Does anyone use tracfone for their home phone?

[crystaldawn]

I am so over charter it's not even funny. Our bundle of internet (which we won't give up), phone (which I like to have) and cable (which is going today) just increased by $40 after the "promo" we received for bundling.

I do not want to NOT have a home phone. My husband has suggested two things 1) adding a line to our cell service. We currently have one cell phone that is 5 lines, joint acct with my brothers and their girlfriends (I do have an old iphone I could use) 2) Using a tracfone since we don't often use our home phone but it's available for when we do.

Does anyone have any experience porting a home number to either a cell line (at&t) or tracfone? I'm leaning toward the tracfone since we can just pay for what we use but not really sold on the idea yet.

TIA!

 

[cruisers5]

Both my husband and I gave up our regular cell phones years ago and only use Tracfones for our cell phone. We have purchased them on QVC - as you get a better deal, phone, triple minutes for life and something like 1200 - 1400minutes for less than $100. We roll over our minutes when we get a newer upgraded phones. Right now I have over 4000 minutes and service until 2016 on my phone. For our "home phone" we use magic jack - it's great - when we travel our tablet (we downloaded the ap on it) becomes our phone. When I took my granddaughter to Disney I used the wifi in the room to "connect" and used my tablet to call Canada so she could talk to her mom. I think we pay something like $20 a year for a home phone through Magic Jack and about $100 for a cell phone for a year. Can't beat the savings!

 

[robinb]

I am so over charter it's not even funny. Our bundle of internet (which we won't give up), phone (which I like to have) and cable (which is going today) just increased by $40 after the "promo" we received for bundling.

I do not want to NOT have a home phone. My husband has suggested two things 1) adding a line to our cell service. We currently have one cell phone that is 5 lines, joint acct with my brothers and their girlfriends (I do have an old iphone I could use) 2) Using a tracfone since we don't often use our home phone but it's available for when we do.

Does anyone have any experience porting a home number to either a cell line (at&t) or tracfone? I'm leaning toward the tracfone since we can just pay for what we use but not really sold on the idea yet.

TIA!

Make sure (1) you can dump the phone line and (2) the price of the internet & cable isn't the same or more as the 3 together. Many times the bundle savings expires prior to the agreement you signed.

Plenty of people use cell phones as their only phone these days. You'll want to make sure you choose a company that provides good reception in your home. I have used Tracfone, Page Plus Cellular (works on Verizon network) and Consumer Cellular (works on AT&T network) in the past.

 

[Green Tea]

I did Option #2. I bought a cheap TracFone and ported my home landline number to it. It took a while for the landline company to release the line but I add a card when it gets low on minutes or days of service. I've spent next to nothing on the whole shebang.

 

[crystaldawn]

Thanks!

 

[toystory1130]

I've been wanting to do this as well but just last night and now this morning, lost cell service. I would be worried if I had an emergency.

 

[hsmamato2]

Tracfone is a more $$$ option than some others.... I used to keep my old tracfone around,and top with a minutes card that lasted a year for ds to use if needed- It is cheaper to use my old flip verizon phone+ pageplus cellular with a year card for that purpose now... $100=2000 talk minutes(or text) and the service is more reliable (at least here) than tracfone (in my area verizon is TOPS):thumbsup either option was about 8.xxx per month for usage to keep the phone, but pp got me more minutes without any fuss.Plus now that ds goes places without us, he takes the cell with him. I use pp on my cell, but a different plan at 30 per month.

 

[Green Tea]

My family's cell phones are on Sprint and I picked Verizon for my TracFone service. You can choose whichever service you want it to operate on. This way if one service were to be out, I would still have a phone with the other.

 

[EMode]

We can't get rid of our landline because even with the best coverage (Verizon) or house gets unreliable reception.
I just recently bought my ds a Tracfone, the Android tracfones run on the Verizon network so it gets the same coverage here as the rest of us who use Page Plus.
The phone was $120, now its down to $110 and includes a year of service and triple minutes for life. What I really like is that it is broken up so that your talk, text and data don't come out of the same pool. He got 1200 minutes, 1200 texts and 1.2GB (I think, I'd have to double check that) of data. It used to be that your minutes, texts and data all came out of the same thing but since it has changed its pretty cheap.
I just bought my dad the same phone for Father's Day he uses Tracfone exclusively so no home phone for him. He also just put his own refill card on his old phone so when he activates the new one it will add those minutes to it. Love the roll-over!

 

[yoopermom]

We can't get rid of our landline because even with the best coverage (Verizon) or house gets unreliable reception.

Just an FYI, we bought a signal booster since we live in the "middle of nowhere" that uses our wifi to boost our Verizon cellphone signal. Like this, but cheaper...
http://www.verizonwireless.com/accessories/signal-boosters/

Now when family and friends comes to visit, the ones who have Verizon are thrilled because they have coverage, the rest....not so much. We have clear as a bell coverage anywhere in the house, and in about a ten foot perimeter outside the house as well.

And I ported our old house number to my Verizon account, since it was only $10/month for the extra line.

We are lucky enough to have cable internet, so (knock on wood) have only lost our internet and therefore our cell phone coverage a few times over the years.

Terri

 

[Straitlover]

Straight Talk (owned by Tracfone) has a machine you buy that you can plug your home phone into it. it runs off a cell signal. You pay for the machine and then $15 per month for service, unlimited calls. If you have the cordless phones w/ the extensions that plug into an electrical outlet, the extensions should also work. Otherwise, it's just the one phone that works AFAIK.

 

[robinb]

Straight Talk (owned by Tracfone) has a machine you buy that you can plug your home phone into it. it runs off a cell signal. You pay for the machine and then $15 per month for service, unlimited calls. If you have the cordless phones w/ the extensions that plug into an electrical outlet, the extensions should also work. Otherwise, it's just the one phone that works AFAIK.

You can also buy a bluetooth enabled home phone and a bluetooth cell phone. I have a Panasonic phone that I can use to dial off my cell phone.