[Cheshire]

Have you dropped your land phone line?

I'm thinking of getting another pay as you go phone and dropping our land line. We hardly ever get calls at home and I think we can save some $$$ if we get rid of it.

What reasons would I want to keep it?

What other types of internet phone options are there?

I'm planning to keep our cable high speed but probably drop our cable programming. We have a little one on the way and our 5 year old is watching too much tv. We're ready to cut back and it seems like throwing our money away to pay for all the channels we don't watch (we can watch most of our shows online for free).

Thoughts, advice, BTDT stories???

 

[lucyem]

If we did not need the land line for business and if a cell worked around our house all the time then we would probably not bother with a land line. Though I would worry about emergencies with the kids and a babysitter where a cell might not be there.

We have cable internet & basic tv. It was more expensive to just get internet then it was to get internet & tv. So check into that first. You can always disconnect the cable from the tv and forget you have it.

 

[MaryLang]

We did that about 5 years ago or so. I like the land line as a security, yk in case of a mass power outage or something, those phones will always work, well a corded one will, not so much the cordless. Anyways, we've been doing just fine without it.
Not sure about phone/net options.
We have been using a cable/net connection, but no cable TV for years now, and that has been working out for us financially.

 

[sbrinton]

My husband and I have never (as adults) had a land line. We just have cell phones. I know there is a small risk that in case of an emergency, the police or fire wouldn't be able to tell where the call is coming from, but this has always seemed okay...

 

[JenniferLovie]

We dropped our land line a few years ago. We do keep a corded phone in our house since you are supposed to be able to dial 911 from any phone line (even if it doesn't have service). We haven't had any issues and it has been great to not get calls from telemarketers!

 

[ollineeba]

I called to cancel our landline a few weeks ago. I opted to keep it because they offered what seemed like a good deal- keep the line for incoming phone calls (good because I've distributed this phone number all around- DH's work, dd's nursery school, my school, friends, family, etc) long distance is 10 cents a minute and local calls are 3 cents a minute. $8 a month.
So.. we don't use it for outgoing calls, but we keep it to have reliable service (cell service can be spotty) and so that there is a way to reach somebody here, like if Grandma is here babysitting and I'm out with my cell phone, for example.
$8.00 I can live with. The $45-50 monthly bills were driving me nuts.

 

[dsaucone]

We've never had a land line. EVER.

My parents used to have DSL and in order to get DSL you'd have to have a landline, incoming calls where free, but you paid crazy long distance charges for anything going out. It was 4.99 or 5.99 for the very basic line.

 

[KatWrangler]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dsaucone We've never had a land line. EVER. My parents used to have DSL and in order to get DSL you'd have to have a landline, incoming calls where free, but you paid crazy long distance charges for anything going out. It was 4.99 or 5.99 for the very basic line.

You must be really young then.

Or I should say, I am too old.

OMG I remember having a rotary phone growing up. Sigh.....

OP - We are also about to disconnect our landline which is with AT&T and so is our DSL. We need to switch our DSL to our cable provider. Then we will cancel everything with AT&T.

 

[ALittleBitCrunchy]

We ahve no land line. We use Magic Jack through our computers if we need to but do most of our calling on our cell phones. I love Magic Jack and would never go back to paying a monthly phone bill! To me, the costs were outrageous and we had nothing but a phone - no cool features at all.

 

[UberMama]

We dropped our landline since we both found awesome plans through Sprint for cell phones (plan is no longer offered, it's basically unlimited most everything for $30/month).

No regrets on dropping our landline.

 

[dsaucone]

Quote:

Originally Posted by katwrangler you must be really young then. or i should say, i am too old.

20

We had a phone when I was younger, but since I've been on my own (4 years) I've never had one.

 

[aquamam]

I would never drop the landline. In extreme emergencies it's the most reliable way to get help (911) to your door. There have been several high profile cases where I live (canada) about the problems of VOIP especially, with 911. In the saddest case I read, a toddler died due to the delay in getting the call transferred from the VOIP 911 system to the local dispatcher.
Here's the link:
http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald...32df5d&k=39015

Cell phones may have a better tie-in to local dispatch for emergencies, I'm not sure. But you'll need to make sure your phone is always charged (something I am admittedly horrible at).

 

[MamaJenese]

We have no land line. We did buy an emergency radio thing that has a crank and an adapter for the cell phone so that on case of power outage we would still be able to charge the phone. We keep a phone in the house and would be able to dial 911 if need be.

 

[dancebaraka]

I haven't had a land line in about 10 years and never missed it. I feel that cells are more reliable anyways for emergencies... esp if you keep yours charged and have an extra battery.

I've also never had cable or television (except for a free trial at the new apartment) and never missed that.

I feel better with fewer bills and less to deal with.

 

[KatWrangler]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dsaucone 20 We had a phone when I was younger, but since I've been on my own (4 years) I've never had one.

Ah. I'm 43 and have been married over 20 years. gulp...

 

[hopefulfaith]

We got rid of ours a few months ago. I don't mind it, actually.

I was worried about having babysitters/ILs at the house without us present, though - how would they call out in an emergency if we had the phones? We added a $10/month extra cell line to our account to an old phone we weren't using, and we keep it charged at the house, just in case. Our babysitter has used it.

 

[shayinme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KatWrangler You must be really young then. Or I should say, I am too old. OMG I remember having a rotary phone growing up. Sigh.....

I was thinking the same thing, shoot I remember when phone numbers started with letters..when folks would say the first letters rather than the numbers.

I remember when cells first came out and they were huge and in bags...man I'm getting old.

Shay

 

[Leta]

Well, crap, I'm only 30 and I remember when cell phones came in suitcases. Unless 30 is old now? Yikes.

We have DSL ($25/month) and a MagicJack. When you prorate the cost of everything we bought to run the MagicJack over 6 years (thin client, $80, powered USB port, $30, MJ, $40, five more years of service, $60), our home phone bill is under $3 per month. If, in five-and-a-half years, MJ is still in business, and we re-up again for another five years, our phone bill will drop to $1 per month. That's including all long distance, caller id, voicemail, blah blah blah. Plus, we were spending around $55 a month on a comparable home phone plan through AT&T, so as long as MJ doesn't go out of business before July of this year, we'll still have saved money.

DH and I also each have TracFones. We got these because they were the only phones we could find that work where we live (MI's UP) and work everywhere else for when we travel. If I'm not mistaken, TracFones are the only cell phones that work in every zip code in the U.S. We buy minutes every three months, and that usually runs around $80 for both of us. So about $26 per month for two cell phones, which is about $20 cheaper than the cheapest contract plan I could find for two people. We talk as much as we want on our cells, too. In my case, I probably talk on my cell more than I want to.

We do have a corded phone still plugged into our old jack, just in case. As long as the phone lines are in working order (which, as we have DSL, we'd know if they weren't), you can place a 911 call and it will go through, service or no.

We do not have cable. We watch virtually everything online. We do have Netflix, but only during the cold winter months. (That's one thing I love about Netflix, is you can ditch in when you should be outside anyway.)

If you break it down to monthly cost, we spend around $55 per month for a home phone, two cell phones, and DSL. In the winter, we add the Netflix plan for another $18. Really, though, the only consistent bills we get are DSL year round, and Netflix about seven months out of the year. So we're looking at $25 a month for about five months out of the year, and $43 for about seven months out of the year.

Which is nice, not having to budget for cell phones or home phones- we've paid for the home phone service up front, we buy cell phone minutes out of DH's overtime pay, and if we were really strapped, we could let the cell phones go if we had to.

I know of no one who pays as little as we do. I know lots of people who get the "bundles" of home phone, internet, and cable for around $100 per month, and then pay for cell phones separately... which still seems like a drag. Even if they are doing TracFones the way we do, they are still paying $125 a month versus our $43, so they are still spending about $80 more than they really need to. But, then, I know a lot of people who think it's totally worth it to spend $80 a month on cable. Personally, I LOVE on demand- I just spent three weeks visiting relatives, and the cable and satellite drove me bonkers- you have to scroll through 300 or 400 channels that you don't even get to find stuff that you do get. Argh.

 

[MyLilPwny]

I'm concerned about the EMFs being emitted from cell phones and the damage they do to our bodies, so I actually prefer to minimize the uses of cell phones and use a land line when ever possible, for health reasons.

 

[Lune]

No land line - we have a Magic Jack and cell phones.