Drop the home-phone line?

[GreyGeek]

I began a chat online with a Verizon rep about phone deals and data plans. She gave what she thought was a great deal, but immediately said it was available only one line for a short time. She couldn't point to any web page or other document which guaranteed what I'd be getting or how long the "deal" would last before the rates jacked up. So, I declined. Fortunately. Verzion had NOTHING to offer me that could even come close to the deal I got for two iPhone 6's with unlimited talking and text.

As far as SS and politicians are concerned I've learned that both camps are in habited by professional liars, and so are their partisian websites.

[SteveRiley]

my wife prefers a regular phone for her daily 1-2 hour chats with Mom and Sisters

What do they talk about day after day after day?

Medicare suppliment Insurance companies are just acting as middle men distributing Federal monies while pocketing some of it for "administrative" costs.

This is what all medical insurance companies do. They take your premium dollars, squirrel away 15-25% of it for themselves, and then ration out the remainder. They provide no actual added value. I loathe them with the heat of a thousand suns. Why can't this country just expand Medicare to everyone? Keep your private health care, and fund it through Medicare. This is not "government run health care." It's just a way to eliminate dangerous profit seeking by rapacious private insurance companies.

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

If you're making only slightly more than minimum wage, aren't incentivized with a commission, and know that your potential customers don't have any other options with smarter people, why bother investing the time to learn how your stuff actually works?

[oshunluvr]

What do they talk about day after day after day?

Who knows? <rolls_eyes> I avoid listening as much as possible. Mostly I think it's about each other...

[Open Source]

I use Ooma as well, but I have the original Ooma which had just the initial hardware cost and no monthly fees. The new Ooma hardware monthly fees are for taxes as I understand it. If my Ooma box ever breaks then I guess I will have to get the new one and start paying $3.00 a month.

[Open Source]

By the way, I ported my old SunRocket number to Ooma.

[DoYouKubuntu]

I've resolved to keep my real, hardwired, original, classic, none of that newfangled digital stuff landline, including at least one corded phone, until they're obsolete. Here's why:

I'm back home in earthquake country, California, now. But I've lived in hurricane country [Florida] and Tornado Alley [Dallas]. I've seen firsthand what it's like to be without electricity for days at a time. Even here, without those weather related issues, I've had four scheduled power outages in the past 1-1/2 years as Southern California Edison replaced equipment. Each outage was about 10-12 hours. No power, no Internet, no service if you're getting your phone service from something like Vonage. Corded phone + landline + no electricity? No problem!

I cannot drop my landline in favor of my cell phone because I get *ZERO* bars here at home. Thanks, AT&T! Love those ads about all the great coverage, and, of course, your coverage map that shows my neighborhood VERY, very well covered! I've been back home for almost 9 years now, and I think 5 or 6 phones, and I still have yet to see those magical, mythical things I've heard about on smartphones, bars.

The package I have on my landline (also through AT&T) includes every imaginable feature, most of which I never use or care about, but its unlimited long distance is wonderful. Since most of my friends and relatives are thousands of miles away, it's nice being able to talk without those old-fashioned concerns about how much it's going to cost. And without the annoying dropped calls...or choppy calls...or any of the other nuisances that can still go along with cell phones.

FWIW, I also refuse to bundle services. I keep my TV, phone, and Internet separate, DirecTV, AT&T, Earthlink [over Time Warner's cables] respectively. I do that because, again, based on experience, I know that if bundled, one goes out they're ALL out. At least this way if one goes down, such as Internet, I can still watch TV and talk on the phone. Or if DirecTV goes out [which I have not seen since leaving Dallas], I can still use the Internet and phone. Etc.

So there you have it! Although I am a member of the 50+ club around here, I honestly don't see anything about my reasoning/preferences that exist because I'm an old geezer. I think my logic is pretty good, actually.

[Qqmike]

Makes sense to me. Nice, detailed post DYK. I don't like bundling anything, but I let myself get into some of it with C-L, including a L-D add-on that generates $15-$18 even if I make no calls. I solved my L-D using cell phones and Skype. It's the idea of it all: being locked in, being sent bills that I can't relate to versus actual need + usage, and so on. But, I see you have a fresh view of the issue!

[vsreeser]

We keep our landline cuz a lot of relatives call us on it. For cells, have 2 with cricket for $70, for $90 4-5 for $100. Taxes included. Unlimited minutes and text. 3Gb data plan, which we barely touch since we dl most stuff at home through our wireless router

[vsreeser]

Knew a guy who lost power once. He hooked up a power inverter to his car. ran his computer and modem off that. A little extreme, but he had nothing else to do

[mparillo]

I agree that POTS [almost] always works, even through the worst ice storms, but for those who want to really ditch the land line, and find unlimited cell phone plans expensive, have you had experience with Republic Wireless? Basically their gimmick is to encourage you to use WiFi whenever possible. From the forums there, it seems as if most of the subscribers try hard to make this work (as a business proposition), realizing if too few cooperate, the low rates cannot be sustained.

[jlittle]

I've resolved to keep my ... landline, including at least one corded phone...earthquake country...

Yes, my family has one corded phone, for the civil emergency reason. We were glad of it a few months ago when a substation fire took out all the cables for our wider neighbourhood, the cables were all in the same trench (bad practice) and it wasn't earth-filled (another bad practice). Power was out for several days.

Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and cyclones are a significant possibility here. However, events have shown that if the emergency is bad enough it takes out land lines and cell stations too.

[Snowhog]

Which is why short-wave radio is still in use.

[oshunluvr]

I would be surprised if an earthquake in Cali would knock out the internet lines but not phone lines. It's not like they don't use the same tunnels, towers, or even wires most, if not all of the time. In my case - when I lived in Long Beach AND here in NC - my so-called "hard line" phone comes from the same company and through the same wires as my internet. 10 years ago when Verizon upgraded my neighborhood to FIOS, I watched the installer run the optical fiber line from the telephone pole to my house - the same pole that held my previous telephone line. Actually, the fiber line was very thickly encased and a steel braided cable was in the casing along with the fiber. A strong wind might drop the telephone wire, but not that fiber optic line. If the pole went down - everything went with it anyway.

I suspect that in most markets the notion that a hard line phone is somehow more reliable is no longer the truth. The one difference where the internet fails before the phone line is when the power goes out to your home - because you need a router and a computer to use the internet. I also suspect most transmission hubs for internet and phone services have more reliable power sources than those available to your home. Phones still require some electricity, just not as much as a PC and modem do.

I simply have a dedicated UPS connected to my internet equipment (modem, router, switch) and Ooma phone. Besides that, I discovered my new provider's modem has a built-in battery that should last several hours.

[SteveRiley]

Stuart's description of modern telephony deployment is accurate. The days of twisted pairs to houses are long gone; no new construction has this. New houses get fiber drops and battery backed network interface devices. The 48vDC for dialtone and 120vAC for calls is simulated by the NID. A similar thing occurs for telephony over coax. For all practical purposes, in large cities today, telephony is simply a feature provided by your cable TV company or your fiber/DSL ISP slash "phone company."

[oshunluvr]

Prior to my FIOS upgrade, my house had a 4-pair twisted drop line to a small splitter box. One day I was adding extensions directly to the box and I noticed another line was active (voltage). I thought I might have a "free" second line! A quick hook up and I heard a neighbor on his phone! Someone servicing the local phone terminal had messed up big time. Lucky for him, I wasn't interested in listening in.

I remember back in the sixties we had transformers in our house that powered the telephones. Of course, I was in a small mid-western town so who knows what was going on on the coasts back then, but when the telephone system was upgraded (we got a 7 digit phone number! ) I played with the now obsolete heavy transformers and ringers. So much fun!

Our number was COlfax 2 - 2284, aka 262-2284. I was 3 when I had to memorize that!