Has anyone changed to one of the VOIP companies and then had trouble getting their # back if they wanted to change carriers?
I use google voice for one of my businesses. I like the voicemail transcription, though they aren’t very accurate.
Phone.com’s website says when you transfer your home phone number you still own it although it will only go to that service so if you still want to keep the original service as well, you will need to get another number for it. We also like to have a home phone when talking w/ family - easier to put on speaker on the coffee table for my husband and I than the cell phones.
We dropped the landline when we moved, then got it back. The reality is I don’t have my cell phone with me around the house. And I usually keep my ringer low or off. At night I plug it in on the kitchen counter and go to bed. We live pretty far out and I’m a scaredy cat when I’m alone. Only the four of us have the #. That way if it rings I know it’s one of them and it’s important enough to want to be sure to get us. Sure enough my son called from his internship with a medical emergency. Plus, the you know what goes down and I hear my alarm system go off I want to dial 911 and hide in my closet.
We haven’t had a landline in probably 10+ years. Never missed it.
I’ve started running a log of bills as they come in. I figure it will help to figure out which companies to contact to change the phone #.
It gets much easier once the kids are out of school–a great deal of paperwork stems from children.
I keep a home phone (not a land line), mostly to have a number to give in situations where they really don’t need my cell phone # and also because I have about a thousand loyalty cards tied to that number. I pay $30/year for NetTalk. It also comes in handy when H leaves his cell phone in the office or lets the battery run out.
We did some years back. H wanted to change over because it was “cheaper” until the company went under 2 or 3 months later. We then wanted to go back to AT & T with the same # we had had for years and because the other carrier had folded , it was a nightmare getting the number back. H spent hours on the (cell) phone over several days to get it done.
Regarding loyalty cards tied to phone #s: we still have a bunch tied to the number we haven’t had in years. As it comes up, we change them to our cell numbers but it hasn’t been a big deal at all.
In terms of landlines during an emergency, it also depends on how good the network is with digital phone service. While cable companies and services like FIOS have adaptive routing (ie if a tree takes down the fiber or coax cable, they can reroute it another way), in a storm that knocks out power, for above ground lines (which many people have), you can still lose it (which of course was true with the old copper phone lines as well). In some ways cable phones and FIOS based phones may be better than the old copper ones, with a copper pair it was a direct connection between your house and the central office, so any break and your phone service was done. With cable or fios, as long as the connection between your house and the pole is not lost, you should be okay.
911 location works with a cell phone these days. I had to switch to an online fax service when I gave up my landline about five years ago. Other than that, have not missed it.
I ditched my land line a few years ago, and am not missing it a bit. I registered my cell phone number with the National Do Not Call Registry, so no problem with phone solicitors. In case of emergency, in the very rare instance where I might not be able to get through to 911, I have OnStar in my car. Their satellite can locate me immediately.
No cell reception at all in our house, even with a signal booster. As such, we ditched Verizon and went to VoIP–part of a package with cable and internet. We have one choice for a provider in my town. It’s Charter Spectrum–which has lousy service. Nothing us easy with this company.
We dropped our Verizon landline several years ago and have managed fine without it.
We used to get bombarded by Verizon marketing calls as well as bank marketing calls that drove us crazy.
(sometimes 10 times a day) Somehow a lot of our neighbors in our community had the same issues with them.
Dd and I each have a cellphone and a 3rd backup prepaid smartphone (which we haven’t given anyone the number to) to be used for emergencies.
Now if I could only find a cheaper internet services as I it seems Verizon fios is my only choice. (if I had my way I wouldn’t do any business with them)
I know I should drop my landline but I can’t bring myself to do so. I used to keep it because of the kids but I will be an official empty nester next month so I should get rid of it.
We just dumped ours and I’ve had a little bit of anxiety over it. It just feels strange not to have it, even though we mainly used it to order pizza and get calls confirming appointments. We seem to be doing fine without it.
We ditched our landline last year. We haven’t missed and saved $50/mo.
What is this “land line” of which you speak? Something from the the 20th century?
^^ha ha! I do feel like it’s so old school.
“We ditched our landline last year. We haven’t missed and saved $50/mo.”
Called the cable company to complain about the endless spam calls and have them change the number, which the first rep wanted to charge me for. Before I was able to wrangle the no-fee workaround, I stated I’d just drop the land line service if they charged me to change it. They told me the bill would go up by almost $55 if I dropped the bundled package I currently have and keep only internet and cable.
I hate those people.
I know there’s probably no real reason to keep it, but I can’t seem to bring myself to give up our home phone number. As someone upthread mentioned it’s a good number to give to people who really don’t really need to have my cell number. And we’ve had it for so many year’s just seems like a pain to change it. Granted I could convert it to another cell, but it’s cheaper to keep as a “landline” (really VoIP) than pay for another cell line. At one time our cell service in our house was bad (but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore), so that was one reason we kept it. I also do use it occasionally for fax.