Poll:Telephone Landline - do you still have one

[Danmar]

All land lines gone. We move around so much nobody knew where to call anyway. Thought I would miss them but don't. I was mostly just getting marketing calls. Why pay for that?

As long as the telcos are the main providers for internet services and cell phones, I think they will do fine.

 

[Hershey102]

Still have the landline ($20/mo) and we each carry a prepaid cell phone (tracfone $10/mo) for when we are away from the house.

 

[Midpack]

We dropped our landline more than 10 years ago. For practical purposes, some countries never had them, they went directly to mobile. Landline is a real throwback.

 

[45th Birthday]

We have poor cell service in both our places, and both are in hurricane zones. So, we keep traditional copper wire service in both places. When the power is out, they will likely still work. The Comcast service in both places is so unreliable I wouldn't want to count on VOIP for our only phone service. There are times when we have calls we really need to be on. Both landline providers (ATT and Verizon) are trying to make keeping and using traditional landline service as difficult as possible, so the day will probably come when they go away.

 

[Rianne]

Kept our landline, $10/month with cable package. Cell phones still have bad connections and drop off. If we want a long conversation with no interruptions, clear and concise we use our landline.

 

[DayDreaming]

Instead of "Yes, full service", I wish your poll had "Yes, the old-fashioned phone company line" and "Yes, though VOIP" - it would be interesting to see who still has the old-fashioned phone service.

My landline is through Ooma VOIP.
On my cell phone, I think I've made one phone call in the past 2 years.

 

[gerntz]

I will always have my landline, I love it. I don't like to carry my cell phone all around the house. The house has 5 phones and I never have to walk far. It's VOIP and cheap ($20/mo) no long distance charges and the sound quality is much better than cell.

And when I misplace my cell I find it by calling it on my land line. It's hard to lose a phone that's mounted to the wall -

Agree, not that I really thought about till you brought it up. 5 house phones also. Never know where cell in the house & usually have its ring on mute.

 

[Ready-4-ER-at-14]

Have a land line but AT&T is discontinuing it in November so and rolling it over into their VOIP plan unless I object. Cost is more than the land line was but still about 11.50 a month.
I decided to try magicjack go that plugs directly into my router and added an uninterrupted power source for the router.
Paid ~$35 for the magic jack hardware and a year of service and about $60 for the battery back up device. (not sure how long it will power router/wifi suspect 6-12hrs.)
Kicker was I had to pay local 911 fee which was $48 a year.

Will try having both for a bit and see which works best.

 

[ncbill]

Had traditional land-line plus DSL with AT&T until a couple of years ago.

Since then have had a cable-company "triple-play" for cable/internet/phone.

 

[Camellia]

Just got a new landline after 5+ yrs without one, as part of a new cable deal (also first cable TV in 3 yrs). Love the sound quality, and we don't plan to give the number to anyone outside of immediate family. Makes me feel better too, with kids occasionally home alone.

 

[jollystomper]

Still have a full service landline. I do not my paying for its added availability and backup. Maybe after I retire I'll go revisit the numbers and consider getting rid of it and moving to VOIP. But for now, given our experience with landline vs. cable reliability, we'll stick to the landline.

 

[Jerry1]

I was going to vote "You have the poll wrong because blah, blah, blah" but I voted "Just have it for internet service." I have it "with" internet service because with the bundled pricing, it's basically free.

Then, as I'm typing, I realized you may have meant what you said - "for" internet service and I became sad. Thinking there may still be people on dial-up would be brutal. Is there another connection I'm missing that you could get with a land line?

 

[ERD50]

First, I assume by landline you don't really mean POTS but include VOIP. ...

That's the problem with all these discussions (they come up from time to time), I never know (and I'm not even sure the poster knows) if they are talking about the old school copper-line analog phone service only (POTS - Plain Old Telephone System), or if they include VOIP (through DSL, DSL Dry Loop, or other internet connection).

We maintain a VOIP phone, have not had POTS for many years (was expensive and limited). Our phone adapter provides two 'virtual lines' on the same number. I have a wireless base connected to each line, with extensions all over the house, in the basement and garage. No fumbling to find the cell phone (it's upstairs, plugged into the charger!). And we can pick up an extension and get in one the call w/o needing to be in the same room and put it on speakerphone. And we'd need to pay more to get more talk time on our phones (Ting is cheap for our two cell phones as we use few, sometimes zero minutes). There is always one near our bed (needed when we had relatives who were very ill, and we might get a call at any time). Lots of advantages for us.

Many will find a cell phone only is satisfactory for them. I'm just pointing out that using a "landline" doesn't make someone a dinosaur, they have advantages that may or may not be important to the individual.

Oh, and the poll is wrong on many levels. I think the poll is wrong, bla, bla, bla, and I also like soup. But it was set up in "radio button" mode, and I can select only one choice.

Also, if you "Just have it for internet service", then it isn't a telephone line, it's an internet-only line (DSL Dry Loop). So it's an oxymoron to say "I have a telephone line only for internet service". No you don't. [edit, just saw the previous post - OK, I suppose you could use a POTS line for dial-up internet, but not use it for phone service?]

Aren't you glad you made a poll?

-ERD50

 

[MRG]

After dropping a land line for over 3 years it's back! Cell works when it does, but bad weather = 0 service.

 

[johnhkc]

We just celebrated 7 years without a voice landline but still have dry loop service for our DSL ($5/mo.)

As a stockholder in a large telecom company, curious to see what other people are doing.

I bought Vonage way back when and used their cheapest plan.
Now I use a MagicJack Plus (the one that doesn't need a PC to run).
It cost $69.95 for the device plus one year service. On their website, I added another 5 years service for $99.95 ($107.85 including tax).

So my phone bill is less than $2/month.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Sometimes I wonder how long it's been since the nephews even used the voice feature of their cell phones.

 

[youbet]

we have had ooma (voip) for many years now. at $5/ month it's good to have an extra line to have when you need to give out your phone number and for 911 calls.

I don't consider voip a "landline." All semantics I guess, but I think of a landline as copper wire coming into your house.

 

[Nightcap]

Dropped it years ago. In our current house, our cell service is marginal at best, so we had an AT&T Microcell. I got very tired of constantly having to drag it to a window so it could find a signal, so I eventually gave up and just use Wifi Calling. The Unindicted Co-Conspirator is convinced that Wifi Calling doesn't work very well, but now that we're with Consumer Cellular, it's no longer an option to use anything else. Personally, I have no issues. (Yes, I'm that annoying husband who says, "Your light is out? Mine works just fine!")

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

. The Unindicted Co-Conspirator is...")

I love that phrase, I smile and laugh everytime you post that

 

[jim584672]

I bought Vonage way back when and used their cheapest plan.
Now I use a MagicJack Plus (the one that doesn't need a PC to run).
It cost $69.95 for the device plus one year service. On their website, I added another 5 years service for $99.95 ($107.85 including tax).

So my phone bill is less than $2/month.

This is what I do with the 5 year deal. Also a super cheapo cell phone as a backup.

 

[Car-Guy]

Full service land line here and plan to keep it. I really don't like the voice quality of cell phones but I have one of those too for when we travel. Usually we will forward our land line number to our cell phone when we travel and friends who call us at our home number will often ask if we are on our cell phone.

BTW, I like soup too.

 

[Nightcap]

I love that phrase, I smile and laugh everytime you post that

Thanks! Day after tomorrow will mark 25 years since I insured that she could not be compelled to testify against me.

 

[mn54]

We have had OOMA VOIP for about 8 years. Paid $150. Zero monthly payments. One of the best investments ever.

How is it that you do not have to pay the taxes on it?

 

[Eastbayboy]

I kept my landline (POTS) line for one reason only.... Earthquakes. I live in the Bay Area and if all power goes out and the backup batteries go dead on the VOIP network, the only thing that keeps running is the central office dial tone since they are ran on a backup generator system.

 

[Henry Lili]

Cur cable in January. Phone went with it. Picked up an Omma device for $80 and now have VOIP calling for "free" just have to pay gummint man around $6 a month in taxes for the privilege.