Time to Retire the Land Line?

Giving up the land line is not recommended. You may need it for safety reasons and in times of an emergency. The Cell phone is still a luxury.

I ditched the landline three years and as of this coming Saturday, the VoIP service will be gone too leaving me with cell only and saving me not $5 a month, but $25.

I suppose the cell tower could go out but hey, there are bigger risks in life. Where I live, the power regularly goes down and I don’t have a backup for that.

In these recession times, I can’t justify the extra expense for VoIP anymore. And why did I think I needed two phone numbers anyway. Why does anyone?

As a resident of the Gulf Coast I can say that it would be hard to get rid of my land line. During the Ivan hurricane, the land line was our only link to the outside world. I didn’t know it but the telephone wire carries a small amount of electricity enabling it to work even thought the electrical power was out. I had assumed the land line was out but it was because I didn’t have a regular phone. Mine were cordless and needed regular power to make them operational. So, we’ve decided to hang on to our land line even though we don’t use it nearly as much as we used to. You never know when a hurricane will rear its ugly head again.

Call me old fashioned, I use a TracFone and am not much of a user. I don’t need or want to spend a lot of time on the phone. Instant isn’t a requirement. I think the telco will be providing me service for awhile longer.

I gave it up 4 years ago. Living in a semi-rural area of New Mexico (near El Paso, TX) my local provider is Qwest. Although when I looked it up on the net Qwest said DSL was available, when I tried to place an order, they could never do it. So, 4 years ago, I signed up with a Wireless ISP, ported my home phone number to my cell phone, and canceled my Qwest line. I have no regrets.

I agree that we have to let the land line go, but if U have an alarm system then U R screwed.
What I feel should be done is go after the cell phone companies to get lower priced plan and yet get all of the bells and whistles.
Right now the only company that is doing this is Sprint, but U can not get the system every where U might need it. My brother had it for a while, but could not talk to me when he wanted to from his home. Therefore; we both switched to Verizon, but do not like the price U have to Pay.

It’s a jokehere in Ireland. Eircom still owns almost all the copper wire infrastructure, so if you can’t get cable, you’re paying €25 line rental to get online before you’ve even spoken to an ISP. If you can get cable, this comes down to just €4. There are a few bundle deals coming out here that can save up to €100 per month. None too soon I reckon.

i dont actually have a cell at the moment so i would be damned if i lost my landline

I can only state the obvious coming from my experience. I had cable internet in an area of the US that had no decent mobile coverage. We were also prone to storms (especially in winter) that would knock power out. No power = no internet.

My solution was to maintain a dial-up internet connection so that I could still access my emails.

Until this sort of situation were fixed, world-wide, I still would be apprehensive to let land-lines go, for now. They still operate with power out- and in areas mobiles do not cover.

Dumped POTS, went Vonage.
This way the calls I want call my cell. Everyone else calls Vonage.

Ditch it. We canceled VOIP two years ago and the land-line 2 years before that. Unless you live in an area with a high likelihood of natural disasters (Tornado Alley), you’re just paying too much.

The safety and security of landline service are too big to ignore. In my mind, the regulatory arm needs to evolve. True competition means balancing the the bundle of benefits needed with the lowest cost solution but should consumers be forced to risk their health and safety? Convenience, mobility, feature sets, price, etc. should all be considered when choosing a preferred channel of voice service but the simple fact is that the landline provides an unparalleled link to emergency services. I say drop the income limitations and other qualifications for lifeline services and let every household pay a discounted price to be able to dial 911 or operator services. I, as a consumer, should not be forced to choose between an evolving technology (VOIP/mobile) and one that hasn’t changed in 50 years. Give me the ability to have an emergency phone and I will pay for it.

We gave up the land line 14 years ago. It hit me one day that it wasn’t nothing more than a way for telemarketers to find me, so out it went. Over the years, that saved phone bill has paid for a LOT of toys!

I’m keeping mine, but I’ll turn off the ringer. And I’ll hook it up to a phone that doesn’t need to be plugged into AC power as well.

Cell phones & VOIP phones are great, so long as the power is on. And having an AC-powered phone on a land line is just as useless. When the power goes out, they are all but useless.

As I’ve often been pleased to find, even with normal electrical power out, the telephone system will often still be working and having that phone system-powered telephone can be a life saver.

Until cell phones and VOIP become as reliable, it’s worth a few extra bucks a month to keep the old land line.