Posted on 01/09/2014 5:33:59 AM PST by pogo101
My wife and I are considering "making the leap" by dumping our land line phone. We'd effectively still have a hard-wired connection, to a point, namely our U-verse internet connection -- although that largely becomes wireless INSIDE the house.
We are sufficiently confident in the connection that it would work in a medical or other emergency.
Also, we have gotten so many spam land-line calls in recent years, despite being on the DNC list, that our landline is largely useless anyway.
Thoughts?
We switched from a land line to an internet phone but then everyone had a cell so we have dropped that as well.
Did this 3 years ago and never looked back.
Also by using cell, you can put call blocker on your cell and manage it yourself instead of depending on bogus Do Not Call list.
My unused minutes carry over as long as I renew before the expire. My wife’s phone has about $300.00 accrued.
So for $200 a year, I have two cell phones and I only need to renew yearly. I set up email reminders so I don’t space out renewing.
I wouldn’t be comfortable without a landline for emergency notifications, even though it’s seldom happened.
Alas, I’m not in Kansas anymore.
Must be nice.
We live in Florida, so hurricanes are a consideration. During these storms the land line is the only thing that still works. No lights, no cable, and often no cell phones. The phone lines are buried all the way to the central distribution network. So we’ll pay the difference and keep the assurance.
We’re blessed to have a circle of homeschooling families with teenage girls.
I also use my landline to give as a contact number when one is required but I don’t want to give my cell phone number. But I have the ringer turned off and it is connected to the fax line on the all-in-one printer auto-answer. I can review missed calls to see if there was anything of importance.
The phone line is part of the cable bundle so the cost is minimal. I like to use it on speaker for outgoing calls as the quality is much better than the cell. Plus I still use fax for a number of items.
I installed this a year ago, NO REGRETS. I changed my phone # as well. Did not want to keep the old (which cost a little extra one time fee for that). Since then we have not had ONE annoying sales call, which we received about 10 a day before.
No one knows that new number except family members. I also kept my AT&T cell.
Magic Jack works as any land line will. I can FAX, connect to my answering machine, all the things a land line can do. I am amazed at how they can do this for about $20 per year.
You are.
8675309
We ditched ours for both home and business in late 2008. Not sorry, so much less expensive. We’ve had issues with calls not being clear once. Bought new phones, cured that issue. Our providers have given us good service. We live in the country next to lake with lots of hills. Our cell service has been lousy, so we bought what I guess you would call a “repeater” for the house. Made a big difference.
Big ice storm, lines down, neighbors with land line needed help, had to come to us because their line was down somewhere. None of the options are 100% in very severe weather out in the country.
I got rid of land line over 10 years ago. But, first I did some homework. I looked at propagation maps of my home, looked at the technology used by the cell providers, and went with Verizon: CDMA technology, PCS frequency spectrum, solid coverage map where I live. I have land line quality cell phone calls at home.
I have satellite internet service and struggle to stay under my allotted usage. DSL is available, but very poor. Cable internet is 20 miles away.
Magic Jack, ooma would consume already scarce satellite bandwidth, so Magic Jack is probably not a good solution.
We dropped land lines 3 years ago...no regrets...no bill.
I hate to break it to you but you are not a daredevil. We ditched the land line 3 years ago as have many of our friends. Nobody excetp solicitors ever called on it and we never made calls on it so finally it was a $35 per month waste of money.
Jan. 2 I switched my old landline number over to ooma. It works through your internet connection. The unit is ~$130, you only pay taxes and fees for your location. Mine is $3.72. If you go to the ooma website and put in your zip it will tell you your monthly fees. My monthly landline was $50 and I rarely used it. So my cost now was an initial $130 for the unit, $40 onetime porting fee for my old number and 3.72 a month from now on. That is now less than $50 dollars a YEAR which is what I was paying monthly. The total of onetime costs I will make up in 4 months! So far the sound quality is indistinguishable from the landline.
You DO NOT use any type of cable, satellite service to use Magic Jack.
You will only use your router for hook up. No longer do you need to leave your computer on. Then plug the little magiv jack unit into a electric wall plug, simple as that.
Register the unit online and choose your phone #., Also there is and INSTANT CHAT box available, and I do mean INSTANT. On installing I had a few questions, asked them and within 5 or so seconds I had them helping me.
If you do purchase the Magic Jack, DO NOT purchase the extended warranty at the store, it is available on their website when you register.
You will not regret giving up your land line, whats the worst thing that can happen? You purchase, hook it up and if it don't work take it back. Keep your old land line in tact in the meantime.
What is your router connected to?
We have only kept our land line b/c it is tied into the house alarm and I spook easily. You can have the alarm go to your cell phone but I just thought when the SHTF I don’t want to count on my cell.....
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