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Do I still need a home phone?


pbbeck

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I am moving to a new apartment in two weeks. It's my first move in 17 years. I am very excited about the move. One of the perks is my new building is prewired for FIOS. I am shopping their bundle deals (cable + internet + phone) and find myself asking myself if I really need a home phone anymore.

 

By not setting up a home phone, I will not get the incessant sales calls. Plus, I save about $20/month. The downside is that I will have to give my cell number out when doing business with commercial entities. I don't like the idea of giving out my cell number to everyone.

 

How many of you have given up the landline? Any regrets?

 

 

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The only reason I still have a land line is because my SO works from home. With lots of conference calls etc. the tone quality & reliability (not to mention the unlimited long distance) is a must for her. Besides, the bill is paid by her employer...

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Still have one...kinda.

 

Cut the cord with Ma Bell, and went with Magic Jack. No more telemarketers. All those that want to get in touch already know my cell.

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We've been using Ooma for a while. Pretty much zero cost and it works well. I'd look into Ooma and Magic Jack. The only downside--and it's worth considering--is the loss of a hard line for emergencies.

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John Ranalletta

Will let you know in a couple of weeks as we're dropping land line service at EOM and going completely cellular.

 

Haven't looked, but consider getting a Google Voice # for your non-personal contacts to use.

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I use my cell phone only, no home line for 3 years. One of the things I did with my iphone is create a silent ringtone. If I get an annoying call from someone, I assign them that ringtone, so I dont even know the phone is ringing.

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We cut the telephone cord about a year ago. This saved us about $40 per month, which we immediately spent upgrading my wife's cell phone to smartphone service.

 

We have no regrets about the change -- the only calls we ever received on the land line were telemarketing. If you decide to switch to cell phones only, I highly recommend getting a Google Voice number. We use that number as a "public" number when we want to avoid giving someone our cell phone number (in general, we only share our cell phone number with friends and family). If you are a Verizon customer with their "Friends and Family" feature (like we are), you can make your Google Voice number one of your deisgnated numbers and avoid all cell phone minute usage when using the G-Voice number.

 

Now for the cable guy....

 

 

 

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That seems to be the trend. I won't do it because of the quality of the actual call is not as good as a land line. With the order-of-magniture increase in cell phone functionality, it is a shame that the actual "call quality" has not improved. It is good enough for just communicating info but for a real conversation, I find it lacking, especially cell to cell. IMHO

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If you get a Google phone number, available on Google at no cost, you can use multiple numbers for different purposes and control where and when numbers are sent to the phones you want. Allows handling business and personal calls the way that works for you.

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That seems to be the trend. I won't do it because of the quality of the actual call is not as good as a land line. With the order-of-magniture increase in cell phone functionality, it is a shame that the actual "call quality" has not improved. It is good enough for just communicating info but for a real conversation, I find it lacking, especially cell to cell. IMHO
+1 especially when doing any kind of business on the phone, not just personal conversation. Been times where I've had to ask someone to call me on the land line (or reverse) because the quality wasn't just poor, it was truly unusable.
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Remember a 911 call from a cell will go to a regional call center (in my case the California Highway Patrol in Vallejo California) and not your local police department. The call center will then transfer it to the local PD once your location is determined.

Unlike land lines, your exact location is not known if you call 911 from a cell. That is changing and improving as GPS technology pinpoints your cell call. Currently 911 dispatchers can only determine your location within a one mile radius of a cell tower.

Dialing 911 on a cell also means you have to listen to a one minute recording from CHP warning you not to call if you are just asking for directions or road conditions.

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Regarding call clarity and a professional image when relying on your cell: If you've got decent signal where you are, the issue is most likely the (frequently inferior) microphone built in to your phone. After trying a lot of handsfree setups, I've been using one of these for over a year with very good results: The Boom V4. A tad spendy, and wired, but effective. Maybe not as effective as the hype on the website, but I've been on lots of calls with lots of ambient noise behind me, or with the wind blowing, and the other party was none the wiser.

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Still have one...kinda.

 

Cut the cord with Ma Bell, and went with Magic Jack...

 

We have thought about buying one of these. Any disappointments with this system? Is the sound quality about like a mobile phone? The computer must be left on 24/7, right?

 

We pay way too much money each month for our land line, especially given all the telemarketing calls we field. I do like the fact that it is more secure than a mobile phone, and try to use it when I give out credit card numbers and such.

 

Jay

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Remember a 911 call from a cell will go to a regional call center (in my case the California Highway Patrol in Vallejo California) and not your local police department. The call center will then transfer it to the local PD once your location is determined.

Unlike land lines, your exact location is not known if you call 911 from a cell. That is changing and improving as GPS technology pinpoints your cell call. Currently 911 dispatchers can only determine your location within a one mile radius of a cell tower.

Dialing 911 on a cell also means you have to listen to a one minute recording from CHP warning you not to call if you are just asking for directions or road conditions.

 

I thought that now that had been resolved.

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Remember a 911 call from a cell will go to a regional call center (in my case the California Highway Patrol in Vallejo California) and not your local police department. The call center will then transfer it to the local PD once your location is determined.

Unlike land lines, your exact location is not known if you call 911 from a cell. That is changing and improving as GPS technology pinpoints your cell call. Currently 911 dispatchers can only determine your location within a one mile radius of a cell tower.

Dialing 911 on a cell also means you have to listen to a one minute recording from CHP warning you not to call if you are just asking for directions or road conditions.

 

Upflying, I had a HORRIBLE experience using 911 on a cell phone near that area. They simply didn't answer. I was driving Eastbound on I-80 mid afternoon near Cordelia, in the #1 lane behind a white pickup truck. The pickup truck drifted over in to the center median and signalled to get back in. And then he did it again, and he was weaving all over his lane. He was obviously very drunk. So I called 911. It rang. And rang. I actually put my hazards on for this fool and backed off, and some of the traffic backed off too because he was all over the place.

 

I gave up on 911 and had the operator route me to the non-emergency number of the CHP. I explained the situation to the dispacher. The dispatcher said she would route me to someone that could help. And I waited.... and waited, and waited..... Bam! He took someone out. Broadsided a car, spinning it out, and kept going. I explained the sense of urgency to the dispatcher. And waited.... No response...

 

I trailed that truck all the way to Vacaville (he caused another wreck in between) and then truck exited off the freeway. I didn't follow it. I was so incredibly pissed at the inefficiency of both the 911 system and the CHP's own dispatch, I just said F*** it and kept going. I felt sorry for the two accident victims behind me but I didn't even have the motivation to follow up. I don't know that I will ever use the 911 system again.

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since you mentioned you will have FIOS then all you need is a Magic Jack device for your computer. $1.70 a MONTH is all it costs. Billed once a year at $19.95. No monthly bills at all and you get unlimited free calls in the US & Canada.

I love mine and wouldn't dream of going back to Ma Bell.

 

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Remember a 911 call from a cell will go to a regional call center (in my case the California Highway Patrol in Vallejo California) and not your local police department. The call center will then transfer it to the local PD once your location is determined.

Unlike land lines, your exact location is not known if you call 911 from a cell. That is changing and improving as GPS technology pinpoints your cell call. Currently 911 dispatchers can only determine your location within a one mile radius of a cell tower.

Dialing 911 on a cell also means you have to listen to a one minute recording from CHP warning you not to call if you are just asking for directions or road conditions.

 

Upflying, I had a HORRIBLE experience using 911 on a cell phone near that area. They simply didn't answer. I was driving Eastbound on I-80 mid afternoon near Cordelia, in the #1 lane behind a white pickup truck. The pickup truck drifted over in to the center median and signalled to get back in. And then he did it again, and he was weaving all over his lane. He was obviously very drunk. So I called 911. It rang. And rang. I actually put my hazards on for this fool and backed off, and some of the traffic backed off too because he was all over the place.

 

I gave up on 911 and had the operator route me to the non-emergency number of the CHP. I explained the situation to the dispacher. The dispatcher said she would route me to someone that could help. And I waited.... and waited, and waited..... Bam! He took someone out. Broadsided a car, spinning it out, and kept going. I explained the sense of urgency to the dispatcher. And waited.... No response...

 

I trailed that truck all the way to Vacaville (he caused another wreck in between) and then truck exited off the freeway. I didn't follow it. I was so incredibly pissed at the inefficiency of both the 911 system and the CHP's own dispatch, I just said F*** it and kept going. I felt sorry for the two accident victims behind me but I didn't even have the motivation to follow up. I don't know that I will ever use the 911 system again.

 

Your expereince is is not surprising, many others with same story. I don't call 911 from a cell because it is useless to do so. CHP does have a confidential line that gets picked up immediately but it is not released to the public.

What I've done is enter every police/fire 10 digit emergency number in my cell phone for every city in the SF Bay Area. I punch contacts, find the jurisdiction I am in, and hit send. A live dispatcher picks up immediately.

In defense of CHP, they answer all 911 cell calls in the SF Bay Area. I guess that is about 9 million people. They get so many calls, they are overwhelmed and do not answer.

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I haven't had a landline for about 10 years and see no reason to go back.

 

As for call quality, it can vary but as long as you pick a carrier with a strong signal in your area and avoid dead spots in your apartment, that's rarely a real problem. Also this:

audiophiles.png

 

http://xkcd.com/841/

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So this morning, I signed up for a Google Voice number out of curiosity more than anything else. It's an interesting service. I was able to pick a number and match the last four digits of my existing phone number. It's an interesting service, but I haven't wrapped my brain around it yet.

 

Here's what I understand...

 

Google assigns me a number.

People call this number.

Google forwards the call to up to 6 devices of my choice.

Voicemail likewise gets forwarded as an email, voice message, or text. Again, my choice.

 

What I don't get...

 

What's in it for Google? Why is this free?

 

Thanks to all for their suggestions. I'm still torn. The biggest selling point as I see it for keeping a landline is the 911 thing. And now that I think of it, I can give out the Google Voice number when doing business and keep my new unlisted home number completely private.

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Land line free for years. All over an $8 charge they would remove (bogus LD info call for a 3rd party number). I paid the $8 and not another dollar more to AT+T for the rest of my life. Their customer service SUCKS. Verizon customer service is outstanding.

 

 

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With regard to the 911 issue, at least with Ooma, you can register your exact address and any emergency call gets routed directly to your local dispatch, as it would from a landline. The bigger issue is the fact that you lose your connection if your internet connection goes down or if you lose electrical power and do not have a backup power supply (I do, for exactly that reason). Of course, not too many of us have phones that will work without electrical power anyway, so maybe that's a moot point these days.

 

Anyway, my conclusion is that between the highly reliable service from Ooma and the backup offered by my cell phone, I'm as certain to be able to get in touch with 911 dispatch as one can reasonably be.

 

You pay for the initial equipment purchase. After that, it's virtually free. I can't see why you'd want to continue paying for a landline.

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I haven't had a land line for over 10 years. No regrets, except that now I have a work cell phone and a personal cell phone. My pockets are all full: keys, wallet, phone, phone. I had to buy some relaxed fit jeans to leave room for my bits n pieces!

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Still have one...kinda.

 

Cut the cord with Ma Bell, and went with Magic Jack...

 

We have thought about buying one of these. Any disappointments with this system? Is the sound quality about like a mobile phone? The computer must be left on 24/7, right?

 

We pay way too much money each month for our land line, especially given all the telemarketing calls we field. I do like the fact that it is more secure than a mobile phone, and try to use it when I give out credit card numbers and such.

 

Jay

 

Jay,

 

We've been happy with the service so far. Call quality is just as good as the ATT line was.

 

We linked our address inside the device so if we dial 911, the address shows up when/if we call.

 

Funny thing, though. We've been remodeling the room where our desktop PC was located, so the PC has been powered off and removed from the room for the past 2 weeks. Yesterday, I received an email message saying I had a Voicemail message on my Magic Jack line - they attach the message in a .WAV file. I was sure the Voicemail messages were stored in my PC. Apparently not so.

 

When it comes to renewing the service, we'll be doing it.

 

If you want to run a FAX line attached to the Magic Line, you're out of luck, though. Not reliable for that for some reason.

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That seems to be the trend. I won't do it because of the quality of the actual call is not as good as a land line. With the order-of-magniture increase in cell phone functionality, it is a shame that the actual "call quality" has not improved. It is good enough for just communicating info but for a real conversation, I find it lacking, especially cell to cell. IMHO

 

That's my biggest beef with cell phones. The lowered standard of voice transmission. It shouldn't be. There is a high speed digital connection. But, someone in high places decided we should get horrid voice. It is a shame.

 

Another issue is spotty coverage. Here in urban Massachussetts, I often get poor connection. At work, I get no coverage in my office or the lab. It makes my business cell phone useless. I leave it off most the time. Land line is the only solution for me. I cannot see changing til a lot of key performaces are improved.

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John Ranalletta

Our decision to go w/o land line had an unexpected consequence: DirecTV uses the land line for some programming functionality; so, I canceled DirecTV, too.

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