I just want internet

We are lucky enough to own a bach. It's a small place that allows us to get away with the family. Quite naturally, we try to make the place as comfortable as possible. This recently extended to high speed internet - which leads to my complaint - I found it was impossible to get the internet without paying for a phone service as well. The problem was - we don't want the phone.

Now I understand we need the physical phone line - we already had that because the previous owners had had a phone at some stage. But I don't understand why we had to have an active phone. The end result is we have the crazy situation where we have a phone line that we're paying for with no phone attached to it.

I'm sure we're unusual in not wanting a phone - but this will happen more and more - especially as people start using voice over IP more and more. The problem is - the phone companies (in this case Telecom) are, well - phone companies and don't want you having the internet without the phone. So this situation is unlikely to change in the short term. But that doesn't stop me complaining about it.