Land line

[serie1926]

Guys, hope this under the correct forum and has not been asked before. As my wife and I are working to FIRE, we took a hard look going into '08 at all of our current expenses. One that appears to be money going out, but with no real reason to have is the land line phone. We both carry company supplied mobiles, and the only thing the land line has been good for that I can tell is solicitors calling between 5:00pm and 9:00pm daily. Anyway, we are thinking of pulling the cord and relying on our mobiles 100% and ditching the $63 a moth between Verizon and AT&T long distance. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

 

[REWahoo]

You might want to do a search as I know this has been discussed at length in other threads. Many of us have been without land lines for several years, including me and see no reason for a wired phone.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I had to have a land line put back in for a couple of reasons. My directv receivers want the land line, although it seems you can weasel by that requirement if you're not doing sports packages, PPV's or the like. Also we had some misgivings about the cell phone 911 capability, and with an infant/toddler in the house didnt want to take the risk.

I played with VOIP for a while, but it seemed like the companies are all starting to fold and it frequently didnt work right, and that turned into a fiasco of multiple companies all pointing fingers at each other. I rapidly tired of being VOIP tech support middle man.

What I did get after much finagling and confusing steps (because confusing the customer is always your best sales tool), was a package from at&t with unlimited local and long distance and all the call features for about $40 a month. This had to be ordered online through a special link, with all sorts of funny business and addons I didnt want, but after ordering you could call them up and take off what you didnt want from the main, decently priced option and bring the price back down.

We could probably ditch the land line and change our mobile plan from the current el cheapo "tmobile to go" plan to one with more minutes and included LD, but i'm not sure we'd save a lot of money. I guess if you already use the cell phone a lot, the land line isnt that important.

We'd go from about $480 a year for the land line and $20-100 a year for the cell phones to about $500-600 a year for the cell phones and $0 for a landline. Pretty much a wash.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

don't have it don't want it don't need it don't miss it.

wasn't there a period when we were watching mothers on cell phones while they kept their kids on leashes?

 

[Zathras]

Also we had some misgivings about the cell phone 911 capability, and with an infant/toddler in the house didnt want to take the risk.

You may want to check on this with your local phone carrier, however, in our area (Minnesota) 911 service is available even without local or long distance service as long as the wiring is in place and a phone is hooked up to the outlet

 

[Mysto]

We dumped our landline last quarter of 07. Our minutes started going up so I got Skype out for $36 a year and it takes care of the overflow.

 

[rocketdog]

We have a landline because we have a DSL connection. I hate our money-grubbing cable company--so having a cable connection is out for us. The DSL is cheaper anyway, and seems fast enough for our needs. If it were not for the DSL-connection, we'd probably give up the landline and switch to a prepaid cell phone.

 

[Texas Proud]

I would call and see if you can get a cheaper land line with no options... no long distance or anything... they are cheap here unless you live out in the 'burbs' and want to be able to call into the city.... but if you get a local one there.. it is cheaper.

 

[youbet]

I would call and see if you can get a cheaper land line with no options... no long distance or anything... they are cheap here unless you live out in the 'burbs' and want to be able to call into the city.... but if you get a local one there.. it is cheaper.

We primarily use our cell phones but thanks to MIL needing, wanting, loving to be called during prime hours and MIL needing, wanting, loving to talk for lengthly periods to DW, we also keep a land line. Otherwise, DW would frequently run short on her allocated prime time cell phone minutes by the end of the billing period.

Our landline service is $9.50 and includes 30 local (less than 15 miles which includes MIL) calls. Additional calls are $0.06 each regardless of length. Toll calls and LD calls are blocked on the land line so no fear of inadvertantly running up the land line bill that way. So I solve the MIL phone time issue for less than ten bux a month and get a land line as a back up to the cell phones.

Oh yeah, I also have DSL for $10 a month via ATT which requires a land line as well.

So, depending on your circumstances (calling patterns and high speed internet access possibilities) it can be well worth it to keep a land line. But, ya gotta shop for deals!

 

[Martha]

Gave up the land line a few years ago and have been doing fine with just the cell phones. Have Verizon and the people I talk to the most have Verizon and we don't pay for Verizon to Verizon calls.

 

[charlie]

I tried VOIP for 1 year about 2 years ago and switched back to AT&T about 1 year ago to keep peace in the family. We use AT&T (Cingular)
cell phones mostly, but the quality of the connection is sometimes bad.

My longer range plan is to add a 3rd cell phone to my family plan and port
the land line number over to it. I have a bluetooth capable answering
maching in my house which fans out wirelessly to every room in the house. I don't want to give up the landline number as it has been mine for over 40 years and literally everything important is referenced to that
number.

Now all I have to do is wait for the VOIP wounds to heal and then try to convence Lyn that this is a cool idea. (Good Luck)

Cheers,

Charlie

Charlie

 

[walkinwood]

Call your local police/fire and find out what happens when you dial 911 on your cell-phone from home. If it gets to them & they can correlate to your address, then dump the land line.

I have yet to do the above, but plan to soon, since once I FIRE, I will not have any land line at home - currently paid for by company.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I tried VOIP for 1 year about 2 years ago and switched back to AT&T about 1 year ago to keep peace in the family.

Thats right, you had the Sunrocket just before I got it. They were the worst, worst, worst.

AT&T closed up their callvantage service on me which was too bad because that one worked pretty good and had the coolest feature...you could put in a "front end" on it that would give a voice message and tell the people calling that if they were someone you knew, to press '1' to ring through, otherwise you were not interested in any telemarketers, donation outfits or surveys. You could also program in a set of numbers that if those people called, would swoop them right through to ringing.

That completely solved any telemarketer problems and wasnt burdensome on the friends and family.

Sunrocket was awful though. It'd work sometimes, but most of the time it sounded like you were talking from the bottom of a trash can with a mouth full of gravel, and the person you were talking to was on another planet.

Glad I got off of them before they just stopped providing service with no warning.

 

[Buckeye]

We are VOIP and Verizon cell phones. Haven't had a land line for over four years. My Verizon cell is from work. DH's phone is also Verizon and we upgraded to a slightly higher plan for him than necessary in order to qualify for the $10 added phone for MIL. Unlimited long distance for her to call "back home" nights and weekends is basically $20 per month if your count the plan upgrade and the extra line fee.

 

[UncleHoney]

I'm cheap when it comes to phones. Still got the land line with 30 free calls a month and then we pay I think 8¢ for each call after that. All for about $21/month. Long distance calls are extra.

I think maybe we made a call last Friday, not sure though. The phone rings maybe 2-3 times a week.

 

[hogwild]

My DW and I both have mobiles and we also have a land line. My mobile is provided by my employer (a phone company) and DW's gets a ridiculusly low employee rate on hers. However, we will probably drop the LL when I retire in a few months.

The biggest obstacle to dropping the LL for us is that we have phones in 3 bdrms, the LR, Kitchen, my shop, in the basement, and in my home office. We we go full mobile, we'll have to wear the things all over the house.

 

[kaudrey]

I haven't had a land line in about 3 years, maybe more...

 

[FANOFJESUS]

Your house sounds like ours we can tell who is calling by the time of day with no caller id. Our phone bill runs about $24 for very basic line. We went to a measured line for about $9 but in Missouri that was a big mistake 25 free calls but after that you are charged for every minute on the phone for a local call.

I'm cheap when it comes to phones. Still got the land line with 30 free calls a month and then we pay I think 8¢ for each call after that. All for about $21/month. Long distance calls are extra.

I think maybe we made a call last Friday, not sure though. The phone rings maybe 2-3 times a week.