[steve]

any one got one ? i just went to cable high speed internet and no longer need my landline. that is, unless someone can give me a good reason. i have had bottom rung service on it since i went to cells as my primary but needed to keep it for the DSL access.

[fbody_mike]

We got rid of our landline because too many telemarketing calls. The only issue is for emergencys. Some areas are better than other for dialing 911 on a cell. Personally, I have the direct numbers commited to memory so I do not have to dial 911.

[Jeff Walker]

Will cell phones always work during a power outage??

I have one phone in the the shop that isn't a cordless just for that reason.

[Region Warrior]

Havent missed ours for 7 months now. Took me 2 yrs to convince the wife.
The whole family has had cel's for at least 5 with unlimited text mssg'g for about what the land line cost.
We went with Comcast for internet and tv, so if we ever want to, we can get it through them.
And it's WAY cheaper then our old land line service was.

[David Holmberg]

Having gone thru a Hurricane, I can tell you that everything can go out.

Phone and cable lines will be the first thing to go down in bad weather. (Wind, ice)
Cell phone towers can and will go out as well.

However, as I found out. You can't take your home phone a few miles down the road and use it. We didn't have any phones that worked, land line, Vonage (thru cable) and 4 cell phones. But if I drove 5 miles to the north my cell phone worked great. So twice a day we would drive up and get the messages and make the calls needed.

Now I still have Vonage and the cell phones, but Vonage will be going away soon.
I have 5 cell phones from Sprint for just over $100 a month, and we all have a phone no matter where we are.

[Bjorn]

as Ike hit, we of course lost our land line....my cell phone worked in a few , very few areas of town....and when it worked , it was usually " lines overloaded ,call back later" or such...in a hurricane dont count on either....
and smoke signals just blow away...lol

[Region Warrior]

Now that you mention David, we used to lose our land line alot during storms from tree limbs breaking or from falling.
At least 7-8 times a year. Usually only an hour or two.
So far we never lost cel sevice.

[Old Blue 66]

I have a land line through cable. Adding it into the package was only an extra $15/month including long distance, I tried it without the land line but theres no substitute for the battery life on a "hard line" phone for long conversions.

[BAB]

We have a "bundle" deal for cable,internet, and phone (unlimited long distance) so you may want to check if your company offers the same. It was almost cheaper to get all three then it was to have 2 of the 3 services. We talked about getting rid of our hard line as well however local folks wouldn't be able to find us in the phone book and we like the reliabilty and clarity of a hard line for a few bucks more.

[David Holmberg]

Originally Posted by Old Blue 66

but theres no substitute for the battery life on a "hard line" phone for long conversions.

Paul, those 1-900 calls will kill you man... Or at least your checkbook.

[Old Blue 66]

Originally Posted by David Holmberg

Paul, those 1-900 calls will kill you man... Or at least your checkbook.

But they tell me they love me!!

[JKGTO]

We went wireless 3 years ago and never looked back. I dont miss those annoying telemarketers calling at dinner time at all. I have a phone for my convienence not anyone elses. If you dont have my phone number there is probably a reason why! Jim

[fiedlerh]

Some of our elderly relatives have trouble hearing the poorer quality of cell phone calls.

In our area when the power goes out, the cell phones go out too. Land line goes out when it rains a lot. If it rains a lot and the power goes out, we have no phones at all.

[goatmanmitch]

One good reason to retain your landline- keep me employed!

Seriously though, overlap your services at least for a little while. Certain areas of cable (phone lines too) can have spotty service. I've seen first hand people jumping from stable phone to spotty cable service and having regrets. Just make sure it is stable before you go canceling your landline.

[Brian Baker]

When the $h!t hits the fan and you need to call 911, there will be no doubt that the call is routed to an operator local to you, and they'll have your name, number, and complete address on their screen without you having to say a word. No guarantee you'll get as quick a connect with VOIP, no guarantee the call will be routed locally, and no gurarantee the operator will have your info as soon as the call comes in.

[Brian Baker]

Originally Posted by fiedlerh

Some of our elderly relatives have trouble hearing the poorer quality of cell phone calls.

In our area when the power goes out, the cell phones go out too. Land line goes out when it rains a lot. If it rains a lot and the power goes out, we have no phones at all.

Try installing an old fashioned handset along with the cordless phones. The telephone company is still required to provide proprietary power on the line (-48VDC) so you can receive and break dialtone to make a call. The central offices have huge battery banks for back up power should they lose power.

[Blue '66]

We kept our land line for DSL until several months ago when the phone co dropped the requirement.We didn't have a phone hooked up because all we would get was sales calls.

[Zig'sbird]

I've been thinking about this also for some time. I want to drop my landline but there ARE some good reasons to keep it as stated earlier. However, I'm still debating if the benefits outweigh the cost. Probably within a year I will drop my landline.

[mikeb]

It depends. If you need "gotta have it working at all times" service then POTs is for you. If you can deal with less reliable service then that opens up a lot of choices, such as vonage.

In my case a LOT of people have my old land line number, and we wanted to keep it working. So we switched to vonage. And I have a home alarm system, and it works thru vonage just fine. Although I expect the first thing to happen if the bad guys come around is that the phone lines get cut. Oh well.

[fiedlerh]

Try installing an old fashioned handset along with the cordless phones. The telephone company is still required to provide proprietary power on the line (-48VDC) so you can receive and break dialtone to make a call. The central offices have huge battery banks for back up power should they lose power.

Does no good when the ground gets waterlogged, we get no dial tone, just static. Does no good to complain, because when you call them after the rainstorm, obviously your phone is working so there is nothing to fix. Can't call them using my cell phone because that usually goes out too. Both are AT&T.

Funny story. My M-I-L's phone line would dial random digits when it rained alot. Same deal, when the phone was working there was nothing for them to fix, but they would always remove the charges for random long distance calls. A few times those random digits were 911 and once she was woken up by two cops in her bedroom in the middle of the night who had pried her kitchen window open. They picked up her phone heard the dead line, shrugged their shoulders and left. Phone company fixed it real quick after that.