Opinions on Dropping Land Line Phone Completely

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I moved from intown to a secluded country home in 2010. I did not turn on home phone service. Being a stubborn but i refused to turn on the home phone.. Cell service is very hit or miss at my place (depending on weather). I missed many, many calls straight to voicemail and often the voicemail through verizon wouldnt notify me untill days later.. I missed overtime calls from work several time's (and thats dang good money) Ive stood in the yard in rainstorms just to keep signal durring important calls.. I was the poster boy for stubborn cell phone users that truly needed a dedicated land line phone service. After two years i bit the bullet and went out and bought new home phones and got service started.. Its about $37.00 a month and i love not dropping calls, missing calls, going outside to keep signal, standing or walking all over my yard yelling into the cell "can you hear me now".. Frankly i was foolish.. i shoulda saved myself the headaches of not having a dedicated landline..

now if signal is not a problem.. consider this:

loosing your phone (cell)
misplacing charger, battery dying, ect
even with great signal (dropped calls)
and yes 911 service...
most modern cells are smart.. and ive a couple of realy "buggy" smartphones.. my new nexus is awesome.. and with the cool new icons ive still not mastered this device.. I dialed a cousin on accident and it took me 3 minutes to get back to the screen where i could hang up the call.. i was ready to throw the thing..

Just food for thought.
 
Originally Posted By: 97prizm

Another thing to consider is that if you dial 911 on a land line dispachers can pinpoint your exact location.


Don't know about you but...if I'm at home, where my land line phone would be...I tend to know exactly where I am at all times...

Originally Posted By: johnachak
1) Having a physically connected land line gives you a phone in case of a power outage.


I have yet to see any cellular network that doesn't have extensive battery backup/utility backup/or enough tower coverage to easily quadruple the amount of redundancy that a wired phone line has. I trust the cell more then the land line in adverse conditions...so long as it stays charged.
 
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After reading the replies, the only real concern I have is the 911 situation. Dispatch can determine address locations with a land line (i.e, choking, etc.).

I'm not sure if MagicJack is an option for me at this time (long/strange explanation). If I drop my land line service, does the phone line remain active for MagicJack use. That just doesn't seem possible.

Any suggestions for 911 reliability?
 
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disadvantages
=- u are not in the phone book
- cant have a fax
- have to leave cell phones on all the time or keep turning them on to check for messages.

land line phone co ATand T is stupid- to call 20 miles away is long distance, cell, I can call Hawaii free does that make any sense??
 
I dropped my land line several years ago and have not missed it. For 911 service at home, I just make a phone listing for the local police station under "AAAA Police" and "ZZZZ Police." On my ancient phone I can toggle through the phone number listing with the up and down arrows. If I need police I can hit either up or down and the police will be the first number to call. I hope some of that made sense.

You can also get a Tracfon for $100 a year, and leave it at home just for emergencies.
 
We dropped our land line roughly 5 years ago. We all have cell phones so the three of us can contact each other in an emergency.
And if I have to call 911 from home, I know where I live, as does my wife and son.

Same thing as to call 911 if out on the road somewhere. Must know where you are located.

Plus, if I am out somewhere and need to call my wife and she's not home, the cell phone rules.

We have a security system that uses a cell phone type device to phone the alarm company....and...it works. I know cause I set it off once. It also has a battery back up in case of a power outage. Thus, no phone line to cut to disable the alarm.

Works for us.
 
Originally Posted By: doitmyself
After reading the replies, the only real concern I have is the 911 situation. Dispatch can determine address locations with a land line (i.e, choking, etc.).

I'm not sure if MagicJack is an option for me at this time (long/strange explanation). If I drop my land line service, does the phone line remain active for MagicJack use. That just doesn't seem possible.

Any suggestions for 911 reliability?



I think only YOU can answer your question. Kudos for giving it lots of thought.

Not having a LL is not an option for me, as I live in the middle of the mountains and have to drive 15 miles or so to get any usable cell phone signal.

If you want my opinion, keep the LL unless your area has some fantastic cell service that I am not familiar with. I can speak a bit from both a technological aspect (as a self-confessed lifelong amateur radio operator and "radio nerd" in general) as well as a first reponder.

I have been in law enforcement for 18 years, and fire and EMS (volunteer) for the past four, and have yet to see a cell phone service pinpoint someone's location for a basic 911 call. I have spent most of my career working in a wealthy, well-populated, suburban area of Massachusetts, not where I live out in the boonies, and even in that ultramodern kind of environment there is no technology to give 911 dispatch a pinpoint location. Bear in mind that hysterical people on the phone are difficult to calm down enough to get an address or directions. You might think you can keep your cool, but if your child has a life-threatening medical emergency, or you are the victim of an armed home invasion, you may not be coherent enough to explain to a 911 operator exactly where you are. Believe me, I have seen it firsthand, as I spent seven years as a full-time dispatcher before I wore a badge.

The technology exists to pinpoint you, but it is not at the hands of any 911 dispatch centers that I know of. Keep that in mind.

You may want to chat with your local emergency services coordinators to see what they have to say.
 
I will keep my LL as long as possible. No single piece of technology in my lifetime has been as reliable, and having it available when needed might save a life. That makes the cost irrelevant to me. I laugh when I get visitors who complain about spotty cell service in this area. They will whine & complain & then give up on the call they wanted to make instead of using my perfectly good POTS phone.
 
Originally Posted By: RiceCake
.....
Don't know about you but...if I'm at home, where my land line phone would be...I tend to know exactly where I am at all times...


True. Until the time you dial 911 and pass out before you can tell the operator where you are. Off-the-wall scenario, but it can happen. My cell phone's mapping sometimes knows where it's at, and it's sometimes off by several miles. I leave the GPS off since it chews up the battery.

Several good reasons already mentioned; my main concern would be the power outage scenario, especially if it lasts a while. Eventually your cell battery will run down. But I suppose one could go out and plug into the car's outlet.

Cell towers do go down. I had a problem over the summer where my phone would find a signal, lose it, hunt for about 30 seconds, find a signal, lost it again, and repeat the process. Turns out that there was a tower upgrade in process and I would have been without a phone for 3 weeks without the land line.

Also, one thing that hasn't been mentioned is that when emergencies happen, it seems like everyone reaches for the cell and the system gets overwhelmed. Again, this happens with land-lines too, but with more and more people relying on their cell phoens over a land line, I think it's going to be more of an issue if all you have is the cell.

My
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Well considering I spend most of my day trying to sell people things and convince them to get a landline, there are some pretty good reasons. Namely that I spend all day talking to people on the phone, and I despise talking to people on cell phones a lot of the time. It's not always bad, but it can be absolutely horrible. Popping, cutting out, then the phone rep-rep-rep-repeats what it says over and over again, just all around awful. Not always of course. But then I talk to people on landline phones and it's a breath of fresh air. I never have any difficulty understanding those people and rarely have to have them repeat themselves for name, social etc.

That being said, I do actually use our TWC Home Phone. Had it 4 1/2 years, never had an issue with it. Works perfectly and I like having a centralized phone for all of our doctors, dentists, and schools and stuff like that. Also the E-911 does make me feel
more comfortable especially with my brother and sister.
 
If your cell phone works well at home then dropping your landline could save you a bundle.

We dropped our landline over five years ago. No regrets, only happy to save the $$. The landline was simply too expensive for what it gave us, we ported the number to a cell phone so we both have cell phones. The total cost remained about the same, the cell phones work well where we live, we are both 'mobile' this way, and the cell service has more useful features.

The Windstream door-to-door salespeople come here regularly with their sales pitch. They can never tell me exactly how much this fantastic package will cost, why don't they know what taxes and fees will be in their market? Same answer if I call them, no idea what taxes and fees will be. I remember the big taxes and fees on our landline.

And they always tell me how their 6 Mbps Internet service is faster than the cable 20 Mbps service. Sure I believe that.
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Thanks everyone for your ideas. I have about a month to make a decision.

We have excellent cell service in our suburban location and have no other reasons to retain the land line, except the 911 location ability.

With my wife disabled from a car accident several years ago and no longer able to work, we need to manage our funds closely.
 
We dropped our land line about 10 years ago and don't regret it for a minute. We each have a plain, flip style cell phone and have never had an issue with service even in our very rural location.

The "reverse 911" isn't something I'm ever going to fret about. I've lived just fine without it for 68 years, and as far from the authorities as we live even if we did need 911 it's 20 minutes or more before they'd arrive (on a good day). The chance that reverse 911 will ever make a difference for us is so slim that I'll never spare it a second thought. If I'm choking and can't blurt out my address, then I guess I should have been smart enough not to eat in that manner. Chances are I'd be well on my way toward room temperature before help arrived, even with reverse 911.

Since our cell phone plans have limited talk time, I have a Magic Jack Plus for conference calling and long telephone calls. At just $20/year I'll probably keep it around for a couple years after I retire, but I'm sure it too will go away.

We don't spend any significant time on the phone-other than my conference calls we receive perhaps a dozen calls a month so a very limited cell phone plan suits our needs just fine. We'll never have smart (stupid) phones and will never need the associated charges and garbage that go with them; we don't text and never will.
 
Pop Rivit,

I think you might be confusing the definition of reverse 911 vs. land line 911 location tracking.

Reverse 911 is when you register your cell/land line phone number with the area dispatch center. If there is a looming area emergency (tornado, flood, earth quake, Pablo siting, etc,) they will call YOU to warn you to take precautions.

The land line 911 locator is a computer system that automatically gives the dispatch center your address before you even say anything. With my scanner, I hear at least one 911 call per night where no one spoke....i.e. hang up, child, incapacitated or non speaking adult, etc..

It seems there is a system for "enhanced 911" for some cell phones. I don't know that the cheap flip phones that you and I use have this.
 
I'm not even sure Reverse 911 requires registration, at least not everywhere. I've never registered my home number and have had several calls from the city informing me of things like boil orders and other similar serious news.
 
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