cell phones vs the land line

[EZ-ED]

I have had my phone number for 20 years. 12 months ago I moved that number from my land line to my cell phone and canceled my land line provider.

I was curious how many others may have done the same and any pluses or negatives you may have encountered.

Plus for me is:
I'm rid of Qwest
I'm rid of Qwest bills
I found a way to connect my cell phone to my cordless phones in my house so that when the cell call comes in, all phones ring or calls I make via cordless phone are routed through my cell phone.
I can turn the cell off.

Negative is:
My cell phone voice quality is about 80% of what land line voice quality was.

 

[abbekit]

We did this a few years ago. NO regrets. For us it definitely has saved money.

The phone quality in our house has improved since AT&T took over Cingular and we bought newer generation phones earlier this year.

We just use our cell phones inside the house as we would with a regular phone. Our house isn't large so we keep them in a central location so we can hear them ring. Or if I'm expecting a call I just keep it in my pocket.

 

[Steamboat Bill]

I predict that in the future...the majority of people will NOT have land lines.

 

[UWSurfer]

There are a couple of disadvantages however...

The biggie is 911. The landline displays the location of your landline to the 911 operator. Cellphones don't now. It's a little early still but cellphone providers can essentially triangulate your location with the phone, coupled with built in GPS with some modles and come up with your location within a few hundred feet. Verizon calls this feature Chaparone for individual customers & fleet tracking for larger corporate customer. Disney had a cellular service which did this, but they are pulling the plug on that business

If you have an alarm service, most utilize a landline. Same with TIVO or equivalent devices. Alarm co's can provide a cellular option but it costs additional. I suppose the house phone adapator mentioned earlier probably would address this.

Lastly if you get your internet service via DSL...that rides along the landline. You'd need to get cable or subscribe to a wireless (often cellular) service, live in a wifi hotspot or steal it from your neighbor who's signal reaches your home (not that I recommend that).

Still more and more folks are hanging up on the landline and using their cell provider exclusively...which is largely why the big landline providers are in the cellphone business.

 

[bogey21]

I dumped my land line 3 years ago and have not regretted it for a second

GEORGE

 

[abbekit]

I circumvented the 911 problem by programming the direct phone line to our local police dispatch into my cell phone and then set it for speed dial number 9. Now if we have an emergency I only have to dial 9, not 911 to reach my local police when I'm at home.

We get our high speed internet via a cable line not a phone line so that wasn't an issue for us.

 

[SherryS]

We did this 2 years ago and also switched to the internet card. We can use phones and internet when we travel AND at both of our homes, without the monthly charges for duplicate land lines and internet service. Very pleased with this choice!

 

[rhonda]

I was curious how many others may have done the same and any pluses or negatives you may have encountered.

No can do! for us. One home has poor cell coverage and the other none. What we did do was to drop both land-lines to minimal service (measured rates) with no long-distance. My bill was <$12/line until AT&T's recent rate increase for unlisted numbers (>$1/month <grrr>).

We us a single account with OneSuite to provide long distance for both lines. Love this service!

 

[MelBay]

We did this about a year ago, and SW Bell almost died when I did it. They practically begged me to keep it when I told them to disconnect.

No downside so far. Every member in my family has their own phone, so now I don't have to field calls from the dentist reminding my husband of his appt., or my son's friends looking for him, etc. I love it!

If I had my way, 100% of my communication would take place via email.

 

[gloria]

hey tuggers --

we'll probably be the LAST people on the planet to have and use a cellphone -- i've got one now, but don't know the number and only use it once in a while....

really the MAIN reason i'm POSTING is to say how DELIGHTED i was to see that both "rhonda" and "melbay" are posting -- it feels like the "old days" on tug and it makes me SMILE to see their posts again -- YIPPEE ....

 

[UWSurfer]

I circumvented the 911 problem by programming the direct phone line to our local police dispatch into my cell phone and then set it for speed dial number 9. Now if we have an emergency I only have to dial 9, not 911 to reach my local police when I'm at home.

Not entirely though...a landline 911 call will display where you calling from. Speed dialing the local police dispatch only places the call...it doesn't inform the dispatch operator from where you are calling. If you couldn't speak, this is a big disadvantage over land line based service. Still, it's a quicker way to reach your local police vs cellular 911.

 

[azsunluvr]

I think you're ahead of the game in your age range. (No insult intended...read on). My newly-married daughters and their husbands, in their 20's, only have cell phones in their households. And all their married friends only have cells as well. You're right on with the trend!

 

[MelBay]

Hi Gloria! Good to "see" you again. We finally got both kids off to college, so I find myself with a bit more time than I used to have! So, watch for me around here more often.

 

[Icarus]

I still have my land line. I work from home and do conference calls. It would be expensive to do that using my cell phone (minutes) and the quality is not there yet.

I agree it makes sense for many people. If the call quality was better, it would be an easier choice.

There's lots of new phones out there that do wifi calls when you're in range of your home router and switch to the cell phone network when you're out of range of your home router. t-mobile has a nice program for doing that. It's sort of a blend of an internet phone (like Vonage) and a cell phone that switches seamlessly between networks as necessary. Check it out:

http://www.theonlyphoneyouneed.com/

It's 19.99 a month for unlimited calling. But you still burn your cell phone minutes only when using the cellular network, I think. Something like this might work for me, and it's certainly a lot cheaper than the unlimited calling plans I have with the local phone company.

t-mobile isn't the only provider offering something like this.

The 911 thing is still an issue. For that reason alone, and because the phone network is much more reliable than the internet or wireless networks, I think it's worth keeping the bare bones service at home for now. But that's just my personal opinion.

-David

 

[isisdave]

I think there are lots of places around the world where it's becoming rare to have a landline at home. Most of Scandinavia seems to be that way, plus of course places like Africa where there have never been extensive landline networks.

In many places you can get "naked DSL"; i.e., DSL on copper without a phone line. There's certainly no technical reason you couldn't do that. I think Verizon offers it in California now.

We probably get three phone calls a week on the landline, and two are telemarketers. If we hadn't had this number for 15 years (and hence lots of fairly casual acquaintances have it) I'd probably drop it.

 

[abbekit]

We probably get three phone calls a week on the landline, and two are telemarketers. If we hadn't had this number for 15 years (and hence lots of fairly casual acquaintances have it) I'd probably drop it.

You can port your land line phone number to a cell phone and not have to worry about old friends not having your phone number if you give up your land line.

 

[bogey21]

I circumvented the 911 problem by programming the direct phone line to our local police dispatch into my cell phone and then set it for speed dial number 9. Now if we have an emergency I only have to dial 9, not 911 to reach my local police when I'm at home.

We get our high speed internet via a cable line not a phone line so that wasn't an issue for us.

I did the same thing and tested it with the Police Department. When I am home and dial 9, it dials the local dispatch. If I am at home and dial 911, the call goes the same place. We tested it. Probably not necessary but it works

GEORGE

 

[EZ-ED]

There are a couple of disadvantages however...

I have cable internet and would consider naked dsl if offered but it's not

no tivo as I can download tv shows from the internet

no alarm system as I would hate to live someplace that I felt I needed that service

911 I can do without and would opt out if possible as it is vastly over funded and funds are used for other purposes that 911 updates. In my area it goes to update laptops in police/sheriff vehicles and pay for police/sheriff cell phones purchases and monthly bills.

cell phone GPS tied to 911 is your big brother watching you and I could do without that also

While the above may be disadvantage for some for me I should have cut that land line cord a lot sooner because as it has turned out in my current location there is no downside. If I move... well then if Verizon wireless service is spotty or unavailable then I will have to reconsider.

 

[Icarus]

LOL Ed. Have you considered changing your handle to una-Ed?

-David

 

[EZ-ED]

LOL Ed. Have you considered changing your handle to una-Ed?

-David

Yikes... I did not mean for that post to sound mean.

 

[geekette]

Actually, Ed, I also don't appreciate the Big Brother aspect. I would not carry a cellphone if my job did not require it. At 5 pm each night, I can dump it so long as I'm reachable beginning at 10 am the next day.

I also made sure to get my passport before the microchipping began.

We can't get DSL - they are moving on to smaller towns before they finish out the Circle City (Indy). We are in the very corner of the main county, in the old farmland. Because of the very large trees from such an old section of the city, we can't use satellite and cell reception can be quite spotty (standing in the middle of my backyard there is a clearing and that's the best place to use the cell). We also lose power a lot (old trees fall).

We do get cable service, but only Comcast. As a matter of principle, I won't buy anything from Comcast and I would not trust them to handle our phone and internet. We have to keep the landline (dial-up internet vs paying Comcast, tho we are beginning to reconsider our long-standing grudge) and actually I would prob'ly keep a landline regardless. If we lose power for days in a big snowstorm where we can't reach civilization, cell phones that lose their charge become worthless.

 

[Dave M]

If we lose power for days in a big snowstorm where we can't reach civilization, cell phones that lose their charge become worthless.

With an inexpensive connector, you can charge your cell phone in your car.

 

[ricoba]

If we lose power for days in a big snowstorm where we can't reach civilization, cell phones that lose their charge become worthless.

This is exactly what happened to us, except it wasn't a snowstorm, it was a heatwave that knocked out our power for 4 days.

The cells held their charges well for the first couple of days, but by day three they were dead. Both my wife and I have car chargers but I had misplaced mine and was forced to get one at the local AT&T store.

We still have a land line, but because we have cordless phones, they didn't work in the power outage.

Up until we got upgraded phones last spring, I would not have considered only having a cell phone, simply because our reception at home is quite bad. But with the new phones and I think some system upgrades, it has improved dramatically, but reception can still be iffy.

Some day we may go land line free, but not quite yet.

 

[mlbyron]

we have been cell phone only for a while now,two things came up
that we didn't think of:
1. dish network requires a phone line-or charges $5 per month. they cannot monitor us and we cannot order payper view.
2. I had a heart monitor on for a week, each time it was full I was to call in.their phone took the info from the machine but I could not use a cell phone. I went to a pay phone to do it.
other than that it has been a smooth change.
Mary:whoopie:

 

[Lerose]

I got rid of my land line 10 months ago. At first, Qwest told me I couldn't do it since I also had DSL. I called back and spoke with someone else and was told that I could do it but now my DSL was going to cost $5/month more since I would no longer get the bundle discount. I got rid of the land line and I had my number ported to my cell phone. The only problem is that over the summer, we always ran out of our anytime minutes since the kids were out of school and bored, they tended to make more phone calls. We never used up our minutes during the school year, since we're at work/school most of the day and our unlimited minutes start at 7:00 pm.