Pros/cons of cell phone only and no land line in house

[mom2jamie2004]

I am thinking of disconnecting land line phone and using just cell phones. I have a family plan with cingular and get a home depot discount. Is 911 accessible without a landline connection?? Two different answers from ATT customer service..

 

[deltachi8]

If you dial 911 from your cell, they wont automaically know where you calling from, you need to give them information.

Land lines, even without service, should be able to dial 911 or "0" and be connected to 911.

We "cut the cord" in March and dont miss it a bit.

 

[mom2jamie2004]

According to Verizon and Att; they are not required to to give you that access to 911. The only state that requiires them as a law to do is Vermont. So even if you leave your phone plugged in yopu cannot dial out 911. For all that are considering this Verizon offers a measured service for a rate of $15- $17 month.

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

We did this at one time and a con was that in some places in our house it was hard to get a signal. On the other hand, it was cheaper. You should check with your local emergency service about 911. I recently had a fire safety class and our fire marshall said they are building a new fire station with a call center where if we use our cell phone to call 911 they will be able to trace it, but until that's open they can't. Also, if I plug my landline in I don't get anything so I wouldn't be able to call 911, that must depend on where you are, too.

My cell phone doesn't get a signal in the house I live in now at all, we have to go outside to use it so instead of a landline we got Vonage. It's so much cheaper and I've never had a problem with it.

 

[deltachi8]

Try plugging your land line in and dialing "0". I will try it when I get home, it is suppose to work, but I could be wrong.

I waited until DS(9) was old enough to not only dial 9-1-1 himself (he could do that for along time), but accurately say his name, his address and phone number.

We had to call 9-1-1 once from the cell, and they ask where you calling from and connect you to the local center right away.

 

[paladin]

On the other hand, it was cheaper

Really? Everytime I look into cell phones, they always seem to be so expensive, much more than our land line. Do others find it to be cheaper?

 

[allaboutmm]

Were your ears ringing? My husband and I were just talking about this subject this am. We are thinking about just having our cell phones, and no land-line. I love to hear all the pro's and con's. Keep them coming. I'll let you know what we choose, and how it go's. Happy Friday

 

[Colinsmom]

I worry about what happens if someone is home without a phone. Cell phones get lost and misplaced (and batteries die), and what if you and DH go out and leave baby with a babysitter? The sitter may have a cell phone, but would he/she remember your address in an emergency (since a land line automatically registers the address on a 911 call)?

I also worry about the 911 calls that OPs have mentioned - even if you are unable to talk, dialing 911 on a land line WILL get you emergency personnel, where it will not on a cell phone unless they have the technology in place.

 

[etwinchester]

I thought about doing this as well until about 2 weeks ago. We normally use our cell phone for all long distance calls. Then the one day I went to make a call, it kept disconnecting, then saying "no service", etc... I don't know if they were having problems but I wouldn't want to risk it for emergencies. I also know that when it's raining, our signal goes way down and sometimes have trouble.

Another thing to consider, you have to give this number out on all your applications (loans, credit cards, etc...). I don't want them calling my cell phones bugging me even though I have FREE incoming calls.

 

[Chicago526]

We didn't get rid of our land line, but we cut the service down to the bare bones. We can only call within a 15 mile radius of the house, and it's about $20 a month with caller i.d. and to have an unpublished number. Our old bill was about $40 a month including a long distance plan and call waiting and a bunch of other stuff we don't need. So, we are saving about $20 a month, not bad.

Our cells have free long distance, and we have more minutes than we could ever use in a month, so I think this works out just fine.

 

[Disneefun]

We looked into this, but hit some snags with both our security system and the satellite system. Both have to dial out at times (the security system has to dial out to contact the monitoring center and the satellite has to dial out when we purchase movies so they can charge us). There were some workarounds for the security system I think, but it seemed like more trouble and expense.

Additionally, if you live in a place prone to outages due to overload of the cell system in emergencies and/or you may have to go without power and charging capability for awhile (such as here in hurricane country) you may want that landline to call out on. If you have a landline with a regular phone (not cordless) plugged into it, you can still use it in the event of a power outage and not have to worry about charging it.

Finally, if you have a landline phone and need to report a power outage, at least around here, if you call from the landline they know where you are so you don't have to speak to a customer service rep. You can just use the automated system. All in all, we found that we needed our landline so we keep it, but we've stripped off the long distance, etc. and use the cell for that.

 

[branv]

We did cells only until this year when we added Vonage.

Cons:

that little cell phone is pain to hold up to your ear for a long phone conversation (I swear that thing just squirted right out of my hands on a regular basis). You also can't cradle it between your face and your cheek when you have to use your hands for a second. You can use the ear bud, but then you have to go find the ear bud and untangle it. THEN, if you have speaker phone option...which is great, the problem is that it drains the battery faster. Plus people really don't like being put on speakerphone.

Cell phones feel hot against your face after a while.

When you have to charge your phone, you're trapped to speaking in this one tiny area...and taking the phone off to call and putting it back on is bad for the battery life span.

Sometimes spotty reception in the house.

Losing the cell phone in the house/car (the "lost keys" syndrome). If you have a regular phone line, you can just call your cell phone to find it, right? But you don't HAVE a phone line, and if someone else isn't in the house with their own cell phone at the moment, you can spend forever looking.

No faxing. I never realized I faxed so much, but even when it's just 5 times a year, it's a pain to have to go find a fax line that will let you fax long distance or even local.

Running out of minutes. Sure, you think you can get a jillion minutes and it will be fine...until that time you have to call the cable company and you're on hold for 45 minutes (@#$@!!!)

Pizza delivery...no kidding, some places won't deliver if they can't pull your address up in the system through your phone number. We spent one whole year having to go pick up Dominos

The pros are that you don't have to pay for two lines. We held out for over 2 years with just using our cells, however, it was just such a pain for us after a while. Now we have Vonage for just $27/month, we decreased our cell plans, and now we break even with what we were paying for just cell service.

 

[tlbwriter]

According to Verizon and Att; they are not required to to give you that access to 911. The only state that requiires them as a law to do is Vermont. So even if you leave your phone plugged in yopu cannot dial out 911. For all that are considering this Verizon offers a measured service for a rate of $15- $17 month.

By the end of 2005, all cell towers are supposed to support enhanced 911. However, individual communities still have to buy the equipment to receive that information, and many of them will not be able to afford it. So there is no guarantee that calling 911 on your cell phone will give your location to the responders. Not yet, anyway. This is one good reason I won't give up the landline. But to me, the most compelling reason is that my cell number is relatively private. I want to keep it that way.

 

[christianweecare]

Sorry for my ignorance but what is this Vonage that you guys are talking about?

 

[DebbieB]

Sorry for my ignorance but what is this Vonage that you guys are talking about?

Vonage works over your broadband internet connection:
http://www.vonage.com/help_vonage.php

I saw a show the other night where a mother lost her toddler son because it did not connect to 911 quickly in an emergency.

One other thing to think about - a coworker mentioned last week that she has only cordless phones in her house. The power went out and they didn't work. She realized that in an emergency, there could be a problem trying to reach emergency services. You should keep at least 1 corded phone.

 

[branv]

Actually, that is no longer accurate that all broadband phones don't allow 911 calls. Many of the reputable Broadband phone providers now supply access to the same 911 services regular land line users enjoy.

It's very simple, when you sign up for Vonage, you go to one of their online pages to supply your address. Vonage will check that address for accuracy and lets 911 services know that any calls from this number are assigned to your household.

We've already had to call 911 regarding a neighborhood disturbance, and they knew immediately who we were. This is even despite the fact that we actually signed up for a different area code then we are living in.

Yes, if the power or internet/cable (we go through cable internet) goes out, your phone services on Vonage or any broadband phone service will go out. When this happens, we use our cell phones...so you have to keep that into consideration the ramifications re: losing home service.

For $27/month with all the "add ons" that you need (call waiting, caller i.d., voice mail, call forward, free long distance...cool features like voicemails sent to your email address, being able to dial from your Outlook contacts list), I think it's worth it.

 

[DisneyArk]

I worry about what happens if someone is home without a phone. Cell phones get lost and misplaced (and batteries die), and what if you and DH go out and leave baby with a babysitter? The sitter may have a cell phone, but would he/she remember your address in an emergency (since a land line automatically registers the address on a 911 call)?

Another thing to consider, you have to give this number out on all your applications (loans, credit cards, etc...). I don't want them calling my cell phones bugging me even though I have FREE incoming calls.

These are my 2 concerns! What would I do when I have a baby-sitter watching the kids? Sometimes my husband is out of town and I have to get a baby-sitter. In that case he would have his cell phone and I would need mine so that the sitter could call me, but she wouldn't have a phone to call me from...

The next problem is the telemarketer calls!! I don't give my cell phone number out very often right now, so I don't get very many calls. I can't imagine getting telemarketing calls all the time on my cell.

Any ideas to solve these problems?

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

The next problem is the telemarketer calls!! I don't give my cell phone number out very often right now, so I don't get very many calls. I can't imagine getting telemarketing calls all the time on my cell.

Any ideas to solve these problems?

I have Verizon so I don't know how other cell phone companies are handling this, but Verizon refuses to publish cell phone numbers so you shouldn't get telemarketer calls unless you use your actual phone numbers when you fill out forms online, I can't think of how else they might get it. I never got telemarketer calls on mine when I only had my cell.

My mil is the only person that watched my kids and she had her own cell so the babysitter wasn't a concern for me, but I think you could get a prepaid phone to leave home just for those instances.

 

[Michelina]

We dropped our landline last October and I really don't miss it. The only cons are sometimes spotty reception in the house and sometimes I don't hear it ring. If I'm upstairs and the phone's downstairs I might miss it. I always set it on vibrate at work and sometimes I forget to turn the ringer back on too.
One great plus is that I haven't had one telemarketer or survey call in almost a year!

 

[welovewdw]

We switched to Vonage about 6 months ago and it's been great! 911 is activated & definitely works as long as you fill out the address form online. My parents switched last month and I know one of their questions was about how to hook it up & phones - you can use your regular phone with this service. You can also hook it up to use the regular phone jacks in your house - it's very easy to do, too!