Do You Still Need A Landline? - Comments Page 2

I occasionally need to give a credit card number or other sensitive personal information over the telephone. I believe that cell phone calls are not totally secure for this purpose so I retain my land line.

I got my first cell phone over 10 years ago. Within 2 weeks, it had proven more reliable than my landline. Within 2 months, I had occasion to find out that when there was a problem, I could get customer service and get the problem resolved in minutes. When Comcast finally set up high speed internet in my neighborhood, my landline had been out of operation more often than not for over a month, with me calling the complaint line almost daily from my cell phone. I called the landline company (QWEST) from my cell phone to cancel my service AS I was walking the cable modem guy to the door when he was done, and I've never regretted it.

So how do I call my ISP when the internet goes down if I don't have a land line? Use my cell phone minutes to wait on 'terminal hold'??

We have been without a landline for six years. I have a pay per use cellular telephone that rarely gets used, so is quite cheap. We are quite mobile with seasonal travel between Canada and the USA as well as with travel to Europe and other global locations. I always take my ATA (Analogue Telephone adapter) and router with me and no matter where in the world I am, callers from my home town call a local number and it rings where I am. Also, we have unlimited calling everywhere in North America.

I do expect I have saved a lot of money but it is difficult to quantify. The cellular telephone is never used on travel status and we do use Skype to keep in contact with family and friends.

We are fully converted to email and SMS. We don't miss landlines at all.

Because of the reliability of land lines, I intend to stick with mine. I consider my cell phone a supplement, and mine is off most of the time.

We got to the point where our one remaining land line at home was only used to funnel calls to an answering machine. All our voice communications are done using our cell phones. But I didn't want to lose the land line number, since we've had it for 35 years and some people still phone us on that number. It's also the number associated with lots of financial and other accounts, which would be a pain to change. My goal was for calls to that number to just be forwarded to voice mail, which I could then monitor from my computer or cell phone.

Two months ago, after extensive research, I signed up for Google Voice. I was assigned a free phone number, and I then enabled the "Do Not Disturb" feature for the next 9,000 hours (equals about 25 years). I verified that all calls to the Google Voice number went directly to Google's voice mail, with instant email notifications then sent to me along with (surprisingly accurate) transcriptions of the messages.

Unfortunately it is not currently possible to transfer a land line number directly to Google Voice, although you can transfer a cell phone number to Google Voice. So I began a two-step process of first porting my land line number to a cell phone. I found a Tracfone Samsung T301G Slider on Amazon for $12.99 plus tax, which required no contract and came with 10 free minutes to get things started. I ported my land line number to the Tracfone. About a week later after that was completed, I transferred the number from the Tracfone to Google Voice.

So now any calls to my old land line number go directly to my Google Voice mail box -- exactly what I wanted. The total cost was $20 to Google for the transfer and $12.99 + tax for the Tracfone unit (which is now effectively trash), but I'll save about $350 a year by no longer having a land line. It is working out great.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I love your solution!

Around 5am this morning the power went out in my area. I used my corded phone to call and report the outage to the power company. When the problem was fixed, the electric company placed an automatic call to me with the reason for the outage. Just an example of why I refuse to cut the cord with ATT much as it pains my pocket book.

I believe 800 numbers are chargeable on most if not all cells. Main reason I have a landline; I make a lot of 800 calls. Is there a practical alternative?

I believe 800 numbers are chargeable on most if not all cells. Main reason I have a landline; I make a lot of 800 calls. Is there a practical alternative?

I would never give up my land line, and I think it is foolhardy for anyone to do it, in most cases. Although cell phones could save your life, they are also a huge nuisance. I despise what cell phones have become in our society, especially where driving is concerned. I only use my cell for emergencies and pay for my minutes ahead of time, and have no contract. There is no comparison between my landline and cell voice quality.

Copper landlines do work when the power goes out. However, if you have fiber optic like Verizon's FIOS you need power to access it. The backup battery they supply only lasts a few hours.

I cut the cord over 4 years ago and have never regretted it. I have free caller ID and the GPS locators in phones are getting better all the time. The phone I had before I cut the cord was from the cable company and it was useless in a power-shortage of over 45 minutes. I have no need of one touch systems as I always have my cell with me and it works where ever I am. I agree that it is not for everybody, some of the households with hard of hearing person's just can't get the cell to work for them. The once or twice I have wanted to use a land line over the last 4 years and that doesn't equal $60 per month. For me and my household it is cell only and I am 62 years old and retired.

I ditched (well not exactly, I moved didn't bother to get a new landline, canceled when I left the last place) the landline about a decade ago. Where I live, there are few towers to blow down, most of the antennas are on buildings. During natural disasters, so far, in the last decade, our cell phones have never failed us.

The security system that we purchased uses a cell phone, and doesn't use that as a backup. The cell phone charge is included in the service. As far as landlines, unless you have multiple phones, if you are injured, the landline phone could be out of reach. Each of the children have their own cell phones.

Our ISP did something a little odd. They were afraid of being absorbed or sidestepped by cable and phone companies. So they became a phone company. We now have Sonic Fusion service which is high speed DSL over a phone line provided by Sonic. Dial 0 and a Sonic operator answers. They have given us unlimited nationwide calling and cheap international. The whole thing costs about $50 a month after the federal taxes and is real copper.

Yes, I still prefer a landline phone; you don't have to worry about dropped service calls or static noises while talking with someone like a cell phone. BIG DIFFERENCE!

I would never be without my landline. I simply cut out all those extra charges that I paid - for too many years -and now have a landline bill of $16 a month. Cells will be zapped one of these days via satellite interference.

My daughter's building has front door security that gives access by a landline phone. Altho she uses her cellphone exclusively, she cannot give up her landline without losing the ability to give access to visitors and deliveries at the door.

We cut the cord over 5 years ago. Even with just the bare bones Telus service, the land line was costing $40 a month, and never used. In fact, it was forwarded to my cel phone for a couple of years before the plug was pulled. My cel phone bill is around $400 a month (5 iPhones with data service) so anything that could be saved helped. This cel phone cost would not change with a land line back. We have backup generators for emergency power (still waiting for 1st time needed and hope to be waiting much longer!) When power has gone out, it has only been for a very short time, and cel service was not interrupted. Here in Greater Victoria (British Columbia, Canada) 911 operators know who you are and where you are, even with cel phones. They do confim your location and there never has been an issue.

BUT there is a downside. No fax machine service available. Perhaps there is an internet work around for this issue. I will have to google it to see.

Just for the reasons you mentioned regarding reliability I would never cut off the land line. I am in NJ and the only form of communication that was certain was my land line. The cell phones were totally useless. The fact that towers were affected was one thing but the simple fact that without power there was no way to even charge the cell phone. I was in my car charging the cell phone quite a bit. Also, the pay phone outside of my apartment had a consistent line of at least 20 people for a solid week. The phone companies should rethink their policy of eliminating land lines all together as they are already going to the "cheaper maintenance" fiber optic lines which STILL NEED POWER to operate as do the cell phones.

When the NYC power went out in 2003, my Verizon cell network went down, though my wife's AT&T cell network stayed up. I couldn't make a cell call and relied on street phone booths to stay in touch, so she could meet me when I walked 5 miles from Rockefeller Center down and over the Brooklyn Bridge. The street phone booths are all gone now. I'll always keep a land line, even at $35 a month. That I can easily afford, and the peace of mind is invaluable.