<p>H is wondering whether we still need a landline, what with all 4 of us having cellphones. I’m not sure if I’m just clinging to vestiges of the past or if there really is some advantage to still having the house phone. My one thought is that it is our house phone number that is in the phone book. Thoughts?</p>
<p>Ha!!! I just posted something about this in the new iPhone thread; you might want to read it, and take it into consideration before you cancel your land line. In short, for 911 calls, land lines often times are the quickest way to reach the correct entity in cases of emergencies.</p>
<p>The problem of this is that you need to carry that cell phone all the time. My iphone run out of juice all the time and needs to be recharge twice daily.</p>
<p>Land line is dirt cheap right now and I still will pay for it.</p>
<p>Our land line was $45 a month (out in the country) and $7 a month extra not to have it listed (unlisted number). the only calls we got were political advertisements. all the other calls went to my cell. I do not miss it at all. we each have our own cell and there are only 2 of us now. we carry it around with us and charge it at the bedside. we dropped the land line about 4 years ago.
I did not want my phone connected to my address for safety reasons. and I did not want my name/address/phone number listed because of my occupation.</p>
<p>when we did have a land line I did call 911 and even told them the address and directions. the fire was in a field next to us and put itself out by the time they found us 45 minutes later. so in our case not a benefit.</p>
<p>We still have ours for our fax machine. There’s probably a cheaper/better way to get and send faxes but I haven’t figured that out yet. If not for the fax, our landline would be gone.</p>
<p>You still get faxes? Wow! </p>
<p>For some of us, the cell phone still does not work well in the house. Like housewives of yore, I talk on the phone while sweeping, cooking, dusting and washing dishes. Can’t even hold the cell phone to multitask. So the landline stays, illogical though it may be. In power outages, the land line does not need to be charged. Yes, I still have a cord on one phone. </p>
<p>Retired and home more times than not. We downgraded to pay per minute smartphones that we usually leave turned off. We have portable phones all over our one story house. When it rings one or the other of us will pick up the phone, giving it to the other if need be. I would hate to have my cell phone on me at all times, or remember to take it from the table next to me when I leave the room. What happens when someone wants someone who is home? Do they keep trying different cell phones to reach the household member who is home? Cell phones alone are great for those who change apartments often and live with unrelated people but I still feel they have a use for couples and families. Likewise- in our old house cell reception indoors was often bad due to the terrain. Technically we have a phone system only connected via the computer modem and it requires electricity. A true landline would be connected via totally separate wiring.</p>
<p>I find the voice clarity on my landline is much better than on my cell (especially true when the other party is using a cell phone), and as I age I think this will be a more and more critical issue. I also like the security of a phone that will work during power outages. We have a two story colonial house with three phone extensions for our landline–kitchen, family room, and master bedroom. I can’t imagine having to carry a cell phone all over the house, or even how I’d do it, not being someone whose clothes necessarily have pockets, and I wouldn’t be able to hear it ring if I left it on one floor when I was on another. Then there are the times H and I want to be part of the same conversation (when one of the kids calls with news, for example), and one of us will yell to the other to pick up the extension. All in all, I’ll never give up a landline.</p>
<p>We’ve been without a landline for seven years. Four cellphones in the house is plenty for us! If you have good reception, I see no reason to spend the cash on a landline. (Of course, this is coming from a household with no cable/satellite tv… just an HD antenna… going without househould wifi would never happen here though!)</p>
<p>Home phones don’t need to be expensive. I have a NetTalk DUO VOIP device. Cost me $40 to buy. Service is $30/year. I’ve had it 3 years now with no problems. And I was able to keep my home phone number when I switched to NetTalk. I’m rather protective of my cell phone. If it rings, I want it to be someone important. So I use the home phone for loyalty cards, ordering stuff, and really anytime I need to provide a phone number that doesn’t need immediate response.</p>
<p>I have it set so that messages left during the day go to my email, so it’s easy to see if someone left a message and if it’s anything I need to address. I much prefer this to having my cell phone going off at work all day.</p>
<p>Also, H tends to forget his cell phone a lot, so at least there’s always a working phone in the house for him if he leaves his cell at the office.</p>
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<p>I called 911 when my mom took a fall about a month ago, and the ambulances made it in about 4 minutes. No delays or issues getting to the right place here… I think it is now required that phones have a GPS indicator that is used by 911, I don’t see how a landline would be better. Gave my landline up a couple of years ago and have not missed it. I am pretty selective about giving out my cell number, and almost never get political calls, survey calls, “phone spam” any more. I don’t worry about the phone book – when was the last time you got a call on the landline from someone who looked you up in the phone book that you wanted to talk to? People want to talk to have my cell number. And I can always be found on Facebook or LinkedIn. Now my old email address… THAT I won’t give up for business reasons…</p>
<p>When my Father had a stroke the person who found him used his cell phone to call 911 in a city right outside of Boston. The call went to the state police who had to forward it to the local police. It took about 20 minutes for an ambulance to show up. If the call had been made on a landline, I suspect the ambulance would have been there in minutes. </p>
<p>We live in a hilly area and still use our landline for long conversations. Some rooms in our house get lousy cell reception. Also, I like having a number I can give out to businesses that isn’t my cell. I let my landline go to the answering machine most of the time as the number of solicitors and political calls seems to be increasing.</p>
<p>Personally, I prefer my landline for conference calls and lengthly conversations as well, I feel there is less of a radiation risk from the landline than cell phones and reception is better and more consistent. We pay $80 monthly for a combo of our landline and high speed DSL internet. It works for us.</p>
<p>I also like being able to send faxes everywhere with the landline. Some companies ONLY accept faxes and my bookkeeper prefers them. It is an extravagance, but we like it. All of my sibs and my parents still have their landlines but my niece and nephew-in-law never got one, nor do my kids have landlines. Most of my friends still have them–may be more of a generational thing as the younger ones disconnect the landlines at a higher rate than those of us say older than 50.</p>
<p>I am another who gave up the landline years ago; I had our old number transferred to my cell. No regrets (especially when I do that math).</p>
<p>I like my landline as the phone number to give to doctor’s, online orders, or any other situation where a phone number is required. So far, I haven’t received any marketing calls on my cell phone. My husband has, however. He’s not as careful about not giving out his cell phone number. It’s one thing to ignore marketing calls on the landline, and quite another to be interrupted by them on my cell phone.</p>
<p>I also like the extra security of having a landline in case of an emergency.</p>
<p>The biggest issue with retaining a landline is finding a phone that isn’t designed for geriatrics. We had to replace ours recently, and the selection was slim. There’s not much of a market for them.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this was posted yet. S1 works for Verizon. He told me they have a thing called “home connect” (I think that’s the name.) it runs on a cell phone line but basically it lets you keep your home phone number for $20/mth. You add it as a line to your family plan and you get a little device that you hook your home phone to so you can use your home phone and home phone number but use your cell plan minutes. Since the More everything is unlimited minutes it won’t have overage. There is no data with it. It’s just a way to keep that phone number that most of us have had forever, and keep using your home phone. It could save $, but it’s not a true “landline.” I would consider it if I wasn’t in a comcast bundle right now.</p>
<p>People have made a lot of great points! I feel like clinging to the darn thing for awhile longer at least ;).</p>
<p>Got rid of landline 3 years ago, haven’t looked back. We use my mobile number as our home phone number. I use an online fax service for my business (scan a document if I need to fax - which is almost never as I can just as easily email the scanned pdf) and Skype phone number for business calls. A year of the Skype number costs the same as 2 months of the cheapest landline service.</p>