Do you maintain a landline? Is there any good reason to?

[kobe008]

We dropped the landline 2 years ago when we got cell phones. At first I thought it would be difficult giving up the # we have had for years but in the end it was easy and painless.

One thing I am worried about is when people are at our house and we are not home with our cell phones. If the babysitter is there with the kids how would they contact 911 in an emergency? I have heard a rumor that said any cell phone even one without service can still call 911. Is this accurate? If so I have thought about leaving an old cell plugged in so its always charged on the counter for such instances. Only problem is I do not know if this really works and I do not want to dial 911 to find out because it would not be a true emergency.

[PetMom]

Most people are not using their landlines.

We have opted to keep ours and only for security reasons.

If you have an emergency you can go to your landline and dial 911 and the dispatch immediately picks up your address and sends out the help. Great if you need to get
out of the house quickly. Or get others out.

We had a backyard grill fire (which was close to the house) and that is whtat I did
just dialed 911 and yelled out grill fire backyard and our last name.

Then got all the pets out to safety.

I agree with the poster who has a babysitter. How much easier it is to have the landline
for emergencies and also reliable. No worries if the sitter's phone is charged up, etc...

The PhoneJack sounded good, but had read that there were problems with 911 finding homes with that (this may have changed now).

They are able to trace a cell phone but takes a lot longer.

Also: we got rid of the gas grill and kept the smoker - much safer.

[kork13]

One thing I am worried about is when people are at our house and we are not home with our cell phones. If the babysitter is there with the kids how would they contact 911 in an emergency? I have heard a rumor that said any cell phone even one without service can still call 911. Is this accurate?

That is correct -- any cell phone can call 911, even if it is not registered for service. It's not a bad idea, though for some reason (can't put my finger on why) I wouldn't want to give the child or sitter the singular option of calling 911 if something happened. There's alot that can happen that you definitely want to be called about, but 911 isn't necessarily appropriate.

In reality, though, how many teenagers anymore don't have a cell phone? Love it or hate it, probably 2 of every 3 teens have a cell phone of their own.

[Sarah_Shops]

I didn't have one for years, and only used my cell - and then I moved into a basement apartment. A gorgeous place with a great landlord - but zilch signal. I had to sign up for my cable and internet anyway, so I just bundled in the cheapest, no frills land line offering my provider had. About three people have the number - my mother, my boyfriend and my best friend. But it means I can make outgoing calls without going outside... and could call 911 in an emergency.

[wandaa84]

Had Our Landline Put Back In

We too thought it would be great to get rid of our landline home phone. We were offered what we thought was a great deal by our cable company to get the digital phone that's included in their triple package. Hated that phone. When cable service was out, so was the phone. When the power when out (which can happen often in our area) so did the digital phone among other things like clarity.

We got rid of it and said we would just use our cell phones. Worked out pretty well until one day we had a 6.8 magnitude earthquake. A rarity for an earthquake to be that strong in our northeastern area.

When the earthquake hit it was before noon, clear bright sunny day and all cell service was wiped out. No service for about an hour. I was freaking trying to get my husband on the phone. I work from home. At that moment we decided the landline comes back in immediately!

It was a little hard to go through the process again but we feel much more secure having it and won't cancel it again.

I guess it just depends on your particular situation.

[chrisburke21]

I have to agree there is almost no reason to keep a land line anymore. If you are insistent on keeping this relic then I would opt for the cheaper route of VOIP.

[Mori]

When I first moved into the duplex, my area would have the power go out at least 3 or more times a year. I live in the older part of town and all the new housing on an old power grid, well you get the picture. It was safer to have a landline. Eleven years later, things have changed but I still have a landline. I don't have a cell phone because I don't need it, no kids or spouse so it would be a waste of money besides I really don't enjoy talking on the phone. Someday that might all change but for now I'm sticking with the landline.

[JoeP]

Update on this:

I took a personal day last week to do a few chores and also call the 60+ friends, businesses, doctors, etc and tell them our new (NetTalk) phone number. As I was browsing our NetTalk account page, I noticed a link for "Port." Being the nerd in the family, I clicked it expecting to discover which port it was using on my router. No, it was a free service to "port" our existing land line phone number over to NetTalk!

So after a phone call to my land line provider to verify port-ability, and filling out an online form with NetTalk, we're on the way to being free of the $31/mo land line service.

[JoeP]

Hopefully last update:

The switch was made yesterday and was painless. You have to dial the full 10 digits (area code plus 7 digits) for every call, so I edited all the programmed phone numbers in our phone.

The only thing to get used to besides the 10 digits is a slight audio delay, kind of like a cell phone, on every call.

[tasha123]

I have a land line since 2003. So many times I tried to close this one, but due to my contact person and customers I am not able to do this. But now I have decided that I never close this one.

[Like2Plan]

So after a phone call to my land line provider to verify port-ability, and filling out an online form with NetTalk, we're on the way to being free of the $31/mo land line service.

That is good info to know. I am getting closer to making the decision to get rid of my land line. Thx for the info.

[SnapDuck]

Today we can finally cancel our landline. Should be about 30-40 bucks a month savings. We have pretty solid cell coverage in the house so no worries there. We've been wanting to join the no landline club for a number of years, glad to finally be a member!

[EarlyRetirementJoy]

We cancelled our land line about six months ago, savings about $420 a year, and don't miss it one bit. Most of my communications occur via cell or email these days, leaving the landline primarily as a tool for unwelcome solicitations. (In spite of being on the Do Not Call register.)

We live in California, land of the San Andreas Fault. During one recent shake all landlines went down, during another, all cell lines, so it appears it's a toss up as to which will work best if and when the Big One strikes.

The big savings was cancelling cable along with the landline - a combined savings of $1260 a year.

[Like2Plan]

We cancelled our land line about six months ago, savings about $420 a year, and don't miss it one bit. Most of my communications occur via cell or email these days, leaving the landline primarily as a tool for unwelcome solicitations. (In spite of being on the Do Not Call register.)

I have found an uptick of unwelcome solicitation despite being on the Do Not Call register, too. 'Course a lot of the calls lately have been political polls which I think are exempt.
Then I was thinking I don't like to give my cell phone number out to anyone except for family. I would rather use my "generic" land line number for all other purposes (good to know I can port it).

We live in California, land of the San Andreas Fault. During one recent shake all landlines went down, during another, all cell lines, so it appears it's a toss up as to which will work best if and when the Big One strikes.

Power outages was another reason I didn't want to get rid of my land line. I thought it would be nice to have dual redundancy in an emergency. Up 'til 6 months ago, we were on copper wires for our phone. The FIOS we switched to is supposed to have 12 hours of talk time on battery back up, but when that big derecho storm came through our area in June and our power was down for over 48 hours--our land line was not working. So, now I'm thinking there is very little reason to pay for the phone part of the bundle.

[tinktink]

I still have a landline even though I really only use my cell phone. I think it's because that's what I grew up with so it just seems like it should be there.

Maybe another reason could be you want all those bill collectors to call your phone you never use, I don't know.