<p>I have two girls (17 and 14) and a husband and we all have cell phones. We have good service with our cells.
I keep feeling like there is going to be some kind of disaster and we won’t have cell service and we will need the land line. Or someone will get hurt and we will need the land line for 911.</p>
<p>Any thoughts?</p>
<p>You need it so telemarketers and survey folks have people left to call. Otherwsie they’ll be unemployed.</p>
<p>I keep my landline so in case people want to call us, they can. I often don’t have my cell on me at home and won’t answer it if it is another room or in the car. The landline is the most reliable way of getting in touch with me at home.</p>
<p>My cell phone has a much better chance of being properly charged than either of our landline phones at home…</p>
<p>And I’m also going to guess that if there is a disaster that takes out your cell service, how much good is a landline going to be for you? I know that’s a big advertising push by the phone companies, but I’m thinking in most cases if you lose cell service due to disaster there is a major incident going on where emergency help isn’t going to respond right away anyway…</p>
<p>We got rid of our landline and it’s the best thing we ever did. I was resistant at first, but hubby convinced me. That was back in December. Until then, our AT&T bill averaged $117/month. Since then, we pay AT&T $20/month for high speed internet service (special deal we got for one year … it will go up to $43 after December). Besides saving almost $100/month, we don’t get the solicitation calls, political calls, wrong numbers, etc. A few months before getting rid of our landline, we had purchased a home phone system that has bluetooth to sync with our cell phones, so we still use the handsets from that. The only call I actually miss is from an elderly lady who use to misdial on a regular basis and reach us. It became so common for her to dial the wrong number, I eventually just struck up conversation with her. I kind of miss her and hope she’s doing okay.</p>
<p>If you have broadband, then you have a backup for phone service assuming that you have the equipment (could be as simple as an iPod Touch) to make and receive phone calls through WiFi.</p>
<p>We have a landline phone. It costs us $16/month. I have been thinking of getting rid of it for several years. Each year I get a little closer. The FCC keeps raising USF fees because they keep bringing in less revenue as more people drop their landlines - I wonder why?</p>
<p>Thanks everyone</p>
<p>Splashmom -that is a sweet story</p>
<p>My landline rarely rings -and when it does I get mad at it -I work from home and it interrupts me -and is usually a machine wanting to consolidate our credit card debt</p>
<p>My girls look at it in puzzelment when it rings</p>
<p>I am not even sure they would use it if they fell or something -because they are so unused to it</p>
<p>We do have broadband BC eagle
I hadn’t thought of that as being a backup</p>
<p>We were recently without power for almost 24 hours. The only phone we could rely on was an old relic that just plugs right into the phone line. We were glad to have it, but realize that a landline that uses phones that need electricity won’t work for long if the power goes out.</p>
<p>
This is pretty much the only reason we have ours I think. Almost every call is some robo-call or telemarketer/survey person. Most people who know us call our cell phones. This despite being on the do-not-call registry.</p>
<p>Even the grandma doesn’t call it anymore since I got her a cell phone on my plan and told her it’s ‘free’ if she calls us using that phone.</p>
<p>Okay - I keep it for one other reason - work conference calls that can be hours long. I need to evaluate it again and see if I should just get rid of it and do the concalls on the cell.</p>
<p>If you have a long time or lucky phone number that you don’t want to lose or give up, hang on to your land line. It is too easy to lose #'s with cell phone companies.</p>
<p>We had 2 natural disasters last fall with the loss of cell service and electricity for about 10 days each time. We kept an old phone that did not require electricity and everyone in our neighborhood used it!</p>
<p>good point^^</p>
<p>We haven’t had a landline in years. I don’t think we’ve had one since before I was in high school so almost a decade. We don’t miss it.</p>
<p>One other means of backup is to have phones with different providers.</p>
<p>Broadband is a form of backup but doesn’t work when the power goes out.</p>
<p>One other form of backup is a neighbor with a land line.</p>
<p>A dear friend had a house fire a few months ago. She said that when she called 911 she was so flustered that she couldn’t remember her own address – despite having lived there for 20+ years. She was so thankful that the dispatcher was able to identify the location of the fire based on her landline phone number. She said that she’ll never get rid of her landline in case of an emergency like this.</p>
<p>my kids don’t answer their cell phones when they are home, but they are too lazy to look at caller ID and typically pick up the land line. Also, I don’t keep my cell phone in my pocket when I’m home, so that’s not a option if people want to reach me. All said, however, we have 2nd line of VIOP hooked up to an OOMA (from Costco) and have thought about ‘porting’ the land line number to it to save the ridiculous Verizon charges (think it’s close to $40/month).</p>
<p>I kept my landline because my father would only call that number- he wouldn’t call my cell phone (I don’t think he fully believed that cellular technology was possible.) He died in January but I still have the landline.</p>
<p>Our cellphones get terrible connection, so of course we kept out home phone. In fact, we had three phones, all cordless, which picked up our Optimum connection that also serves our computers and we have a generator to feeds electricity, so even if we lost power, we’re in good shape. Recently we also purchased a landline phone since needed to replace one cordless anyway. We’re ready for more storms now!</p>
<p>I keep the landline for emergencies. When the earthquake hit and the electricity went out, the telephone still worked. When everyone gets on the cell phone in an emergency the system is overwhelmed and they don’t work.</p>
<p>I still have a corded landline phone. It has better sound than cordless or cell, though the cell is improving. Thinking back to the time our power was out for a few days, I will be keeping it, though the unlimited long distance is something I’m considering dropping. I also liked the cheaper overseas calling in case of emergency with my AT&T plans. Yes, I can use a phone card, and gchat or skype, but with multiple family members abroad, I don’t want to go through too many gyrations to get in touch with them.</p>