Tesco: We have never had so much choice as in recent years.

If you factor out higher wages, planning restrictions and other cost issues of doing business here, and they are still "coining it", then it comes down to Irish people being lazy customers. – Liam

We may criticise Tesco, but I'm inclined to think that without Tesco, other retailers in the Republic would be charging a lot more. – Peter B

Landlines: It becomes a lot more difficult to drop your landline if you have appliances in the house that depend on the landline, eg Sky's multi-room boxes, alarms (remote-monitoring type). If those appliances can be made to work with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), then it would be much easier to drop the landline . . . It is simply a matter of when it can be implemented. – Richard

It depends on what area you live in; for instance, some areas have awful mobile coverage and most areas wouldn't have great wireless broadband yet, so if you have broadband it wouldn't cost you that much more for a landline phone since you're already paying for a line for the broadband. – Martin