Home phone/cell phone?

[Ws6]

Originally Posted by SevenBizzos
OP - You are a true unicorn. Someone with no cell but still maintains a "home" number. Go with the best signal in the area. Yes, you can transfer your number to the new phone.

It's been about 20 years since I dropped my "home" phone. I'm still amazed that there are people that both have one and use it.



I have a home phone because there is no cell signal. NONE. You will not be using your cell phone at my house without my Wi-Fi, I don't care who your provider is. Also, wi-fi and internet can have issues. A landline for emergencies is a very sensible thing to have.

 

[SeaJay]

I am moving in a few months. Our cable service at the new home comes with a home phone line, but I will not be hooking it up. I will only use my mobile phone with service from Verizon. The cost is more than the lower cost providers, but it is rock solid reliable.

 

[mrsilv04]

I was able to port a landline number to a cell phone 11 years ago. It is not that unusual to do. All you have to do is ask. I moved a landline number from Ameritech (land) to Verizon (cell)..

I changed jobs and lost a company provided cell phone that I was allowed to use for personal calls. I went out and got a cell phone, and was assigned a number that someone had been using as a fax line. It was obvious that I wouldn't be able to keep that number and keep my sanity, so I was going to have to get a new number assigned.

Then it occurred to me that I had a landline that I rarely used, and had since 1996. It had a number that most people already knew was mine.

I arranged to have the number ported from my home number to the cell phone. My cell phone and landline were both dead for only a few hours. Once the number was ported to my cell phone, it worked flawlessly.

The landline number was always unlisted/unpublished, so I get very few garbage calls on it. Now that it is ported to a cell, I should be able to keep this number as long as I want, wherever I go.

 

[Rhymingmechanic]

Judging by online coverage maps, you'll want a service that uses Verizon's network in Wyoming. Their only big dead spots are the high country and a chunk northwest of Lander and Riverton. ATT mainly covers the eastern half of the state.

WYO Coverage & Other Info

I was in a similar situation to yours recently. Our child finally reached the age where they had been promised a phone, so I got phones for everybody. I settled on Total Wireless for about half what Verizon would cost each month. (Signing up through the website seemed to give me more data than the prepaid cards.)

Service has been fine so far, but I'm in a metro area and haven't taken the phones outside the eastern seaboard or the Gulf coast yet. Total uses the Verizon network.

We still have the land line through Verizon, bundled with Internet and TV. Any two of the three would cost about the same, so I'm not really motivated to change yet.

I can't offer any help with porting the number.

I got my first cell in Powell, one summer when I was working in the Bighorns. To get reception, I had to drive to the edge of the mountain, where I could look down at the valley floor where the towers were. That experience was part of why I swore off carrying a phone for the next seventeen years.

 

[pkunk]

Look at RedPocket. Choice of carriers, choose how much data & minutes you want. I'm paying $5 a month on a year advance.

 

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

What's a cell phone?

 

[CKN]

Originally Posted by alarmguy
Originally Posted by sloinker
I have a VOIP home phone and am debating over getting rid of it and just getting a cell phone instead. I've never owned a cell but have been paying for two lines with verizon for 15 years for the wife and daughter. The phone is $30 a month. Can I keep my home number and transfer it to the cell when it's canceled? My daughter has a recent samsung that retailed for like $900 and the wife has an older samsung smart phone. They are both satisfied with their phones. I am not wedded to verizon but I truly dislike ATT. The options in Wyoming are limited and I am contemplating a third party retailer Like Cricket. I know that everyone on this board has more experience with cell phones than I do and appreciate any advice. What kind of pushed me is there are a couple apps I am interested in that utilize the Android OS. Thanks


I doubt you can keep your home phone number.
BUT, you can have a home phone line with your current phone number and the cost is less then $6 a month (actual) payment instead of the $30+ you have been paying.
Just buy Ooma ... plug it into your router and your good to go, same service and device type as your cable or internet providers use to deliver home phone service, you wont know the difference.
You will need to plug a phone into the device or a cordless home phone set up with extra handsets for whatever rooms in the house you want.



There are workarounds to keep your home phone number if you can not port it directly.

Google is your friend on this.

 

[alarmguy]

Originally Posted by JustinH
Originally Posted by madRiver
Originally Posted by JustinH
We keep a "free" ooma voip line here, have for years. Current price is $6 per month for fees and 911 service.

Sounds much better than any mobile phone, on a cheap vtech cordless phone from walmart.


No idea what kind of mobile phone you have however the Ooma we have installed is mediocre. You cannot talk at same time as other person, wind and it ruins conference calls when I used it annoying everyone due to being poor at handling odd audio. If the service cost more then $4.95/month for taxes I would dump it. I have decent and low latency bandwidth so it is not my connection as video conferencing destroys it.

The audio over Verizon LTE and iPhone >=6s with voice over LTE is excellent. Even better when it connects via HD to certain phones like you are in same room.

I understand some low budget cell providers use the old mediocre quality cellular connection which potentially is your case. Verizon in fact and thankfully is dumping it earlier next year.


Wow never had those issues, and I am literally using a nine dollar cordless phone from walmart.

My cell phone is an iphone SE, and the ooma voice quality is much better.

You may want to look into port issues on the router if you are having voip issues. What's interesting is I didn't have to open any ports or mess with forwarding for my ooma device.


You are correct Justin,
Ooma home phone line, $6 a month. Case closed. Im sure the op can figure this out based on these posts, if he wants to keep a home phone line, Ooma $6 a month and over 80% chance his voice quality will be superior to any cell phone and equal to or better then any landline.
Goodness sakes, if he was unhappy he could simply return the device for a refund, nothing lost. That is why I say motivated.

Like any phone service or any service, no matter what it is, there will always be people who have an issue with any device and most times its in the home or connections to it.
.
Fact is Ooma delivers home phone and business services just like any phone provider and its an excellent service.
Again, nothing to lose if OP was motivated and wanted it.

Our Ooma service is flawless and honestly better then any old school Copper land line service.
I hate to say this, because most people who review online are people with complaints, but with that said, even on Amazon reviews put Ooma at over 80% of the people rating is 4 starts or higher, which is amazing for any internet device, actually a full 69% give it 5 stars. I dont know, but I dont this any service is rated this high.

)

MeRrY cHrIsTmAs !

 

[sloinker]

I have had the land line all these years for emergencies, if any, while my daughter was younger. I just am lazy about changing it around. I may take up the suggestion of getting a tablet with the android OS and put off the cell a while longer. I do get more than my share of garbage phone calls on the land line so keeping the number is debatable. Thanks for all the good info. For whoever asked, I'm in Casper.

 

[kstanf150]

Originally Posted by PimTac
We went all cell phones a number of years ago. As for robo calls there are apps for those.


Please share the apps !

Robo is getting crazy these days !!ðŸ‘

 

[Al]

Ooma

 

[P10crew]

We cut the copper 11 years ago. No worries all good.
No computer. The babe and I each have I phones and we're good to go.

 

[Skippy722]

Originally Posted by kstanf150
Originally Posted by PimTac
We went all cell phones a number of years ago. As for robo calls there are apps for those.


Please share the apps !

Robo is getting crazy these days !!ðŸ‘


On iPhones go To settings>Phone>silence unknown callers. You'll still get a notification that someone called, but it kicks them straight to voicemail so your phone won't ring at all.

 

[alarmguy]

Its super easy to block robocalls calls from any cell phone. Android or iPhone.
Simply blacklist the number. This will cut down a huge amount of them.

Better yet, if you dont care, simply blacklist ANY are/code/exchange.
More or less, if you never get or expect calls from 855 exchange, black list the entire exchange. No one will be able to get through.
Anytime a robo call comes in from your local exchange, simple black list it.

Dont get me wrong, I got a lot of robocalls calls but with determination and not answering your phone on these calls, you can greatly limit the amount of calls coming in eventually ... we seem to have hit a "quiet" period on our phones some months it can be quite relentless but last week or two has dropped to zero on landline (Ooma) and cells.

 

[Triple_Se7en]

I don't walk over to - or reach for, my ringing landline phone anymore. Everyone I know, has been informed that their incoming call will go to voice recorder and I will call them back A.S.A.P

The Spam callers don't bother me anymore. I'm immune to them.
Besides, it's rare that a Spam caller will leave a voice recorder message. Maybe (1) out of (20) talk on my recorder and most of those are robotic.

 

[Hall]

Originally Posted by alarmguy
Its super easy to block robocalls calls from any cell phone. Android or iPhone. Simply blacklist the number. This will cut down a huge amount of them.

Nowadays that is just impractical. The robocallers randomly assign outgoing caller ID numbers so every outbound call can have a different number.

 

[alarmguy]

Originally Posted by hallstevenson
Originally Posted by alarmguy
Its super easy to block robocalls calls from any cell phone. Android or iPhone. Simply blacklist the number. This will cut down a huge amount of them.

Nowadays that is just impractical. The robocallers randomly assign outgoing caller ID numbers so every outbound call can have a different number.


Not entirely true.
\
For instance, you can block phone calls from area codes.
So if a get constant robocalls calls OR salesperson calls from one area code that I do not know anyone, I block the whole area code.
Example, I WAS getting A LOT of sales calls from CA, I do not know one living soul in CA so anytime a call came in from there I blocked the area code, no longer do I get sales calls from CA.

Also can block toll free 855 numbers, anything is doable and I just posted on what works for me 70% of the time.

One more thing, Even though robocalls are random used or out of service numbers, many times that same number will be used to contact you over and over for a couple weeks. If you block the number you get peace for a while.

I mean, one can fight it or roll over, I fight it, its simple and fun )

 

[BlueOvalFitter]

My dad said that the phone is the worst invention ever made. A few years ago I bought an answering machine for him. He threw it away!
My dads phone is a rotary dial phone mounted on the wall with a 2' cord. He pays $63 a month and keeps telling me it's a better deal than any cell phone out there.

 

[jeepman3071]

My parents got rid of their landline phone about 10 years ago. The only people who called it were telemarketers and my grandparents. They forwarded the number to my mom's cell-phone, which was also a mistake because then she got all the telemarketers calling the landline number. They ended up dropping the number and now as a family we all just use cell phones. The only number I have besides my cell is my office desk phone which I never use because I'm rarely at my desk or in the office.