Posted on 02/27/2011 8:52:16 AM PST by Brookhaven
At one time, having a dedicated land-line phone in your house was a requirement. Like heat or air conditioning, every house had it. With the advent of cell phones I have found it impossible to justify the cost of keeping a land-line phone—I just don't use it that much anymore. When you include taxes, the minimum cost of having a land-line phone in the house (in my state) is $45 a month ($540 ayear). I only used the land-line phone for 5-10 calls a month, which worked out to be over $5 per call.
I thought about getting a land-line phone through my cable company. At $30 a month it was a savings over the phone company, but it still worked out to be at least $3 a call. So I dumped my land-line and went just with my cell phone. This has met all my needs, but it has added a few inconveniences:
(1) I despise carrying my cell phone with me when I'm at home (at home I want to kick back and relax).
(2) I don't want to race across the house to answer my cell phone.
(3) I often don't hear the cell phone across the house and miss calls.
(4) My spouse complains about inconveniences 1, 2, & 3.
So I've started looking for for someway to solve these problems. I've come up with several. I'm going to discuss the first one now: the XLink phone box.
In a nutshell, this box lets you use all the old style land-line phones in your house to talk over your cell phone.
---excerpted text---
The cost of the unit is $99 on the XLink web site, but runs $80 on Amazon. It pays for itself in two months. After that it saves you $540 a year.
(Excerpt) Read more at munydews.blogspot.com ...
I would also add that if you have a monitored house alarm, a POTS line is still the way to go.
If you get rid of your landline, you can have that number assigned to your cell phone.
MajicJack is $39.99 to buy and includes 1st year of service then $19.99 a YEAR.
I’ve used Vonage for six years now, and love it.
I keep a basic land line for the alarm system, fax and emergencies, and have that and the Vonage line plugged into a 2-line cordless phone base station. When I travel (in the US) I just forward the Vonage number directly to my cell phone.
I tried a Magic Jack while spending a month in Costa Rica a few months ago and while it worked fairly well, it was a bit of a pain to have to have my laptop on (and the software running) in order to use it... that’s a negative in my mind.
My computer is ALWAYS on at my house and I was paying $40.00 a month for phone service from cable company. I paid $40 for the magic jack and got rid of the cable phone.
Saving for next year $440.
Regular phone service was impossible as my phone lines stayed messed up for last 2 YEARS I had what could laughingly be called service. Ditched the phone company so I could get phone service that worked 4 years ago. It works but the cable bill keeps growing (had internet/cable/phone package). I don’t have ANY premium channels and bill had moveed past $150. Dropping the phone dropped $40 a month.
Waiting for the next bill to see what else will get cut next.
Well the communications act of 1934 had a demand that the phone companies will deliver AC power to each phone in its territory.
This would enable communications not matter what, short of the local CO or Tandem switch losing power. But, the Disaster Planning mandate forced the telecoms to install failsafes via battery and generator.
So when I discuss change of service with my customers I always ask if they have an alarm system or a fax machine so they can send and receive calls in the event of a disaster or emergency.
Now you are talking about mobile service and it’s not likely they can locate you real time.
Their systems are not set up that way. Funny how the government excises a tax of $1.50 a month to build a system that could but in the 17 years you have been paying that tax any system that has been built is kloogee or hogepoge but, more likely non existent.
Nope.
You had an experience but the phone company isn’t selling you anything. Sure, they want to sell lines but I am their competitor and absolutely insist my customers have a single back up line from the local telco.
I get paid nothing on that line but part of our service is disaster planning, recognizing they will happen and building solutions around that eventuality.
See this link for more information:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2680871/posts?page=34#34
Hospitals, Fire Stations, National Guard Armories and Police stations have built in redundancy mandate by your local PUC.
The electric grid is built so it can fail when required but if you happen to live in the same grid as one of those, the power will not go out. The local utility places huge Marine Batteries in the CO and at the electrical grid location where emergency services are located. They also have diesel powered generators that will automatically power up in the event the batteries fail and the mandate for most of those is they deliver power for 4-10 days.
What you want to do is ensure you have 911 service available at all times.
If you want to save money, you order a basic POTS with no features.
ATT, in California, delivers that service for $6.95 plus tax.
Your alarm company will install a wireless device in lieu of or in conjunction with a land line.
The option for wireless, with or without a landline, is around $35 per month in addition to any services or level of service provided by ADT.
You did the right thing and it wasn’t cheap. You need to check your battery each year as it loses 10-15% of storage for every year in use.
The telephone companies have a program of replacing their battery backup every 5-7 years no matter what, as the loss of storage diminishes exponentially after the 5th year.
All cell phones carry 911 service but they do not carry E911 service nor do they have PSAP service which will deliver an address to the emergency service provider.
The best they can do currently is figure out what cell tower you are transmitting on and the previous towers you egressed and ingressed.
In the event of power failure your cell phone will absolutely work. However, it is likely the cell tower has also lost it’s power and your cell phone will not have the capability to transmit.
The towers have minimal battery backup and I have not seen one with diesel generators as backup.
I would say less than 10% of cell towers have any redundancy in the even of power failure.
Your local CO delivering POTS lines will have Marine Battery backup and Diesel Generators.
If you live next to a police station, fire department or hospital you will be in luck as the system is designed for near zero failure.
The problem at that point will be trying call some other destination out of that grid sector as they will likely not have disaster redundancy built in.
A regular desulfation program can at least double the life of lead acid cells. I don't expect the phone company to do that but I do. And I have reconditioned swapped out UPS cells and use them. Three AGM batteries in their 11th year now with me.
That’s true but we don’t.
It more cost effective and predictable to forklift the operation of replacement to deliver continuity.
Surprisingly, it was! The UPS was a throwaway at work--the battery had lost its ability to keep a charge, so they tossed it. I took the itty bitty battery out, soldered some heavy-gauge leads to the original battery terminals, and brought them out to another 12V gel-cell. I got the gel-cell surplus at a ham radio swapfest.
You need to check your battery each year as it loses 10-15% of storage for every year in use. The telephone companies have a program of replacing their battery backup every 5-7 years no matter what, as the loss of storage diminishes exponentially after the 5th year.
Yeah, I've already experienced this. I put the system together 4 years ago, and discovered during a power outage last year that it didn't keep the 'net on very long. So I replaced the gel-cell with a bigger one. Another throw-away at work: terminals were damaged, so they couldn't ship it in a customer device. But it works just fine for me.
Interesting! How do you do this? Don't spare the details; I'm an electrical engineer.
That’s pretty cool
Embark?
Geez, I can empathise.
As my former landline provider, they were getting the extra moolah for unlisted/nonpub, and I had of course admonished them that I didn’t want to hear from THEIR telemarketing dept either. (You actually have to specify this.)
So one day I got a wake-up call (night-shift job) on Embark’s behalf, asking my opinion of my recent customer svc experience with them. WTF? Cussed a blue streak & hung up, then decided I wasn’t done and called Cust Svc to complain about being telemarketed when I was paying those a-holes extra just to be left alone... which of course the CSR denied that I had been telemarketed by Embark—
—Which generated additional wake-up calls from Embark. I’m talking about being wakened 3 days in the course of four business days in a row. I repeat: I was paying these jokers for the privilege of being left the blanketyblankblank alone!
Once I called their HQ (in Arkansas, I think) and generated a corporate complaint, the regional manager diagnosed the kickoff as when I’d dropped an add-on service to save money. You see, any contact with Embark’s cust svc dept automatically puts you on a third party survey list. Embark pays the survey caller company to check up on customer satisfaction with Embark representatives. The stupid system won’t disregard those customers who freakin SPECIFIED they didn’t want to be bothered! Grrrrrrrrrr
Wisely, the lady didn’t even try talking me into staying with them. How the heck do you justify giving out someone’s info when they’re paying you especially not to? Idiots.
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