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?
Bad idea. Keep your “copper pair” land-line.
Reduce the service to a bare minimum. “Dial-tone” service only. Supply your own phone — ONE THAT DOES NOT NEED AC POWER TO RUN. Surprise — in a Touch-Tone world, “pulse” dialing still works; even on a touch tone line. So the telephone instrument you have can be exceedingly basic.
In Serious Emergencies — and there has been no shortage of those lately — you can be out of power for a week or more, easy. Don’t dismiss widespread cyber attack as a hazard. Or even you own computer getting a virus and becoming useless.
If the marketeers bother you, turn the ringer off and ignore it. But you’ll still be able to call out for a fire truck or an ambulance.
Basic telephone instruments, such as “The Standard Mother Bell Model 500 Desk Telephone” are far more immune to lightning. What accompanies tornadoes? Big thunderstorms. Duh.
I would not bet my life on anything that runs off a wall-wart, and has a bunch of chips inside.
Redundancy is good, too, if it can be purchased cheaply enough.
Never give up your copper!
We got rid of our land line some years ago & it has worked fine,altho I don’t think there is any big savings. The service with the cells is just so much more convenient,but we still get the nuisance calls. We have just the basic phones,nothing fancy,no added services,no texting.
you let your new cell phone carrier that this is what you want. Let the landline carrier know as well the companies handle all the paperwork. A bit more trouble with the smaller prepay providers as their CSR’s are generally not US based but doable.
I dropped mine some time ago and replaced it with MagicJack Plus. In addition, I obtained a Panasonic multi-set wireless phone for that that is Blue Tooth enabled.
When in my house, my cell phone forwards the inbound calls to all of the five Panasonic handsets. Problem solved regarding dragging the cell phone everywhere in the house.
The cell can also be used independently as desired without doing anything.
The MagicJack voice quality is not quite as good as a normal voice line but it is close... particularly, when you consider the ANNUAL cost of MJ is less than half of the MONTHLY cost of a normal phone line.
We ditched ours five years ago and have never looked back. I put a nice picture over the outlet in the kitchen. I waited for my youngest to start school before I did it. The reason was my mom was at my house taking care of her so I wanted that phone. You won’t miss it at all.
I looked into replacing it with ooma and dropping the landline. I found our cable/Internet/phone bundle would go up about $20 if we dropped the phone for the same service level. We pay $94 for the three and figured the kids will use the phone. They just FaceTime their friends anyway so we are paying less for something we don’t use.
Yes, the MagicJack works- and it is NOT a scam of any sort. I have owned the MagicJack and it works very well
It was a little buggy when it was new, to its detriment, but it works better now.
The BEST part is the internet access to your account, you can do all kinds of cool things like forward calls to any number and record voice mail and send it to your email.
Email with voice mail message was 1000 times better than an answering machine to me.
Forgot to add that I’ve got UPSs on the phone/modem/router/switch and car, solar chargers and external batteries for our mobile phones.
We more or less ditched our landline 2 yrs ago but still needed a line for the security system. Magic Jack!! Cheap. Works well. We still have a landline in case someone calls who doesn’t have our cell numbers (old friends, etc). We never answer it since it is in our office but it has an answering machine function that sends me an email with the message.
Has worked well for us.
What is your computer hooked into to get to the internet?
You’ve said a router. I’m assuming that you have DSL internet service. I don’t have DSL internet service.
If you go cell only you will end up with tele-marketers calling your cell. Drop lthe and line by going to something like ‘BasicTalk’ and give that number {or you transfered number} to those who need your phone number but you don’t want calling your cell.
We dumped our land lines a few years ago and are happy about it. We use Vonage for our main phone service (can take the box and a small phone anywhere in the world, connect it to Internet and we have our local service anywhere). The alarm system has cellular to call out on if need be.
Thanks. Sorry for the confusion, but I need internet access for Magic jack.
I have really bad DSL that I refuse to pay for anymore, cable isn’t an option (20 miles away) or satellite internet. I have a cap on how much bandwidth I can use on the satellite and the Magic Jack would consume more than I can spare.
I also have very poor cellular service that wouldn’t support broadband internet. (2G service)
Cancelled land line, which cost about $35 per month with taxes, Verizon.
Substituted an internet device called “Net Talk” which connects to the router by network cable, and charges about $30 per year. Device cost about $50 to purchase.
Net Talk now has wireless version. Net Talk arranged for our old land line number to be “ported” to their device, at no cost.
We are happy. Previously we tried “Magic Jack” but that version went through the computer, and made other problems.
I did that when I had kids home and was running five cell phones. I cannot wait until my finances settle enough to install my landline again.
Why?
Cells are expensive, and these days often require you to have a computer Iphone and android, which may do all sorts of things but are not very good telephones.
I come from the generation of people who although at times text, I prefer a face to face visit or a long call. Cells are not good for that. If you have any sort of hearing deficit, these phones require a earphone.
I also like not having to look for my telephone. One tied to the wall would be best.
also during the ice storm of 98 the towers in the area fell but my land line was right there through 11 days of no power.
...Forgot to add....keep your land line number...When I moved I could not transfer my number. Then discovered hundreds of people couldn’t reach me. Its those who only call once or twice a year but you want them to be able to reach you... the druggist, car dealer, the vet, aunt susie ...use an answering machine to screen out the tele-marketers
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