical means of communication. Until around 1999.

If you were going to be late home or needed a lift, it was the only option.

The eircom £5 or £10 phone card, the "A" button and the mysterious "B" button.

I feel quite bad about this but when I was younger myself and my mate used to go down to the local phonebox, call the operator and pretend we were from 2FM saying they had won a competition.. I was a right little sh1t when I was younger.

Strumms

Still have a house phone, Siemens 7010. I have a phone / internet deal. Had been contemplating going mobile only hmmm.

Tazio

might be slightly biased as I like restoring old Bakelite GPO phones.. but we have a 'landline' but it's a VOiP service. The house phone right now is an old 1940's Bakelite phone, but inside has a DTMF dallier I put it. It counts the rotary dialer pulses and then sends out the correct tone for the dailed number. It does take a while to enter 10 digits; back in the day there were 4 or 5 digits in a phone number.

Speedsie

Jimbob1977 wrote: »

Remember when phoneboxes were a critical means of communication. Until around 1999.

If you were going to be late home or needed a lift, it was the only option.

The eircom £5 or £10 phone card, the "A" button and the mysterious "B" button.

Pressing button B ejected any unused coins. Could be quite lucrative as a youngster. I actually have one of the old Button A/B phone boxes lying about the place. And a few of the old rotary dial phones. And yes, they still work.

Basic handsets are very useful in a powercut alright, as they will continue to work.

murpho999

Speedsie wrote: »

Pressing button B ejected any unused coins. Could be quite lucrative as a youngster. I actually have one of the old Button A/B phone boxes lying about the place. And a few of the old rotary dial phones. And yes, they still work.

Basic handsets are very useful in a powercut alright, as they will continue to work.

But so would a mobile so I don't see the advantage?

What use is a landline phone to you during a powercut anyway? What else can you do apart from call someone?

JasonStatham

Vita nova wrote: »

Also, you won't get the same feels making a call from your mobile or PC as from this beauty:

Telecom Eireann used to sell (& rent) these as one of their standard sets.

Omg....mega cringe. The state of that.

Bobblehats

accensi0n wrote: »

Speedsie

murpho999 wrote: »

But so would a mobile so I don't see the advantage?

What use is a landline phone to you during a powercut anyway? What else can you do apart from call someone?

True enough, but I've very poor mobile signal across all networks where I am, and until relatively recently power outages were also common place.
Rural Dublin can be fun!

cml387

jimgoose wrote: »

What are you talking about, what is with the badger??

It's a crossed line.

Nigel Fairservice

I don't have one at my place. Just use my mobile.

My Dad has a landline and uses it occasionally but even he is using his mobile more these days. My mother spent 2 years on a waiting list to get the phone from Telecom Eireann in the early 80s.

DublinWriter

Vita nova wrote: »

Also, you won't get the same feels making a call from your mobile or PC as from this beauty:

Telecom Eireann used to sell (& rent) these as one of their standard sets.

Shut up and take my money!

DublinWriter

The only thing I still use it for is alerts from the house alarm.

Sure, you could probably do the same via mobile and an updated alarm system, but some criminals are clever enough to use GSM blockers.

Gregor Samsa

We got rid of ours after we realised that we had left all 3 cordless handsets uncharged for 3 months and didn’t notice.

peasant

murpho999 wrote: »

But so would a mobile so I don't see the advantage?

What use is a landline phone to you during a powercut anyway? What else can you do apart from call someone?

All correct, but if the landline socket is there anyway, a basic phone can be had for under a tenner, well worth it for peace of mind...if and when a powercut should last longer than a few hours only.
Ours lives in a drawer normally, right next to the landline socket, just in case.

angel eyes 2012

Vita nova wrote: »

Also, you won't get the same feels making a call from your mobile or PC as from this beauty:

Telecom Eireann used to sell (& rent) these as one of their standard sets.

Some customers of Telecom Eireann or Eircom were still paying rent on their devices right into the 2000s when you could go into Argos and buy a better phone for £20.

Incidentally, my father still uses his landline for his calls as he hates mobile phones. He has a smartphone but finds them difficult to navigate. The frustrating thing is he is only 70 years old now, was 50 in the year 2000 so he really doesn't have a valid excuse for being such a luddite but there is no changing him now!

CoBo55

DublinWriter wrote: »

The only thing I still use it for is alerts from the house alarm.

Sure, you could probably do the same via mobile and an updated alarm system, but some criminals are clever enough to use GSM blockers.

And snip the phone line...

Gregor Samsa

angel eyes 2012 wrote: »

Some customers of Telecom Eireann or Eircom were still paying rent on their devices right into the 2000s when you could go into Argos and buy a better phone for £20.

My mother in law was still renting her home phone up to at least 3 years ago. She was having trouble making calls one day, and I brought a spare phone from home to test if it was the phone or the line that was the problem. When I determined it was the phone, I offered for her to just keep my one, but she insisted on me taking it back and having an Eircom engineer come out and replace her phone as she was renting it “for peace of mind”. She refused to listen to us telling her what a total waste of money it was.

If Eir still do rentals (I know Eircom stopped for new customers in 2000, but they let legacy customers continue renting), then I’m sure she’s still throwing her money away, while complaining that she can’t make ends meet. I’m not opening that can of worms with her again to find out, though.

.anon.

I can still remember the excitement of going from one of these...

MmYxYjMzNDI0ZWFhNzYzN2YwNjNiMDMxZDZhOGE4MGWKOG-vK95Xvpvnp1MrSvIcaHR0cDovL21lZGlhLmFkc2ltZy5jb20vMGU4MmU2ZjViNTRlNGU4NTZlZGRiOGQyZGQ4ZjEzMTE1MzcwODFiZjcyN2MyYWM3YWEzOWE2Y2EyZmJmOGJkNy5qcGd8fHx8fHwxNjR4MjkyfGh0dHA6Ly93d3cuYWR2ZXJ0cy5pZS9zdGF0aWMvaS93YXRlcm1hcmsucG5nfHx8.jpg

MmYxYjMzNDI0ZWFhNzYzN2YwNjNiMDMxZDZhOGE4MGWKOG-vK95Xvpvnp1MrSvIcaHR0cDovL21lZGlhLmFkc2ltZy5jb20vMGU4MmU2ZjViNTRlNGU4NTZlZGRiOGQyZGQ4ZjEzMTE1MzcwODFiZjcyN2MyYWM3YWEzOWE2Y2EyZmJmOGJkNy5qcGd8fHx8fHwxNjR4MjkyfGh0dHA6Ly93d3cuYWR2ZXJ0cy5pZS9zdGF0aWMvaS93YXRlcm1hcmsucG5nfHx8.jpg

...to one of these:

NDcwZGQ5ZjhjMDlkZWViYjU1ZWQxNDU0ZDcyYTg0NjlQ3FlYBN5LJ08ElZmX9gWUaHR0cDovL21lZGlhLmFkc2ltZy5jb20vMTY1MGQ3ZDZhNjNmOWFkOGIzZGZiNjJkOWZmNDkyM2E5ZmJiZjVlMmZlMDc2ZjgxYmFlNGY4NWIyNTRhN2Y1MS5qcGd8fHx8fHwxNjR4MjkyfGh0dHA6Ly93d3cuYWR2ZXJ0cy5pZS9zdGF0aWMvaS93YXRlcm1hcmsucG5nfHx8.jpg

NDcwZGQ5ZjhjMDlkZWViYjU1ZWQxNDU0ZDcyYTg0NjlQ3FlYBN5LJ08ElZmX9gWUaHR0cDovL21lZGlhLmFkc2ltZy5jb20vMTY1MGQ3ZDZhNjNmOWFkOGIzZGZiNjJkOWZmNDkyM2E5ZmJiZjVlMmZlMDc2ZjgxYmFlNGY4NWIyNTRhN2Y1MS5qcGd8fHx8fHwxNjR4MjkyfGh0dHA6Ly93d3cuYWR2ZXJ0cy5pZS9zdGF0aWMvaS93YXRlcm1hcmsucG5nfHx8.jpg

jimgoose

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

...If Eir still do rentals (I know Eircom stopped for new customers in 2000, but they let legacy customers continue renting), then I’m sure she’s still throwing her money away, while complaining that she can’t make ends meet. I’m not opening that can of worms with her again to find out, though.

Eir don't do anything as tragically unhip as giving you a telephone anymore. Bliss was it, in that dawn! :pac:

gogo

Just remembered the joy of having a lad ring you at home and your siblings listening in on the other land line... hear the sniggers down the line, and the roars of ‘Hang up’. I’m sure my parents listened into a fair few calls as well, one way to keep a check on your kids back then.

Ger Roe

Nigel Fairservice wrote: »

I don't have one at my place. Just use my mobile.

My Dad has a landline and uses it occasionally but even he is using his mobile more these days. My mother spent 2 years on a waiting list to get the phone from Telecom Eireann in the early 80s.

In the early 70's we were living in Sandyford on the outskirts of what was then wild and rural Dundrum (Dublin 14). My father was in the Army and stationed in The Curragh. During various situations that arose during 'the troubles' there were occasions when he was at home and was urgently required back at base, but he could not be contacted because there were no telephone lines available in the area. Even representations made by the minister for defence to his colleague at the Dept of P&T, couldn't get a copper pair strung out for a few miles from the main exchange in Dundrum village.

The solution was to send a police car up from the local station, to take him back down, so he could use the phone. We always got strange looks from the neighbours when dad was put sitting in the back of a squad car and taken away - no one believed that he was just going to answer a phone call.

We eventually got our first phone line in 1979, after several years waiting.

boardlady

Ger Roe wrote: »

In the early 70's we were living in Sandyford on the outskirts of what was then wild and rural Dundrum (Dublin 14). My father was in the Army and stationed in The Curragh. During various situations that arose during 'the troubles' there were occasions when he was at home and was urgently required back at base, but he could not be contacted because there were no telephone lines available in the area. Even representations made by the minister for defence to his colleague at the Dept of P&T, couldn't get a copper pair strung out for a few miles from the main exchange in Dundrum village.

The solution was to send a police car up from the local station, to take him back down, so he could use the phone. We always got strange looks from the neighbours when dad was put sitting in the back of a squad car and taken away - no one believed that he was just going to answer a phone call.

We eventually got our first phone line in 1979, after several years waiting.

You must have been just missing out. We were in churchtown and I remember a landline from the year dot ... which was early 70s.

Ger Roe

boardlady wrote: »

You must have been just missing out. We were in churchtown and I remember a landline from the year dot ... which was early 70s.

There were some phone lines in the area, but not enough to meet increasing demand, and no extra capacity on the horizon. Our house was one of the later ones built in a 300 house scheme, there were a handful of telephones around the place, usually scattered about in the earliest houses built. They were expensive bits of kit to run, so not everyone even wanted one.

The Sandyford area then started to expand rapidly, but there was no investment put into additional services. The Harcourt rail line that ran through the area was closed in 1958 because it was thought that suburban Dublin would never expand that far out - the building boom in the area then started with our houses being built in 1963 - a mere five years later!

Luckily, even though the rail tracks were taken up, most of the land that the line ran on remained accessible and available for conversion into what is now the Green Luas line.

sabat

I got one as part of my VM package when I bought my own place, mostly as a sign of permanence and maturity, but only use it to ring my mobile when I can't find it. It's one fugly number too-you'd be embarrassed to give it to someone.

Charles Babbage

You got to love one of these guys, must more substantial than the colouredy plastic lightweights pictured above

[Deleted User]

.anon. wrote: »

I can still remember the excitement of going from one of these...

...to one of these:

Haha, would that have been around 1997-ish? I think it was for us. And then the cordless came in, and we didnt know ourselves.

The Mighty Quinn

Strange how a phone call can change your day
Take you away, away
From the feeling of being alone
Bless the telephone

theguzman

And here I am with no mobile reception trying to get a phoneline reinstalled.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058091284

riclad

For most people if you want fast broadband you.,, ll need to get a phone line installed.
Whether you use it to make phone calls is up to you.
Of course most people have a mobile phone.
Some people can get a free phone service, eg people on disability allowance.
Most phone lines are just used for broadband acess.