The Best Landline Only Deals – including digital voice

Our rating 9.8/10

Phonely comes in at the top spot on our list of digital landline providers. Phonely is an award-winning digital landline provider, offering landline only deals at competitive prices, with the cheapest package being £9.97 per month. Their service boasts unlimited minutes to UK landlines and mobiles, voicemail and contact book features as standard with every package and free number transfers meaning you get to keep your old landline number at no extra cost.

Their customer reviews are also glowing, with a very impressive 4.6 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot. A recurring theme from the comments is their exemplary customer service, with multiple customers remarking on how straightforward and hassle-free the process of switching over to the Phonely platform was.

But what sets Phonely apart from its competitors is CallGuard, its scam protection service. After spending a few minutes on their website, it's clear that Phonely has protection as one of their core values and quoting directly, hope to give “the most vulnerable the confidence to answer their phone”.

CallGuard offers a whole host of features specifically designed to combat the recent increase in phone scams, such as call blocking and anti-fraud introductions. But perhaps their most powerful feature is the trusted person(s) nomination and app, which allows you to join a loved one’s call in real-time and prevent any potential scams there and then.

Our rating 9.6/10

If instead, you’re looking for a business landline-only provider, our recommendation is SwitchboardFREE. Operating for over 20 years in the telecoms sector, SwitchboardFREE is a reliable and experienced provider of business VoIP phone systems.

Something that immediately stands out is the affordability of the plans. Their economy package starts at just £5 per month per user and includes unlimited inbound minutes to their app, softphone & VoIP phones and 60 outbound minutes to landline & mobile phones. Even their top, unlimited, package boasts great value. Coming in at £16 per month, offers unlimited inbound and outbound minutes (as you might have guessed from the name), but also includes free hardware and TPS protection with a value just shy of £100!

All the core features are included: multiple departments, a contact book, and call forwarding. But what really swung it for us was the amount of the free features that are so often charged for, such as music on hold, instant voicemail to email notifications and the ability to record custom prompts.

The only real drawback we could find was the absence of an international calls package. This however doesn’t preclude international calls, instead, they are charged at a fixed per-minute rate.

Our rating 8.4/10

If you’re looking for a VoIP service that’s packed full of added extras, with all the bells and whistles, then Vonage for Home is a great option. One of Vonage for Home’s main selling points is its extensive feature set - It offers over 20 of them as standard, regardless of which plan you choose. The standouts for me are their trademarked boomerang, which lets you chat with selected contacts anywhere in the world at no charge to them, and SimulRing, which lets you ring up to 5 phones at the same time, but all the basics are there too – call transfer, call blocking, voicemail, do not disturb… the list goes on. They even have a mobile app that lets you take your landline calls on the go!

Vonage for Home also offers free number transfers, which allows you to keep your old number when transferring to digital, and a free VoIP adapter (creatively named the Vonage Box) with every plan which converts your old analogue handset into a VoIP phone. And with prices starting at just £6.99 per month, Vonage for Home really is one of the most affordable options on the market.

I know it all seems too good to be true, and unfortunately, in this case, it is. Upon doing a bit of research, it won’t take long to come across their less-than-ideal customer reviews. As is often the case when dealing with larger companies like Vonage, their customer service seemingly leaves a lot to be desired. A recurring complaint seems to be how difficult it is to actually get through to a real person, and when you do it’s to a call centre based outside of the UK.

Our rating 7.5/10

If instead, you’re just looking for a simple and reliable home VoIP provider, then Xinix could be the provider for you.

They offer three very affordable packages: basic, standard and ultimate that will set you back £8, £11 and £12 per month respectively. And if you’re willing to pay annually these prices drop by £2 per month resulting in a yearly saving of £24! All three packages offer the same standard features and benefits: caller ID, voicemail, apps that can turn your pc or mobile phone into a landline (although these aren’t always free), free setup and up-to 5 connectible devices.

It's clear that simplicity for the user was at the forefront of Xinix’s design, as the only real difference between the packages is the minutes included. This allows you to choose your package based on how many calls you think you’ll be making. The basic package works on a ‘pay as you go’ basis - your calls are subjected to a 12p per minute charge for mobile phones and 5p per minute for landlines, ideal for those who don’t make many calls. A nice middle ground is provided with the standard package which instead provides 500 minutes of landline and mobile calls. And finally, for the real chatterboxes, the ultimate package provides unlimited minutes for landline and mobile calls.

One thing worth noting, however, is the free adapter included with every package. Although this sounds enticing, Xinix charge a rather steep £8 for delivery and an additional £20 fee for number porting - so it may be worth checking if buying an adapter outright from another provider may work out cheaper! Also, Xinix enforces a 24-month minimum contract, so make sure you’re 100% happy before signing up.

Our rating 6.3/10

BT is a giant in the telecoms sector and really needs no introduction. Their solution to the landline switch-off is Digital Voice, “the next generation home phone.”

The main draw of digital voice is that, for existing BT users, the switchover is incredibly simple and comes at no extra cost to their current plan. This includes the Smart Hub 2 and any required Digital Voice Adapters, which will be sent out free of charge on or before your switch-off date. They also offer discounted digital home phones, should you wish to upgrade from your old analogue handset.

Digital Voice comes with an array of features, consistent with most other digital landline providers: voicemail, call waiting, call diversion etc. but also offers ‘Call Protect,’ BT’s anti-fraud service. ‘Call Protect’ is an AI-driven service that monitors incoming calls in real time and notifies you of suspected nuisance calls.

There are however a number of major downsides to digital voice, principally the price. The cheapest ‘pay as you go’ package clocks in at £28.40 per month (NOT including the price of the minutes) and their unlimited minutes package will set you back £46.40 per month, making it by far the most expensive option in this list. You are also required to have BT broadband (the Smart Hub 2) which incurs an additional monthly cost and precludes you from shopping for a better broadband deal elsewhere.

And lastly, if you have ever dealt with BT in the past, it will not come as a surprise to you that their customer reviews are generally very poor. As with Vonage for Home, individual customer care with these enormous companies tends to be difficult and often very unsatisfactory.