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Do you even have a house phone anymore?
- Thread starter dontwalkhand
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As a matter of fact, they still sell typewriters too
What! seriously, really??
It is still a requirement in many other countries, and here in Australia a "naked" ADSL line as it is called is still limited in locations, and not available in my area, hence the phone line. All incoming calls are landline, all outgoing calls are on iPhones (We have 4 in the house) or via VoIP
In that sense wouldn't it be just a loud noisemaker... instead of the ADT central station receiving the signal through the landline and either calling your for a checkup or routing a call to the police?
No, and slowly I've been talking each one of my family members out of it. It's just not necessary anymore.
True story--I took the bar exam in a state that didn't allow computers. They did, however, allow takers to TYPEWRITE it by lugging one in.
This was two months ago.
You can opt for cellular monitoring instead, which actually is more feasible as most crooks already know to cut the phone line and just deal with the noise for a few minutes.
Big POTS (plain-old telephone service) fan here (Western Electric 2500 FTW). Traditional telephone service is more reliable in true disasters/emergencies—last year, for instance, there was a major, prolonged blackout in my area. AT&T Wireless was totally down. Verizon Wireless was still up, but wilted under the network traffic (data service was basically a no-go and many of my voice calls failed to go through or were dropped).
Traditional telephone service was completely unaffected.
Traditional telephone service was completely unaffected.
I've actually stopped caring if I miss a call.
My phone is on me almost all the time, but sometimes I run downstairs and get sidetracked and go back up hours later. In the days of landlines, there were times I'd be outside and not hear the phone anyway so I figure it's not much different. If it's really important they'll leave a message or call back and I may hear it. I've also stopped killing myself trying to run to it if I hear it go off in another part of the house. I play slave to phone and email quite enough.^^This.
We're NOT in the 80's, 90's anymore. Alarm companies know this as well as doctors offices. If your Doctor refuses to accept cell #'s and don't believe in fax machines (last doc was like this) drop him. Its a sign he's either unwilling to keep up with the latest tech or can't afford it, in the health industry thats a bad thing......
Not since about 2002. I've had a cell phone since 95, but dumped the landline in 2002. The only calls we were getting on it were political calls for my dead parents (who'd never had my phone number). CREEPY. Like: charleton heston calling my dead since 1993 dad to tell him to vote for Bush.
I am living at home now, and my parents have a landline for the alarm system and reliability. I try to get them to drop down to the very basic service, not the rip-off long-distance, but they won't. It is useful to have a line that will work in a power outage, as through the hurricane last year, AT&T landlines were rock solid, with battery-diesel power at the CO.
We have iffy cell service, and we have a Microcell to get good service inside, which works pretty well now, but if we have a power OR Comcast outage, the M-Cell is dead, so it's about the first thing to go.
When I move out of the house, I will not have a landline. I was toying with getting an Ooma line, but really, I barely use the phone, and I have my iPhone with me EVERYWHERE, and I probably won't be home that much, so it's just not worth it. I probably will get a Verizon (PagePlus or Trac) burner though just to have better reliability, since they stay rock solid during power events, while AT&T is a hot mess with any power instability.
At work we have landlines, but our new office has VOIP phones from Cisco.
We have iffy cell service, and we have a Microcell to get good service inside, which works pretty well now, but if we have a power OR Comcast outage, the M-Cell is dead, so it's about the first thing to go.
When I move out of the house, I will not have a landline. I was toying with getting an Ooma line, but really, I barely use the phone, and I have my iPhone with me EVERYWHERE, and I probably won't be home that much, so it's just not worth it. I probably will get a Verizon (PagePlus or Trac) burner though just to have better reliability, since they stay rock solid during power events, while AT&T is a hot mess with any power instability.
At work we have landlines, but our new office has VOIP phones from Cisco.
I have a Verizon Home Connect box which allows me to connect the numerous wireless phones I have into a single box that uses my wireless minutes. Pretty simple and easy and far cheaper than having a house phone. Plus say you vacation somewhere and want to take that with you, plug it in at the new location and voila you have your house phone with you.
Or you could not waste your money and just get Ooma for like $3/mo and better voice quality.