Do you still have a physical "landline" for your home phone?

[yoda313]

THIS POLL IDEA COMES FROM A STATEMENT BY LORDHUTT IN A PREVIOUS POLL - THANKS LORDHUTT!

So do you still have a physical "landline" for your home phone?

My family does.

Are you on VOIP now? Or are you strictly on a cell phone?

[träskmannen]

Yes, I have a landline. Cell phone reception sucks so bad where I live that it sometimes is easier to just open a window and shout in the right direction.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

nope -- when the guy we bought the house from flipped it he cut the incoming land line at the foundation and did not wire the house for phone... (fucking moron)

we have cell phone only, which is what we had before we bought the house, but his lack of planning was very bone-headed anyway.

[yoda313]

@xylob - did you get a discount on the house for the phone flap????

[freebird73717]

I can't have internet without home phone service. Where I live there is only one telco/dsl provider. Locally owned and operated company. They screw you over as far as pricing and services go because they have no competition. I'm considering satellite internet ( it would actually be cheaper for me to go with sat internet and cancel my home phone)!

[TBoneit]

Cell Phone? Whats that?

I had no power after a bad storm for four days, The POTS kept on working.

On a side note, it appears from talking to a cell phone tech customer one day that they are having problems in some areas. The probem being that the cellular towers are being mined for the copper content used for wire and a ground plate and so on. It seems that once all the copper wire is stolen to be sold for scrap they have to repair it and and of course it can happen again.

If the price of scrap metal doesn't go down we'll be seeing more public wiring being mined for scrap as well as Aluminum siding and gutters and manhole covers.

What a great world we live in.

[handyguy]

Sure, I have the same phone number forever. So people can find me. But basically I need it for a TTY.

[AlanHK]

Don't have a cell phone, and anyway, need a landline for DSL Internet (the only kind available here).

[Baldrick]

Nope, just a cellphone...over 10 years now, I think I got my Nokia 3110 back in 1997. I had a landline a very short period some years ago when I didn't have access to FIBER/LAN internet.

[neomaine]

Cell phone only. Went copperless about 2 years ago. Dropped the $40/mth (and that was without long distance...) as soon as the law was passed that allowed you to keep your phone number accross provides. Haven't looked back since.

Sure cable phone might have been slightly cheaper but how far away from the house can I go with a cable phone? Lose power, lose phone... Ok, I could get a UPS just for the phone but that doesn't seem very practical.

If you have JUST a landline, its cheaper. But as soon as you get one cell phone its cost and capabilities far outweigh any landline. No need for both. Especially with additional lines running only $10.

If....you can get cell service.... :P

[SLK001]

I still have a land line (and have no plans on dropping it). We have storms down here that will knock out power for days at a time. The only link to the outside world is the land line.

[redwudz]

I went with a cell phone for the convenience. I have a low cost $29US a month plan. The local wired phone service is about the same cost. The house was wired with CAT5 for wired phones. I rewired the connections and use it for a LAN now, so no more phone wiring anyway.

Internet is over a microwave dish as the only other option was DSL.

I also have a VOIP connection that I use for long distance calls.

[awhite2600]

I picked other.

I have 'home phone' service through my cable provider. I needed an excuse to tell Bell Canada to take a flying leap. Their customer service sucks.

My cell phone is provided by my employer for business use only. They don't mind the odd personal call, but I can't overdo it.

Cell phone plans in Canada are very expensive compared to most other countries. It's just too expensive for most people here to use a cell as a main phone. So I pay my cable company lots of money for home phone service and still don't make many calls.

[edDV]

Power is too risky around here to depend on cable for phone or internet. POTS w/DSL plus UPS power for the router plus cellphone still work in the dark.

[MJA]

3 cell phones since 2000.2 personal and one from work..F verizon and their landline

[gadgetguy]

I still have a land line and will have until someone can prove to me a cheaper method that allows me to reliably use my modem to connect to my customer's PBXs. I had one salesperson flat out tell me that VOIP won't work and several others that tell me it "should" work. "Should" isn't good enough.

[lordhutt]

Yeah baby...I'm famous!!....first line of first post

Anyway, although I rarely use one to talk. I have 3 in my house. One is a business number forwarded to my answering service...one for fax...and the house line I've had for about 15 years which I pretty much only have because of my wife...but I don't mind because its still nice to have a backup just in case.

[Number Six]

..F verizon and their landline

I went cell phone solo in 2000 after I moved and got into a major fight with Verizon (WORST PHONE COMPANY ON THE PLANET) after they jerked me around for 2 weeks to install the land line

[lordhutt]

..F verizon and their landline

I went cell phone solo in 2000 after I moved and got into a major fight with Verizon (WORST PHONE COMPANY ON THE PLANET) after they jerked me around for 2 weeks to install the land line

Heh...someone will always have a complaint about every company out there. I've never had a problem with Verizon. 3 landlines and 5 cell numbers under my name.
Every company will always have someone that had a bad experience with them...I am sure if you look you'll find someone who claims your favorite restaurant served them the worst meal ever as well as plenty of people that think your cell provider sucks

[TBoneit]

I guess my Needs are to simple to "need" a cell phone. No long distance excluding toll free numbers.

The Caller ID portion is more expensive than my phone service portion of the bill. No long distance carrier. They went bye, bye when they started charging for non use of their service.I believe I've had this number for 40 years +/-. At one time I had three lines when I was running a 2 line BBS. 2 for the BBS incoming and one for voice and data out.

When I started using a modem it was a 300 baud Volksmodem.... Ran on a 9 volt battery as I remember it. I could read faster the the text scrolled from my Compuserve account. The only slower was the Teletype at work.

Cheers

[MOVIEGEEK]

Cell phone reception sucks so bad where I live that it sometimes is easier to just open a window and shout in the right direction.

Me too,I can drive one mile and get a great signal though.I mainly use my cellphone for work so I can expense it.
I also have a LL because I use a fax machine for work,I also expense that.

[usually_quiet]

I only have a landline, which I use for my DSL service as well as telephone service. I am thinking about going to VOIP for long distance, but haven't done it. (I need to get new phones to install it as a second line.) I had a pre-paid cell phone for a while, just to see what it is like to have one. I found I rarely used it to make calls, and I don't really want to take calls when I'm out running errands or driving, so I didn't continue with it.

Aside from telephone service, TTY, and DSL, there are other reasons people need to have a land line. If someone has a TiVo but no broadband internet connection, for example. Also, if someone has a pacemaker, a land line is needed for monthly diagnostics, and because a cell phone is not to be used except in an emergency.

I haven't heard about cell tower vandalism, but I don't doubt that it's happening. If there are people who are breaking into vacant houses to remove the pipes and wiring, taking bronze grave markers or cemetary vases, and stealing the copper gutters from landmark buildings, why wouldn't they strip cell towers too?

[toolady]

No cell phone reception where we live. We have a package unlimited long distance anywhere in the US , DSL internet and Direct TV Costs us $145 a month which is not bad considering we make more long distance calls than local we have pretty good service our lines to our house have been replaced 2 times in the last 18 months they had someone out running new lines in less than 36 hours. They run the lines in the middle of our 900 ft gravel driveway. We have underground electric also though so maybe they can't put it anywhere else without risking hitting electric lines

[MJA]

No cell phone reception where we live

freaky where do u live by the way?

I been with sprint for 8 years .Thanx God I have none of those issues

[toolady]

In the Georgia mountains

[cal_tony]

Cellphone only. Was using my landline only for modem hookup but finally gave up on the phone company running new lines locally to make DSL available.

Went with a satellite hookup and the monthly charge is the same as my old landline cost. So now I have 500kbps. Thats not much but it's much better than the 12kbps I was getting with my landline.

Tony

[AlanHK]

one for fax

I occasionally need to receive a fax, for that I use efax
That gives me a fax receiving number which sends an image of the fax to me as email.
They have a free servce, for which you accept a couple of spams a month. No problem, and you can easily filter them away.
For bigger volumes and sending faxes you need to pay. Still probably cheaper than renting a dedicated fax land line.

I can send email-fax free via TPC.

[lordhutt]

one for fax

I occasionally need to receive a fax, for that I use efax
That gives me a fax receiving number which sends an image of the fax to me as email.
They have a free servce, for which you accept a couple of spams a month. No problem, and you can easily filter them away.
For bigger volumes and sending faxes you need to pay. Still probably cheaper than renting a dedicated fax land line.

I can send email-fax free via TPC.

I have heard of this. However I would prefer to handle it without any outside service.
Is there software I can buy to just receive faxes on my pc...I guess I would need a modem as well but they should have some form of usb device that accepts a phone jack instead of an internal modem...

[redwudz]

Fax capability is the only thing I miss because of not having a land line. There are still quite a few businesses that use that format. I have a good fax program. Tried to use it with my cell phone, but you apparently have to have to pay extra for sending data. I do have Skype, so I may give that a try.

[FulciLives]

I went with VoIP about a year ago because of the price.

I pay $14.95 and with taxes and stuff it ends up being about $20.00

I don't get unlimited long distance ... for that I would have to pay $24.95 which I imagine would probably be $30.00 with taxes and stuff.

$20.00 sounded better than $30.00 since I barely ever make long distance phone calls.

Last year I bought my first cell phone. It is a TracFone (LG model) where you buy minutes (pay as you go). The phone cost me $80.00 and I bought 400 minutes (doubled for life since I bought the phone direct from TracFone's website) for a total of $100.00 as I recall (or $180.00 for phone and minutes). I think for buying the phone I got an extra 80 so that's 880 minutes total. I currently have about 215 minutes left. I activated the phone on December 30, 2007 and as you can tell I barely use it. Basically I got it for emergencies (my car broke down once and I was glad I had it with me) and for times when VoIP fails me.

Which is a big rub to me. I have Comcast cable and it goes in and out at times and this is very annoying when you have VoIP. Also if I am running any bit torrents I have to stop them and wait a moment or two or three before using the phone otherwise there is not enough bitrate for the phone and the bit torrents.

My area has DSL only ... no Fios. If Fios was available I would probably switch as I am somewhat sick of Comcast.

BTW my VoIP is using my Comcast internet (I also have Comcast internet TV) but I'm using a local small telecommunications company for the VoIP.

Recently I've been thinking of buying the iTouch. I looked at the iPhone but the cheapest monthly plan is $69.99 and I refuse to pay that much. I'd be better off with the iTouch and my el cheapo LG TracFone and VoIP

- John "FulciLives" Coleman