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Do you still have/use a house phone?

  • Yes

    Votes: 154 37.5%
  • No

    Votes: 245 59.6%
  • Other, Explain

    Votes: 12 2.9%

  • Total voters
    411
Yep, it's a Pay-per-use VoIP line that costs me about $4/mo from Callcentric. This number is used mainly for billing, telemarketers who ignore the Do Not Call list, my wife to call relatives in Canada and China, guests who don't have personal cell phones (children), and other people who should not have my cell number, such as annoying relatives.
 
I use the Verizon Wireless Home Connect, it uses a Verizon Wireless # and I connect my (6) wireless phones around the house. Easier than having to make sure my mobile is everywhere I am in the house.
 
Dumped my landline, and now my cell phone is my main phone. Even at work we're on VoIP now. For the last year I had it, all I was getting on the landline were political robocalls and non profit telemarketers.

It used to be that people would argue that landline phones are more reliable than cell phones, but that's just not the case anymore. The landline companies are cutting costs like crazy. Verizon in particular doesn't want to pay union workers to keep maintaining the landline network, and don't care very much if you're a customer of their old copper network, and would rather see you leave. landlines are just not part of their long term business plan anymore.

And it shows. I was a Verizon customer, and there were times when my landline was either dead or the line noise was so bad it was unusable, and it took days to get fixed each time. And the last two times we had a real emergency around here, our cell phones kept working and our landlines didn't because apparently, there's no staff regularly monitoring things in our central office. This isn't out in the sticks, either; I'm in a major metro area... just blocks away from FiOS service before they decided to stop building that out, too.


tl;dr: if you have a landline, especially from a traditional phone company, dump it. They don't care about you, unless you're willing to buy a cell phone from them, which locks you in on a contract and makes them way more money.

It's unfortunate that you have this attitude against all Telco's because of a bad experience with your local Telco, which appears to be Verizon. I have been a Verizon wireless customer since the iphone launched and I can say that they fall short on their wireless side when it comes to quality service/customer service in my area.

Keep this in mind when you make a generalized statement about all telco's. I worked as a service tech and also as a central office tech. Let me tell you that there is one thing that made up for the 365/24/7 on-call schedule, making sure people have the ability to call for help in the time of need. I take it personal when a customers POTS line is out of service rendering them unable to call for help or any other service for that matter. If just one customer was out of service, I would get a page any time of the night and sometimes need to drive a couple hours to get them back in service. My family understands this, my co-workers understand this and most important, my superiors understood this. Perhaps its because we have people that have worked in the field before they were promoted and understand the importance keeping customers in service. I cannot remember the exact time but there are laws against a person's phone service being out for a period of time.

Instead of being a forum warrior, take your issue's to someone within the company who care's. It might take some effort, but in the end, chances are, you will find someone and possibly save a life!
 
I think people should post where they live as well. Apartment, house, dorm room, etc. I think if you're single or living in an apartment, you probably don't need a landline. If you've got a bigger house, then you might.

We've got a landline for the security system, fax machine, and satellite. Also I have a VoIP that rings the home phones and my cell phone (in case we're not home). I also have a DECT that rings in all the rooms (with a different ringer) when my cell phone rings (when I'm at home, my cell might not be in my pocket all the time- it might be charging upstairs in the den). Its easier having a landline setup for this, albeit a bit expensive.

Also, we've got pretty bad reception indoors (Verizon, although other carriers have been just as bad). Maybe its the size of our house, or the way its built. So I bought a network extender. If the power gets knocked out in an emergency, we'd basically have no signal to call out with our cell phones.
 
I got rid of my land line almost 10 years ago. Fido offerred unlimited local calling for like $40/month at the time which was about the same as my land line. My wife and I found it to be cheaper to just get the cell phones and dump our land line.

The best thing about dumping our land line at the time was that the number of telemarketing calls dropped to almost nothing. I guess it had something to do with also switching phone numbers, but also telemarketers at the time do not call cell phones. I still have very few such calls now.

The biggest change at the time was that I had to bring my phone into every room in the house I went into. Before, I had multiple home phones throughout the house. Didn't take too long to get used to it.

One benefit I found with getting rid of my home phone was that I only have to give one phone number to people instead of multiple ones. People only needed to try one number to get a hold of me.
 
As above, most of the UK users are forced into having telephone services as they are a required for internet access.

If they stopped that I would drop it in an instant, we never make outgoing calls using it.

They stopped doing that here in the US years ago. It used to be that to have DSL you had to have landline service as well. Now you just pay for DSL. The account number still has a phone number associated with it but plugging in a phone doesn't get a dial tone.
 
I switched to voip several years ago which costs me $2-3/month on average. It rarely gets used, but is handy to have phones around the house. But honestly 'home phone' is rapidly becoming unnecessary.
 
Nope

I don't as I have no use for it. My parents had one up until 2010 when I bought them an ooma ($199) that gives you free unlimited nationwide calling as longs as you own that piece of hardware. You only have to pay the government regulatory fees which are around $3.50 per month. The voice is at a much higher bitrate than most other cell phones or landlines so quality is superb. They have an optional "premier" plan for $10/mo which gives you a second line, black listing, block numbers and a bunch of other features but my parents don't need that. Works perfectly for the last 2.5 years and has more than paid for itself
 
It's unfortunate that you have this attitude against all Telco's because of a bad experience with your local Telco, which appears to be Verizon. I have been a Verizon wireless customer since the iphone launched and I can say that they fall short on their wireless side when it comes to quality service/customer service in my area.

Keep this in mind when you make a generalized statement about all telco's. I worked as a service tech and also as a central office tech. Let me tell you that there is one thing that made up for the 365/24/7 on-call schedule, making sure people have the ability to call for help in the time of need. I take it personal when a customers POTS line is out of service rendering them unable to call for help or any other service for that matter. If just one customer was out of service, I would get a page any time of the night and sometimes need to drive a couple hours to get them back in service. My family understands this, my co-workers understand this and most important, my superiors understood this. Perhaps its because we have people that have worked in the field before they were promoted and understand the importance keeping customers in service. I cannot remember the exact time but there are laws against a person's phone service being out for a period of time.

Instead of being a forum warrior, take your issue's to someone within the company who care's. It might take some effort, but in the end, chances are, you will find someone and possibly save a life!

I had such horrible service from our telco (Qwest) It was disgusting. And I did take it to people within the company who should have cared, they did not. The State of Washington had to sue them for piss poor customer service - they lost and STILL did not keep the agreements they made with the state. I wouldn't do buisness with them with your money.
 
Cancelled it 5 years ago. Most people who have a landline also have a cell phone. This area is mostly dominated by Verizon since AT&T is shoddy here, so with mobile to mobile, it doesn't eat up your minutes. It was pointless to have a landline when it wasn't ever used. And like somebody else already said, the only people who called were people trying to sell me something.
 
Nope haven't had it since undergrad. My parents are in the no landline way of thinking now too. We use a google voice for spam, business info, etx.... For then to "contact" us. Of course they just leave a messag since no one picks up!

----------

And like somebody else already said, the only people who called were people trying to sell me something.

Exactly! That's why my parents cancelled the landline. Everyone who is relevant called our cell numbers. Only wrong numbers, spammers, and some guy who had out old number but owed money to credits calle the landline.
 
Yup,

Cell service will need to come a long way to match the reliability of landlines. Whether it be Verizon or AT&T, calls will drop. Plus I don't get good reception in my (or any) basement.

Also, you can't beat the quality or international rates of landlines.
 
We use iTalkBB (VOIP) for unlimited international calls to China and New Zealand. It's also functional over our cell phones. Otherwise we would not own a 'land line'.
 
Dumped my landline in 03. :D Had to temporarily get a landline in 05 when my ex was in the slammer. :) You can't take collect calls on your mobile. :mad:

I hate that Comcast and VZ try to jam the VoIP down your throat to get the "best" deals with them. :mad:
 
I haven't had one for 5 or 6 years. Use my one iPhone line for my small business and personal to keep it simple (if you can call it that). Sometimes I do miss the days of just a landline though :eek:.
 
No not anymore, ive got an iphone n my wife a galaxy s.
When im at work we cal through viber or facetime on my imac that is at home.
When iphone5 comes out prob i ll give my iphone 4 to my whife n i ll get the new one.
If it looks like the leaked ones mayb i ll get for her an iphone 4 as well n i ll keep mine till it dies :p
 
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