How saving $35 a month could cost you even more.

[Shelly F - Ohio]

Here is one good reason not to get rid of your landline phone. My Nieces house caught on fire. Her Husband used their cell phone to call 911. As it turns out the cell tower bounced their call to another cell tower which connected them to a 911 dispatcher in a totally different city. Which happened to be a good 50 miles away! By the time they got connected to the right 911 dispatcher in county where they live they had lost a lot of time in getting the fire dept there. The house was a total loss.
The fire chief explaned to them what happens to calls made by cell phones with regards to calling 911 and how the calls get routed if a cell tower has too many calls coming into it then it bounces calls to another tower. In this case because they were trying to reach 911 it went to the 911 dispatcher in the city where the tower was located. He advises against getting rid of landlines for this very reason.
He could have gone to the neighbors to call 911 but at 3:00 a.m. he did what natural instict would have him do which was to call 911 with his cell phone. Not to mention the neighbors house is not close by.

 

[lpereira]

Fyi. A phone can be plugged into any landline connection and be used to call 911. It can't be used to make any other ohone calls. You don't need service for this.
Also generally you should never call 911 from inside your house if its on fire. Gi to your neighbors house.

 

[Alexander]

We have a landline, but in the middle of the night in a fire, I would probably grab my cell phone anyways on the way out the door.

Sorry to hear of such a tragedy. 911 even with landlines is a less than good program. We have had 2 really strange and 1 very, very frightening story in our immediate family having used 911 before. I wish we could just call the fire department or ambulance directly.

 

[AmandaRG]

Another issue is so many have cordless phones that require electricity. In a fire, it is likely there is a power problem and it would render the landline useless. I keep trying to remember to get a corded phone, but have yet to do so. Need to put that on my Target list!

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

Well he would but at 3 in the morning he grab his cell phone to make the call as this is the only phone he has. he also had the 2 kids both in cribs, and wife and the dog that wokr him up to get out of the house as well. He did what his gut reaction told him to do. At least his family is safe and he can rebuild the house.
Just think if he were calling for a medical emergency. He would never think to run to the neighbors to use the landline to call 911 if someone needed medical help.
$35 a month could save you a lot or a life.

 

[princessmom29]

But you don't need to pay that $35 to call 911 from a landline. ANY landsline regardless of wether it has service or not will ALWAYS call 911 as long as it is wired into the grid, of course. All you have ot do is plug a phone into the landline and remember to use that one and not the cell to call 911.

 

[jmartinez1895]

Coming from my husband who is a current police sergeant and former fire fighter ( and repeating what was posted above) NEVER call from inside your home when it is on fire. Use your cell or go to a neighbors house. The few second it takes to dial the phone and tell them what is going on could cost you your life. I don't think any good neighbor would mind a knock on the door at 3 AM for something like that, if fact it would be good for the neighbors to know in case the fire spreads.

 

[bumbershoot]

Since he shouldn't be calling from inside his own house, and since waking up a neighbor at 3am would likely take quite awhile, seems to me that cellphone is the best bet.

We've called 911 with our cells and it went just fine. They always have to route you *somewhere*, depending on "the nature of your emergency".

 

[crisi]

We had that problem with a landline AND a cell phone.

About five years ago a guest ours fell on our walk and broke her leg. We ran inside to call 911 - and couldn't from our landline! The phone company had been doing some testing on the 911 circuits and hadn't put everything back the way it was supposed to be.

I then called from my cell phone - but mine didn't have GPS, so it routed to the 911 dispatcher for the area code - which is far away from the area code I needed to be in - they tried to transfer the call and it dropped. My husband tried 911 from his phone and got through - his phone had GPS which routed to a more appropriate dispatch.

 

[ceecee]

That's happened with emergency medical responses as well. The women who called from her cell was also an EMT with the squad she was calling for and the call went to another city.

 

[RitaE]

Isn't $35 pretty expensive for a basic land line? We pay about $15 for ours (which we never use) and as somebody else said, I think you have the right to cancel it altogether but still keep the dial tone active for 911 service. I should look into that.

The only reason I haven't canceled are phone altogether is my DH doesn't want to give up that phone number. I've been threatening for awhile now to port the home phone number into our cell phone contract and drop his cell phone #, but then he'd be getting all the telemarketer and political action committee calls that the land line attracts.

The 911 thing really doesn't worry me that much. Yes things can happen. That is always true - life is always a risk.

 

[JB2K]

I don't know about Verizon, CenturyLink, and other landline providers around the country, but AT&T (former SBC) offers a bare-bones landline for under $20 a month (with local calls costing a nickel a minute).

IMO, all homes should have a traditional corded phone in at least one room for such emergencies...

 

[dawson5]

Isn't this the case with the other landline options like voip and magic jack? Wouldn't it just make sense to just adjust how you are reporting an emergency, like giving street and city information?

 

[RitaE]

Isn't this the case with the other landline options like voip and magic jack? Wouldn't it just make sense to just adjust how you are reporting an emergency, like giving street and city information?

yes - it's been explained to me but it is really technical and over my head, but I'll give it a try.

Most of the major providers (like vonage or comcast) have you register an address to attach to that phone number. I know I did that when I set up our Vonage account years ago. It's complicated but most 911 centers have something they call "enhanced 911 processing" or something like that and when the system picks up an incoming phone number it checks that database of addresses and then routes the call to the correct place.

It's more difficult with cell phones but they also send a location to the 911 system. But in this case it isn't the address you've registered but an approximate location based on the cell phone tower that's handling the call. As the OP explains, sometimes when one cell phone tower is overloaded - the call gets shoved over to a neighboring tower and that messes up the location that is transmitted.

That's my elementary layperson explanation that is probably all wrong.

 

[dawson5]

I understand all of that, know what you mean. I guess I'm one of those people that give all information that I think is pertinent over the phone (in an emergency type situation). I know that there were some snags with those voip providers years ago, so I would just rather be safe than sorry.

On a side note, my lovely AT&T landline has been down for about six days now. I was supposed to have service restored yesterday by 3pm. I didn't get notice, had to log into our account to see it's been extended to the 10th. (Static on the line. People can call, but it doesn't ring. I do get a dial-tone, but cannot call out.) Luckily we do have cell phones.

 

[SDSorority]

Fyi. A phone can be plugged into any landline connection and be used to call 911. It can't be used to make any other ohone calls. You don't need service for this.
Also generally you should never call 911 from inside your house if its on fire. Gi to your neighbors house.

 

[SDSorority]

When I called the 911 dispatcher from my cell they weren't in my city, but they connected me with the police station IN my city once I told them the exact location I was. I've called 911 from my cell phone numerous times on the road with no problem.

 

[JENOS]

Here is one good reason not to get rid of your landline phone. My Nieces house caught on fire. Her Husband used their cell phone to call 911. As it turns out the cell tower bounced their call to another cell tower which connected them to a 911 dispatcher in a totally different city. Which happened to be a good 50 miles away! By the time they got connected to the right 911 dispatcher in county where they live they had lost a lot of time in getting the fire dept there. The house was a total loss.
The fire chief explaned to them what happens to calls made by cell phones with regards to calling 911 and how the calls get routed if a cell tower has too many calls coming into it then it bounces calls to another tower. In this case because they were trying to reach 911 it went to the 911 dispatcher in the city where the tower was located. He advises against getting rid of landlines for this very reason.
He could have gone to the neighbors to call 911 but at 3:00 a.m. he did what natural instict would have him do which was to call 911 with his cell phone. Not to mention the neighbors house is not close by.

I don’t think the distance matters since it takes seconds to connect 1 mile as it would 50 miles. Total run around wound be under a minute which wouldn’t make a difference in a standard fire.

Sorry for their loss

 

[crisi]

I don’t think the distance matters since it takes seconds to connect 1 mile as it would 50 miles. Total run around wound be under a minute which wouldn’t make a difference in a standard fire.

Sorry for their loss

The problem isn't the distance, its that you need to get to the RIGHT 911 station to have your local emergency services dispatched. I have to get to my city dispatch (stupidly, we do it by city and not by county - or better - regionally - in a dumb power grab from ten years ago). If I get to another cities dispatch, they have to forward the call. If they don't forward it correctly, I might get forwarded another time, or just dropped.

 

[JENOS]

The problem isn't the distance, its that you need to get to the RIGHT 911 station to have your local emergency services dispatched. I have to get to my city dispatch (stupidly, we do it by city and not by county - or better - regionally - in a dumb power grab from ten years ago). If I get to another cities dispatch, they have to forward the call. If they don't forward it correctly, I might get forwarded another time, or just dropped.

Which takes....less than two minutes?

If it is that frustrating, why don’t you have direct numbers stored on you cell phone? I would, and sounds like it would faster than the run around.