How important is a telephone line?

[Le_Jars]

We will be opening our second house as a gite next year and I was

thinking about not getting it connected to a phone line especially as

so many people now have mobiles. Does anyone think it's really

necessary?

[Chris_Haze]

It depends how you want to register your gite (if at all). When we registered our gite with the Prefecture in Poitiers, they sent Gites de France inspectors to do the classification and one of the extra criteria for obtaining a 3 star rating was the installation of  a telephone line in our gite, the others were - a colour television and antennae, and the provision of off road private parking. We decided it made sense to provide all of these in addition to all the other standard requirements.

Good luck with your venture next year.

Hazel 

[Le_Jars]

Thank you, we're not going down the Gites de France route but we don't

want to put people off either. I think we'll play it by ear for the

first few months.

[alnmike]

The main request I get is for broadband/line for internet access, rather than calls. I know - why when on holiday do they need email?? But in fairness it could be researching the local area [:)]

So if your second building is close to your home, perhaps you could get wireless broadband?

I don't think it is widely expected tho!!