Drop the home-phone line?

[Qqmike]

I thought this might be an interesting or response-provoking topic, but maybe not (based on my reaction elsewhere).

To drop or keep the ... home phone line (Centurylink--$60/month including taxes and fees).

Instead: add wireless home phone base (keeping the same home telephone #), like these:

https://www.consumercellular.com/Info....ne-Base
http://www.verizonwireless.com/wcms....ne.html

(AT&T is similar. AT&T is the network for Consumer Cellular.)

Aside, I do not wish to consider Internet-based home-phone systems, though.

Anyone done this? Comments, experience, pro's/con's, devils hiding in details?

(And, yes, I understand this may be a religious issue with us older folks. My young nieces and nephews wouldn't even think of having a CenturyLink, wired home phone line.)

[GreyGeek]

My wife and I were running a similar system about 15 years ago. We'd plug the two phones into the base every night to charge up. The hand units had telescoping antennas. We dropped them and went to wireless flip phones with Alltel, 1000 minutes each, shared, no text. $68/mo. Verizon bought Alltel about 10-15 years ago and over a few years downgraded the minutes to 1000, shared, but didn't charge anything for off hours calls and mobile to mobile between Verizon phones. While the minutes went down the cost gradually rose to $78/mo. No texting. Out son and daughter kept asking us to get a plan that included texting. We searched for a verizon plan for two new flip phones that included unlmited texting. Our flip phones were from the Alltel era and after going through 5 sets of batteries it was time to replace them. The only problem was that the best plan we could find on Verizon for two flip phones with unlimited calls and texting were $136/mo, including taxes.

A couple weeks ago we dropped Verizon and got two iPhone 6's through AT&T with unlimited calls and text, and 5GB data for $90/mo, our share, through a family plan with six lines. Couldn't be happier.

[SteveRiley]

Why not just go with a standard mobile phone? We ditched the landline a dozen years ago and don't miss it a bit.

[Qqmike]

She's got her cell phone #; I've got mine; and we have the land-line, home phone # that EVERYONE knows and uses (no one uses our cell #'s) -- including business contacts and relatives and neighbors who use my land-line #. IOW, there's an issue of that, the changeover, and so on I'd have to think about (and deal with). Yeah, we could easily, affordably (that is not a word) add extra minutes to our cell phones. Adding that wireless base unit for $10-$20/month would provide a place for that land-line # to reside ... maybe give me time to make a full changeover ...

[SteveRiley]

Makes sense. I use mine for business and personal stuff, so to even out the calls we've standardized on using my wife's number for everything home-related.

[Qqmike]

"Evening out the calls ..." that's a good idea. Hmmm... wonder if a land-line # can be transferred to be one's cell phone #? I could check on that.

For fellow land-line complainers, a related matter is the bundling at CenturyLink. Long story made short, they got me into an unlimited domestic L-D calling plan as it was part of the package (to get the discount on the DSL). But that $12 L-D plan generates $15/month including taxes and fees. That might be great except that I solved the domestic and international L-D calling using the cell phones (domestic L-D is free using the cell phones)! A matter (a personal problem) that is of no concern to CenturyLink. After the $27 in discounts (that will expire on some schedule), I pay C-L $85 a month; plus $36 on the cell phones (to Consumer Cellular, we are not even using 600 shared minutes a month! but we do make international and domestic calls); plus we pay for any international calls we might make (by the minute).

I need to view this problem from scratch, from a blank sheet of paper, starting at nothing!

[SteveRiley]

wonder if a land-line # can be transferred to be one's cell phone #?

Yes, local number portability has been possible in the US since the early 2000s.

[woodsmoke]

I am of two minds on this.

In the case of an EMP attack

and there WILL be an EMP attack of some kind....... the whole dirty bomb thing will be a carry on by a woman wearing a jogging outfit through the periphery of Florida.... and released as some really OUT OF THE WAY PLACE.....but that has a lot of "residences" in the area.........

In the case of an EMP attack a copper wire phone will be a good thing as long as it is not intermediated by the satellites....

But.......a copper wire......... "should" be......... able to "later" get onto the net.

But........ that is the only real "reason" to "keep a landline"........most "landlines" now are not physical copper wires except as they go physically into the house.....

So..........I am of two minds.....

I mean........what is ten bucks for a "landline" when we spend more that in one week for high fructose corn syrup?

just a thought.

woodofftwomindssmoke

[SteveRiley]

You've already got something: coax from your cable company, copper or fiber from your phone company. There's no need to have a traditional landline on any of those; use VoIP if you must have a backup to your mobile phone. I'd like to see analog disappear from the local loop just like it's now gone from the TV spectrum -- this would force those retrograde ILECs to upgrade everywhere.

Oh, and an EMP attack, besides being a waste of a bomb (just let it drop to the ground already, sheesh), would wipe out wired infrastructure, too. It would take out power generating and transmission facilities. So no 48vDC from the telco central office to your phone for its dial tone or 120vAC for a conversation.

[Snowhog]

Tin cans and taut string. Damage that EMP!

[Qqmike]

I mean........what is ten bucks for a "landline" when we spend more that in one week for high fructose corn syrup?

That's the other thing that gets me about C-L, Qwest, et.al. What good is a landline unless you have what they define as extras: Call FWD, Call waiting/caller ID? Nowadays, those "extras," especially call waiting/caller ID, are necessities, unless you have just one person/friend/party who calls you. Thus, an $18 line ends up being, after "extra features" and taxes and fees, $60.

I do also use Skype VoIP and chat (on Desktop, laptop, and tablets). That's a good point, as a backup in certain instances. (In fact, Skype is also one solution (partial or full, depending on your particulars) to International and Domestic calling.)

[oshunluvr]

I use Ooma and can recommend it to anyone who wants a "wired" phone but at a more reasonable cost. You have to buy the box - called a Telo - for about $130 but my monthly charge is $3.45 (varies with the market you live in) which covers the access fee charges. It uses any standard phone, wireless or otherwise and/or you can use Ooma handsets (up to 4) which run about $50. You can port your existing number to it (usually) and if you want more features (second line, advanced voice mail, etc.) you can upgrade to premier for $10 a month. I get my messages via email or any browser when I'm not home. Call quality is on par with a regular landline. One downside is you phone is dependent on your internet service but the last several places I've lived they were both provided by the same company and through the same line.

In L.A., phone service was $69 a month so it paid for itself very quickly. We lived in a home with lousy cell reception and my wife prefers a regular phone for her daily 1-2 hour chats with Mom and Sisters. Now that we've moved to NC, I use it as my work phone because I work from home part of the time and I use the second line as a fax line. Here, landline service for my wife is only $10 a month so I'm still spending only $24 a month for three lines and all the extra features (like number blacklisting).

Check it out...

[Qqmike]

I'll look at it. Just quickly noticed that call forwarding is included only in the premier plan, not the basic plan. I use it to forward to a cell phone now and then.

[GreyGeek]

A farmer friend of mine (old client) had a land line when he went to bed. When he woke up his land line wouldn't work. Thieves had stripped a mile or two of copper wire from the telephone poles leading by his farm house. Land lines are a dying breed.

A few years ago my wife went through a heart episode (we thoiught her cow valve was acting up). The doc put a "King of Hearts" phone moniter on her for one month. It would record about 10 minutes of heart activity total, or 30 seconds for each episode when she'd push the red button. We had totally switched to cell phones at the time and to our dismay the "King of Hearts" would NOT reiiably trasmit the recordings over a cell phone. We called most of our friends looking for a land line. We called our bank and several other banks. All of them were using VOIP. Fortunately, ONE store (SaveMart) had a land line in the Customer Service area that they allowed us to use. The device phoned in the heart readings in real time so I had to hold the device up to the mouth piece for 10 minutes while it replays the recordings.

An aside: That "King Of Hearts" device was billed to my medicare supplemental BC&BS insurance at $1,500. It was the size of a pack of cigarette and used two AA batteries. At the time it was 20 year old transistor (not LSIC) based technology which June had to carry it in a fanny pack while the wires reached under her blowse to the cardiac electrodes pasted to her chest. It was inconvient reapplying the patches after a shower. My son, who had inherited her mital valve pro-phase relaps was also having AVIB problems a few years after his heart surgery. His insurance, also BC&BS from his employer, was billed $2K for an adhesive patch digital device about 4 cm X 4 cm X 0..2 cm. It was pasted to his chest wall above his heart. No wires, no changable batteries. It recorded a month's worth of irregular heart beats, probably with software that filtered out regular rhythims and only stored irregular ones. He could shower with it.

My wife began having heart problems this fall and found walking any distance, or up stairs, difficult. She decided to see her cardioligist and last Monday her cardiologist scheduled a PET scan and an Echocardigram. The Humanna PPO (6609-003) (the best available in our area) claims culler called the hospital and said they wouldn't pre-approve the PET scan. The culler, an MD, claimed that a PET was only allowed if the person was too obese or large breasted to do a Nuclear stress test. I learned that the PET scan costs $10,000. So, according to their claim, my 128 lb wife was too thin to merit a PET. Strange. When my son had his heart problem he had a PET scan. No, he is not obese nor does he have large breasts! Medicare suppliment Insurance companies are just acting as middle men distributing Federal monies while pocketing some of it for "administrative" costs. Seems like those "administration" costs are getting pretty high. So are the rates of the supplemental health insurance plans, while the supplemental coverage is shrinking. /rant

[Qqmike]

As always, your posts are detailed and, therefore, interesting GG. Talk about rant, it seems everything is getting too complicated, and things change now quite often, certainly yearly--count phone service, Internet, and health care coverage in the change list. How does one plan? budget? or even make rational decisions, except minute-by-minute. The young people take much of this (changeable environment) in stride. Ask them to tell you the best deal on cell or Internet, they will tell you to keep calling your providers every 3-4 months to find out current promotions, and then to make changes as it seems optimal. I'm trying to make a decision re phones; I need info and data to do that; I tried calling Verizon stores to get some info/data; and talk about incompetent! Either they didn't know, or they thought they knew, or they tried to know, or they tried to fumble through their literature-guidance ... on and on. I tried national and local (stores). On healthcare, that's a complicated crap-shoot at best. Things are changing and are not clear, like co-pays changing yearly (e.g., CT scan co-pays went from $100 to $300 in one year here at a local HMO/Medicare Advantage Plan).
Aside: Could this be true :-) Republicans Move To Gut Social Security Benefits on Their First Day in Power
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/0...r?detail=email