Finally dropped the landline

[DrRoy]

Not for ~15 years.

 

[orchid55]

We still have one for 911 calls. Calling 911 from a cell phone in our area routes your call to an answering machine in a neighboring county. Using VOIP for 911 results in the same problem. We live basically on a county line and seem to be between cell towers. Our HOA reminds us frequently to not use a cell to call 911.

 

[retire48in2018]

We have a legacy ooma - so no monthly bills, totally free.

We use(d) it for when we must provide a legitimate phone number, but don’t want to give our cell. Perhaps a call back service, etc. Or a directory that gets too public.

We have internet ooma voicemail, and have it set to answer cloud Voice mail unless we intervene. I check the VM occasionally - and lots of spam. We would also use the voip line to place calls to places that require caller ID, but not properly guard the number.

I guess we want cell for our convenience not them (business). We also had a few family members that would incessantly call and provide our number to “friends”. They only got the ooma number.

Also used it for faxes (medical and a few other entities only accept faxes and not texts, emails).

 

[rk911]

we still have a landline...sort of. it's a VoIP from Comcast that we ported over from AT&T. When a call goes to the LL it also rings our cellphones. We give businesses, doctors, etc our LL number and reserve our cell numbers for friends and family. With Comcast filtering we get very few spam calls.

 

[Sunset]

We have one, DW wants to keep it and we get a special price.

I use it to order takeout and fax once per year.

We get spam calls on it, but nearly all hang up as I put on a LONG AI voice message, I think spammers use a timer to switch over to the person and they hear the message still going on and on and on, so they hang up. !!

 

[erkevin]

Just checked Quicken; last long distance bill from MCI (remember them?) was 2004. That must be when we cut the landline.

 

[ArmchairMillionaire]

Curious if anyone else (with cell service in your area) still has a traditional land line.

We still have a land-line. Upgraded our Internet to fiber a few years back but declined the "upgrade" to fiber-based VOIP in order to still be able to use the four rotary-phones in our home.
We still haven't reached the point where getting cell-phones makes any sense to us. Maybe after we retire...

 

[Car-Guy]

We still have a land-line. Upgraded our Internet to fiber a few years back but declined the "upgrade" to fiber-based VOIP in order to still be able to use the four rotary-phones in our home.
We still haven't reached the point where getting cell-phones makes any sense to us. Maybe after we retire...

Haven't seen a rotary phone in decades... OTHO, I have a payphone in my mancave and I don't see those very often these days either.

 

[HawkeyeNFO]

2 land lines in my house: the legacy 2009 Ooma and a Obihai running Google Voice. Neither costs anything other than a few watts per month, so they'll probably stay in my house until they cease functioning. The Ooma was great to have when we lived in Europe.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

We dropped ours when we moved into the present house in 2010. Never missed it.

Dear Auntie still has her landline even though she's gotten comfortable with her cell phone. One reason is that she's had the same phone number since she moved into her house in 1965, although I did convince her to include it with her cable/internet service for a cost savings vs. the phone company.

 

[jollystomper]

We still have landline. I need to re-evaluate as the bill has creeped up to $100/month. For now I consider it BTD spending for backup and redundancy .

 

[Dreamer]

We had Ooma for our phone, but just got rid of it this year. It was only $3 per month, but I was tired of the spam calls and definitely did not want to have it when the political system gears up.

 

[Redbugdave]

We still have a land-line. And get maybe 6 spam/robo calls but it varies each day. Sometimes I unplug the connection. We both have smart phones but my wife won't use hers and it is always off. So...if I am out I need to call on the landline number for her to answer. That's our status.

 

[Major Tom]

I haven't had a landline in close to 10 years. The posts here that talk of keeping one for the sake of having a variety of communication platforms made me think of my neighbor down the street, who is the exact opposite. She doesn't seem to deal with change well, and has doggedly hung onto her landline. By her own admission, she hates computers. She has one, but it sits dormant and doesn't get used. She has no internet connection, and doesn't own a cell phone either. She is not proud of her aversion to modern technology, but doesn't hide it either.

Anyway, her landline starting going scratchy a few days ago. She called AT&T, but is having trouble getting them interested in working on it. I'm not exactly sure why this is, as I was not the one talking to them. She's well aware that the future doesn't lie with POTS, and that the phone company doesn't have a vested interest in maintaining their landlines.

Yesterday, her landline died completely. She left a note on my vehicle windshield to tell me what had happened. So there she is, in her apartment with no phone whatsoever and no internet. In her note, she said it is going to be a challenge to get up and running again. She has been talking for a few years of getting internet installed in her place, at which point she will get a VOIP "landline" from them. Trouble is, doing these things isn't easy for her; she has the hardest time adapting to technological changes.

She is in her mid 70's and luckily, is sprightly, lucid, in good health, and outgoing. She does have a car, so is mobile. I'm not sure why she makes things so hard for herself with technological things though.

 

[REWahoo]

We still have landline. I need to re-evaluate as the bill has creeped up to $100/month. For now I consider it BTD spending for backup and redundancy .

We use fiber internet as our "landline" and as a back up-to our cell phones.

 

[RE2Boys]

We still have the landline phone number that's been at this address for over 60 years. However, it is now provided through our cable/internet provider. Costs an additional $10 a month when bundled with the internet. I don't like to give out my cell number, find it way to annoying that just because some can dial 10 digits, they expect to get my attention.

 

[foxcreek9]

We still have the landline phone number that's been at this address for over 60 years. However, it is now provided through our cable/internet provider. Costs an additional $10 a month when bundled with the internet. I don't like to give out my cell number, find it way to annoying that just because some can dial 10 digits, they expect to get my attention.

Settings, "silence unknown callers", let them call away.

 

[Alex The Great]

I don't have a landline for last 15 years or so. I also have a cheap pay-as-you-go cellular plan from T-Mobile MVNO UltraMobile. Pretty much all home calls are free through Google Voice paired with Obi device (startup later acquired by Polycom) which can be considered a direct replacement for landline.

 

[calmloki]

Settings, "silence unknown callers", let them call away.

Problem with that is many doctors come through as "unidentified number" if they are calling patients. At least true of Kaiser Permanente doctors.

 

[Sue J]

We kept our landline number but it's for the MagicJack. We each have our cellphones but for some things it's nice for either of us to be able to get the call.

The MagicJack is connected to the house wiring from the old landline so we have the base unit with an answering machine function in the kitchen and cordless extensions where we need them.

Might sound odd but it works for us. We set this up many years ago when we still had pre-pay flip phones and didn't want to use up our minutes for long calls. Two years ago we switched to smart phones with unlimited everything and just kept this going.

 

[foxcreek9]

Problem with that is many doctors come through as "unidentified number" if they are calling patients. At least true of Kaiser Permanente doctors.

At least the doctors I work with I give permission to leave detailed voice mails and then there is the online portal

 

[ERD50]

... She has been talking for a few years of getting internet installed in her place, at which point she will get a VOIP "landline" from them. Trouble is, doing these things isn't easy for her; she has the hardest time adapting to technological changes.

She is in her mid 70's and luckily, is sprightly, lucid, in good health, and outgoing. She does have a car, so is mobile. I'm not sure why she makes things so hard for herself with technological things though.

As long as someone sets it up, there is no 'adapting'. Her old standard POTS phone plugs right into the VOIP adapter. If no one told you, you wouldn't know if you were on POTS/copper, or VOIP. Heck, you could even connect an old two-cassette answering machine to it.

-ERD50

 

[aja8888]

I can't remember when I (we) dropped the landline. Maybe 15 years ago? Of course, I can't remember much about last week, either.

One friend has a landline he never answers. He also has a cell phone he never answers too. Why bother with phones if you won't answer them? He never calls me either. It's a good thing he meets with our ROMEO group each morning for coffee, etc, or we would never see him.

 

[monte1022]

We traded our landline for an Ooma in late 2014 after getting overwhelmed with spam calls. The service is free except for the $11.33/mo (started at $4.25/mo) in fees and taxes(911 fee=$1.00, compliance fee=$1.87, local internet recovery fee=$2.59, 911 surcharge=$5.60, state tax=$0.27). Like others here, our parents usually call the "landline." We rarely get spam calls on Ooma or cells.

 

[easysurfer]

I use Ooma with the optional (not free) call blocking feature. I set my blocking to only those on my accepted list of callers. Others go to voicemail. I very seldom get spam calls this way.