Thinking about dropping home phone --

[dzorn]

We dropped our housephone 2-3 years ago, and we have not missed it a bit. Why pay for BOTH?

We're making plans for building our retirement home right now, and we do not intend to install phone lines.

For resale value that may be a mistake, much easier to add while building.

DH and I have talked about it several times, but for now we will keep the land line. When we leave the kids at home we want them to have a phone for us to call them or them call us. They are still not to an age where it would make sense to get them a cell phone and even my cell phone is a cheapie trac phone.

When we had the power black out in the northeast a few years ago, land lines had power but cell towers were out so many had no communication available.

Denise in MI

 

[pixiewings71]

I talked to Comcast last week. Right now we have a bundled plan of cable, internet and home phone with them. For us to drop the home phone, it would raise our rate for the other 2 services more than what we are paying now. So if you have a bundled package like that, it might not be worth it to drop the phone. You can also call your phone company and get the basic phone service. For me personally, I wouldn't go without home phone for lack of 911 pinpointing service. It's just not worth it in an emergency.

We have Comcast, until July we had a bundle, home phone, internet, cable. I lost my job in June and cable/home phone were the first to go. They tried to keep us by offering us a "deal" of $99 a month for the same 3 services (we were paying $160 a month) but we said no and dropped all but internet and the very smallest cable package, basically just the local channels plus Discovery. We saved over $100 by cancelling the home phone and dropping most of our cable. To be honest, we were going to drop cable as well and just get a digital converter box, but by keeping the basic cable package we are actually paying less then we would be paying if we had just kept the internet package. That made it worth it for us.
We've used 911 for an emergency but we couldn't use our home phone at all so that made no difference in our decision to cancel the home phone. We had a house fire, we had to evacuate the house and we had to cut the power (it was an electrical fire), the only corded phone was in the room that was engulfed in flames and the cordless phones weren't working, we had to use our cell phones anyway.
I honestly do not miss having a home phone, we all have cell phones so the only calls we got on our landline was sales calls. When people need our "home" phone we just use DBF's or my cell numbers, works just fine.

 

[Jenn4615]

I'd love to get rid of my home landline, but I need one in order to have directv because the receiver calls out on that line.

I have gone down to the cheapest plan, but it still costs me $35 a month -- mostly in federal and state taxes.

We have Directv and got rid of our home phone 1.5 ago... Don't miss it AT ALL!!

 

[DisneyScraps]

i got rid of my home phone 8 years ago.

When i a asked for my home number I use my cell, no one has ever questioned it.

I pay 10.00 extra per month to Dish Network because I don't have my receivers hooked up to phone lines. Its 5.00 per receiver and I have 2 of them.

Lisa

 

[katesorad]

Do it! I don't have a home phone right now it and it doesn't cause any problems. In fact, it's kind of nice.. no phone ringing off the hook when I'm trying to eat dinner. I just put my cell phone on silent, and everything is wonderful!

Also, somebody mentioned that if the power goes out, you have no cell phone. That's not true at all. Has anyone heard of car chargers??

 

[JohnsonsRUs]

Has anyone successfully transferred their home number to a new cell phone line? I was thinking about just adding a line to our cell plan and trying to move our home number to it, that way we could take it with us if needed and if anyone was calling the home phone, we would get the call. It would be far less expensive than what I currently pay for our home line.

 

[RitaE]

Well - since I'm already on VOIP when our power goes out we are already down to Cell service.

Funny thing, we had some carpeting installed over the summer and I had disconnected the computer modem etc. DH didn't know how to plug that device back in when they were done so he just left it - but forgot to tell me. It sat like that for well over a month before any of us even REALIZED we didn't have home phone service.

That's how much we use it.

 

[tuckerkeys]

I'd love to get rid of my home landline, but I need one in order to have directv because the receiver calls out on that line.

I have gone down to the cheapest plan, but it still costs me $35 a month -- mostly in federal and state taxes.

Not true anymore! Directv sends the signals now through the satellite...So a phone line IS NO LONGER NEEDED. You DO need a phone line if you order movies ( I do not ) actually if you want to order a movie or ppv you can do so without a phone line, you call in but I believe there is a .99 access fee or something.....

I have 4 directv boxes NONE of which are hooked up to a phone. Has been this way for almost 2 yrs w/o a problem

 

[Jenn4615]

thats odd... I order movies straight from my remote all the time with no landline... with directv...

 

[DawnM]

We switched to Ooma (Ooma.com). It is internet based, but you pay $199 once and no charges ever again. We have had it for over a year and are thrilled to have phone service but not pay monthly ever again.

Dawn

 

[Fire14]

I'd love to get rid of my home landline, but I need one in order to have directv because the receiver calls out on that line.

I have gone down to the cheapest plan, but it still costs me $35 a month -- mostly in federal and state taxes.

We have direct tv and dropped our land line the receiver works just fine without land line. I do have to deal with make daily call messages on one tive receiver but thats been case since we moved that receiver out to front room and tech hooked it up funny, the land line never worked if line plugged into receiver.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

We have had only cell phones for almost 9 years with zero problems. No problem in calling 911 either. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere or in a brand new neighborhood, emergency services will have no problems finding you. Besides, can't you give directions to a 911 operator?

 

[LaughingSphinx]

DH and I have been married 2.5 years, haven't had a landline yet and probably will never get one. Between cell phones and skype, we don't feel a need for it. And add to that the new Gmail calling features, we see no point in paying for services we can otherwise get for free.
As for 911, I make sure I plug the local police & hospitals into our phones, but I did see that one reader was able to register her cell number with the the local 911 call center? That'd be useful; anyone know more about this?

 

[NotUrsula]

Also, somebody mentioned that if the power goes out, you have no cell phone. That's not true at all. Has anyone heard of car chargers??

Which won't help you if the tower is down. (In most localities these days, landline wires run underground.)

For just charging the battery, yes and no. If you are in a disaster zone, odds are that you will not be able to buy gasoline easily for at least a week; so running your car engine to recharge devices may not be a particularly wise use of resources. Most people in an emergency situation find that they don't want to do that if they can help it.

 

[Wrekless]

We dropped ours 3 years ago and picked up a Magic Jack. If you have high speed internet it let us have a 'home phone number' without big costs. $20 a year is worth it. For us it works pretty well 95% of the time. The rest of the time we figure we are getting what we paid for and mostly use our cell phones anyway.

If service is spotty is just emails us our voicemails.

 

[pixiewings71]

Which won't help you if the tower is down. (In most localities these days, landline wires run underground.)

For just charging the battery, yes and no. If you are in a disaster zone, odds are that you will not be able to buy gasoline easily for at least a week; so running your car engine to recharge devices may not be a particularly wise use of resources. Most people in an emergency situation find that they don't want to do that if they can help it.

You don't need to turn the car completely on to charge a phone. In fact I wouldn't have to turn my car on at all, I've got a dedicated jack that goes straight from the cig. lighter to the battery. You just need an accessory connection to charge something. If you're in a disaster zone odds are that your landlines will be as dead as your cell towers. At least that's how it would be around here, and our phone lines are all underground too.

 

[Malibustyle23]

My Ds will be 7 in March and has never lived in a house with an operating landline. I think we went cell phone only back in 2000? When asked for my number I just enter my cell phone number where appropriate.

I have never needed to call 911 in my life but if I did I could run over to a neighbors or if I couldn't move or talk and nobody was home with me I guess I could text someone to get them to call 911 for me. Hopefully the chances of that are slim to none.

 

[MzDiz]

I dropped mine about a year ago and don't miss it at all. If you are worried about 911 calls, keep your landline phone plugged in, you can still use it for emergency calls.

Yikes, not true! Once you cancel your phone service, your line is supposed to be disconnected at the phone company's central switching office (meaning that it would literally be a deal wire that isn't attached to anything). If you still had dial tone after you cancelled, it was a fluke.

 

[Swimalie]

, emergency services will have no problems finding you. Besides, can't you give directions to a 911 operator?

Speaking as the wife of a former police officer, no, you can't always give them directions. What if you are being attacked and are able to dial 911 but aren't able to talk. They can pin point your location based on a home phone but not a cell. Also 911 can't give police directions if there is an emergency. They give them an address and a cross street and let them find the location.

 

[apnep]

911. Landline, if you dial they can pinpoint your location and send help immediately. Cellphone, they can triangulate you but not 'find' you.

Call your phone company or (better) go to their website and see what THE LOWEST cost service they offer is.

This is exactly why I haven't done it. But my thing is that we have a bundle and I don't even know if it would be worth it...