Posted on 01/09/2014 5:33:59 AM PST by pogo101
My wife and I are considering "making the leap" by dumping our land line phone. We'd effectively still have a hard-wired connection, to a point, namely our U-verse internet connection -- although that largely becomes wireless INSIDE the house.
We are sufficiently confident in the connection that it would work in a medical or other emergency.
Also, we have gotten so many spam land-line calls in recent years, despite being on the DNC list, that our landline is largely useless anyway.
Thoughts?
In our area it is the cell service that goes out with the power, not the land line. We are in a rural area that the power company deems ‘unpopulated’ so they use their resources to get power back to the cities over an hour away. They know we will stay civilized if our power is out for days. The same can’t be said for the Obama voters in America’s cities.
A few years back, there was a pretty bad ice storm here that knocked out the power for almost 3 days.
My cell continued to work.
My land line continued to work.
About 8 hours after the power went out, my land line ceased. I think the substation I’m connected through ran out of AUX power then.
Cell only for 13 years....
I ditched the landline telephone 10 years ago and never regretted it. Why give AT&T more of my hard earned money? The only people who called it were telemarketing anyway.
If the cost of the line isn’t a problem, turn the ringer on the phone off - disconnect any message machine - we even got rid of all the phones but the one in the spare bedroom. This gives us a landline should cell service be unavailable. Probably paranoid on my part, but stories of jammed up cell service after tornado, hurricane and earthquake activity, and now arctic vortex’s seems like a good reason to keep the landline.
Zero cell service at this time, so their carrier sent them some sort of gizmo which equates to a mini-cell tower; problem is, though, that their setup was difficult and only their gear worked in the house....our cell and tablet were worthless there.
Same here. I have repeatedly filed the required reports to have the violators fined, but there is a problem. There is no way to follow up on the reports to see if any action has been taken. I suspect that the jobs at the DNC list are no-show positions for the friends, relatives and donors of the other DNC! Maybe a FOIA investigation of DNC list is warranted.
How do you do that? Is it A DIY, or do you have to take it to your phone store?
I've seen those ads for years, but always figured it to be some kind of a scam. You mean it's for real?
Of the various land line alternatives (magic jack, vonage, etc.) the one with the highest rating from Consumer Reports is Ooma. It’s also dirt cheap. Hate their bizarre commercials, though.
Being the old fogeys that we are, we thought about ditching our land line, but just can’t bring ourselves to do it. If you do, make sure your cell phones are charged up if you think there might be long power outage coming your way.
I agree with the other Freeper who said you also have to remember to take your cell phone with you from room to room. You won’t hear it all over the house the way you would a regular phone.
It's an easy thing to convert that to 12 volts DC to run a one hell of a variety of things including lighting.
They're a no-contract cell provider, been in business since '93, all calls ride Verizon's (huge) network w/o any other affiliation/obligation to Verizon (they're generally evil ;-).
Lots of different competitively priced 'plans' available (voice/text/data/etc), but I use the pay-as-you-go service:
* $10 = 100 minutes = .10/min
* $25 = 416 minutes = .06/min
* $50 = 1,000 minutes = .05/min
* text=10¢ ea .. pix=25¢ ea
You're only required to add minutes every 4 months, minimum of a $10 refill.
These days I rarely use the cell, so only spend ~$50/year .. if you're phone's mainly for emergencies, you could get by on the minimum $30/year.
They're based in OH .. the handful of times I've needed to contact them over the past three years, they've been prompt, courteous, and they've been Americans speaking English.
They'll also port your current # for free.
Along with printer ink, cell service strikes me as one of the great scams of the digital age .. this solution works for me, and I'm a satisfied customer.
I dropped the landline about 7 years ago. I don’t make many calls anyway, so it became rather expensive for the non-use.
I like the Tracfone prepaid. I can get about 15 months of service and 60 minutes (I already have several hundred minutes from previous extensions) for about $7 per month. The landline was up to $25 + additional fees nearing $5 for each long distance call.
The one problem with Tracfone is that the phone number is assigned to only one phone.
With Tracfone prepaid, the minutes never expire. You do have to keep the ‘service’ active, however.
==
ps: plus, all unused minutes carry over
For what it’s worth........
About 1 in 3 Households Has No Landline Phone
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/09/05/about-1-in-3-households-has-no-landline-phone/
More than half of U.S. homes don’t have or use landline
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2012/12/27/more-than-half-homes-without-landline/1793823/
We kept the land line for emergencies. I unplugged all the phones and have a couple of phones near jacks in case we need them.
Anybody that I want to talk to (very few) get my cell number. Everybody else gets the land line number and their calls go unanswered.
Security and fire are still tied to the land line as the connection is more reliable than our internet.
We maintain an Uverse phone, my wife’s conversations with her older sister on a cell phone drove me nuts,
It really is dependent on where you live and how you use it. We get pretty good cell service and don’t experience many outages. If I weigh the chance of having some problem (ice storm for example) that leaves me without power for a week or so could I live without the cell phone? At that point the land line payment is an insurance premium for service interruption coverage.
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