getting rid of landline

[xlxo]

copper wire telephone service is a dying product

Agreed.... my tele company is currently replacing their copper with Fiber Optics to achieve greater bandwidth and meet future demand.

 

[tvguy]

They have been forced to since copper wire telephone service is a dying product with revenue dropping every year. If they didn't change their product offerings they would be out of business in 10 years.

Actually, a lot of their competitors are paying to use their copper system because it's too expensive to bring fiber (or copper) to every house and the infrastructure is there. A lot of fiber customers don't know, the last leg of their connection may be copper, not fiber.

 

[dreiwhit]

I know several folks who have done it, but since we live in a valley, cell phone reception is pretty bad inside our house. Most of the time we get no signal. That will keeps us from dropping the landline.

But, we did drop AT&T and switched to Ooma VOIP about 18 months ago. We switched just to save money. Originally we were going to use their $4.95 a month plan, but we got a free trial of their premium $14.95 a month plan, and we liked it so much we kept it. The automatic and manual call blocking alone is worth the money. During last year's primary and general election seasons, we never got a robocall or a vote of me call or a please fund this candidate call. Plus, we get a second line I use for work, as well as call forwarding, etc.

 

[xlxo]

the last leg of their connection may be copper, not fiber.

Fiber conversion starts with the main infrastructure. As customers sign up, fiber is brought into the home with Ethernet being the final segment into the router.

Our region has had a lot of copper wire thefts. Phone companies are seeing savings going to fibre as there is no value to recycling the glass.

 

[tvguy]

Fiber conversion starts with the main infrastructure. As customers sign up, fiber is brought into the home with Ethernet being the final segment into the router.

Our region has had a lot of copper wire thefts. Phone companies are seeing savings going to fibre as there is no value to recycling the glass.

We've still waiting. We have fiber in the street, but it is copper from the street to the house.

 

[xlxo]

Here's a vid that shows one company's optical network terminal (58 seconds point) that converts the Fibre to Ethernet (skipping copper) inside a home. Yes Fiber is very new and will take time to rollout across the continent...

 

[4HOLIDAYS]

I know it was mentioned that even if you drop the HARD land line that you can still dial 911. That may be true initially but you really need to ck if it's been a while. The lines may have been disconnected, on purpose or by accident. Don't automatically assume it will be there.

 

[tvguy]

I know it was mentioned that even if you drop the HARD land line that you can still dial 911. That may be true initially but you really need to ck if it's been a while. The lines may have been disconnected, on purpose or by accident. Don't automatically assume it will be there.

I don't think that is correct with a landline. It is correct with a cell phone that is not activated. That is why charities collect cell phones for domestic violence victims. They give them away, and as long as you have cellular reception, and battery power, you can call 911 even if the phone is not activated.

The FCC's basic 911 rules require wireless service providers to transmit all 911 calls to a PSAP, regardless of whether the caller subscribes to the provider's service or not.

https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/911-wireless-services

 

[CdnCarrie]

You mean the "mom phone". we call it that because the only people that call us are our mothers. and telemarketers

I'm just waiting until the youngest gets a cell phone because I don't want him to be home alone without a phone. So probably later this year. The only reason we have kept in this long is because the kids didn't have cell phones yet.
In the meantime we do have to change our alarm system to wireless or something. Right now it involves the phone line. Hear that's a couple hundred to do.

 

[tvguy]

You mean the "mom phone". we call it that because the only people that call us are our mothers. and telemarketers

I'm just waiting until the youngest gets a cell phone because I don't want him to be home alone without a phone. So probably later this year. The only reason we have kept in this long is because the kids didn't have cell phones yet.
In the meantime we do have to change our alarm system to wireless or something. Right now it involves the phone line. Hear that's a couple hundred to do.

I had a choice of landline or cell for my alarm. Other than adding $10 a month to the monitoring, they didn't charge more for cell versus landline installation.

 

[hsmamato2]

We dropped our landline at the end of 2014. Probably the smartest decision I made that year. As far as 911 goes... you can still use your landline phone to call 911. Only 911. Just leave a handset plugged in or make sure everyone knows where it's stored just in case 911 has to be called and there's no active cell phone around. We still have a dial tone on our wired phone (to call 911) but no other call will work. Not many folks know this. I certainly didn't but once I found out, it was a no-brainer. It's really throwing $ out the window to be paying for an extra phone line.

NOW, with that said... we did have to have the home security switched over to a wireless system since it was going through the phone line as well. Not a big deal at all. Just needed a tech from the security company to come out and do it. Something else to consider though if you use a security system.

Is this true????? I'd never heard this before....... can you hear the dial tone ?

 

[Ranger111]

RE:
Calling 911 on a disconnected line:

I was curious about this, so I googled it. The first thing that popped up was an old Consumer's Report article (you can check it out via the link below). The article is from 2009, but I doubt much has changed -- anyway, for some states, coverage on disconnected lines only lasts for a couple of weeks -- in other states there is NO coverage.

Read for yourself:
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/...bout-911-and-disconnected-landlines/index.htm

 

[morgan98]

We don't have children and started living together/got married later in life. At the time, each of us only had cell phones and we still only each have cell phones. We have never had a landline in our 13+ years of being together. Of course we do not have children, so we don't have that aspect of logistics to worry about.

 

[chicagodisneyfan]

We havent had landlines in over 15 years. Don't miss it!

 

[rigs32]

I work for the government and we don't even have landlines! We switched to internet phone service last year.

Frankly, cell phones make my job SO much easier.

The quality of cell service depends on where you live. I can't visit certain people when I'm on call because there's only one cell tower in their area and it leads to unreliable service. But since 95% of the people and places I go to don't have that issue, it's not a problem.

Your cell phone auto chooses which tower to utilize and if you're within range of several, sometimes it may not select the best one. When that happens to me, I just end the call and immediately call back. Typically there's no issue at that point.

 

[tvguy]

I work for the government and we don't even have landlines! We switched to internet phone service last year.

Frankly, cell phones make my job SO much easier.

The quality of cell service depends on where you live. I can't visit certain people when I'm on call because there's only one cell tower in their area and it leads to unreliable service. But since 95% of the people and places I go to don't have that issue, it's not a problem.

Your cell phone auto chooses which tower to utilize and if you're within range of several, sometimes it may not select the best one. When that happens to me, I just end the call and immediately call back. Typically there's no issue at that point.

I consider internet phone service to be the same as a landline. We still use 2 way radios too, especially in areas with no cell service.

 

[KarenAylwood]

We moved a year and a half ago and we're in a "black hole" for service. We're a small new neighborhood and the cell companies don't care. We have zero service on a cell phone without a network extender (which they shipped us for free). We show as a covered area on everyone's maps, but there is no service (that's how we got the extender for free). If we lose power, we lose the extender. I just don't feel comfortable not having a landline with a 3.5 year old and a baby on the way. No power = no way of calling anyone.

If it was just DH and I, and we had cell service here, heck yea I'd get rid of it.

 

[tvguy]

We moved a year and a half ago and we're in a "black hole" for service. We're a small new neighborhood and the cell companies don't care. We have zero service on a cell phone without a network extender (which they shipped us for free). We show as a covered area on everyone's maps, but there is no service (that's how we got the extender for free). If we lose power, we lose the extender. I just don't feel comfortable not having a landline with a 3.5 year old and a baby on the way. No power = no way of calling anyone.

If it was just DH and I, and we had cell service here, heck yea I'd get rid of it.

Yeah, DW and I have been taking some weekend getaway trips to the coast and mountains, and we take our old GPS because it is amazing how many places there still is no cell service. At least the hotels we stayed at though enough to post on their websites that there is either no service, or only one carrier.

 

[angierae]

As I have posted before, the number one problem we have at work is people oversleeping because they use their cell phone as their alarm clock and the phone battery dies (or so they claim), and then of course there is no way to get a hold of them because that is their only phone. It did not dawn on me until I ready your reply....but our gift from the company this past Christmas for all employees were universal auxiliary cell phone batteries. I guess the boss is getting fed up too!

I'm pretty sure those people are making excuses. I don't know ANYONE who uses their phone for an alarm that doesn't charge their phone overnight. You go to bed, you plug in your phone.
Then again, most people I know wouldn't ever, every, ever let their phone die. I have a mophie case with a built in auxillary battery, and charge cords in my office, my car, upstairs next to my bed where i charge it nightly, and downstairs where I spend time in the evenings.

I can't remember the last time my phone battery died.

 

[TB'sWidow]

I still have my landline only because of the 911 fear I had a fire that destroyed my home about 10yrs ago an my call went directly to them, sadly our neighbors had a fire recently an only had cell phones an called 911 from those phones and the fire department was delayed because cell phones ping off the nearest tower. So my own fear makes me keep my landline