[TypeZoNegative]

"Anyone who can afford to pay for a cell phone should not be getting free lunches."

Actually, these days, cell phones have become an alternative to real phones due to their competative pricing, (40$ per month) special features like long distance North American phone calls, 3 way, caller ID and call waiting, plus the portability factor plus the free phone vs 40 dollars for a land line that has call waiting and 3 way, but has zero portability and none of the features of a cell phone. And then there's that pesky uncaring monopoly problem.

I abandonned my land line after it was costing me around 120 dollars for the same features and the pleasure of dealing with an uncaring monopoly that wanted to charge us for a phone line that doesn't work in our house, which they were supposed to fix for free.

And we're not the richest family in the world, let me tell you.

[whd23]

Actually you can port your land line phone number to another carrier. I just faxed over the LOA to my new carrier this morning and my home phone number will be transferred to my Voice over IP phone number. For $25/mo. we get unlimited local and long distance phone calls (including international calls to some countries!), caller ID, call waiting, etc.

We're going through these folks: VoIP2Save who are basically retailers for RNKVoIP. (I'm not affiliated with either company, just a customer) You need a broadband internet connection since the VoIP uses approximately 72kbps in either direction. You could also check out Vonage.