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

[Constant Gardener]

Still have copper - for POTS and 5 Mbit ADSL. Phone company offered a package that suits us perfectly, and their service is really good here, half a mile from the switch.

[Epicurus8a]

Yes I still have a landline

Unlike other phone systems, the landline is almost infallible.

[usually_quiet]

If one looks at cellphone coverage maps of the US, there are plenty of rual areas with no coverage. Locally, reception can be poor for one reason or another. Why would it be surprising that someone can't get cell service where they live?

There is another advantage to land-line service that I am surprised that nobody has mentioned, namely privacy, though it is largely negated if one is using a cordless phone.

[DereX888]

I would always keep landline.
When electricity is gone you'd still have phone line's low-mA 12V/50V at home for emergency, which you can use not only for calls (portable radio, small light etc - just prepare yourself ahead, and DON'T spread this idea in your own neighbourhood )

[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 service, 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...

Sure. You can get an external USB modem, but for a desktop PC a PCI card is more convenient and very cheap. As for software, the granddaddy is "WinFax". And I believe there is/was a free Windows fax utility from Microsoft. And you may get a free fax utility bundled with a modem (used to be standard). (They are still called "fax modems", if you look on the box.) These use the modem and PC instead of the fax machine, it may be more powerful, but you have to leave it on all the time and of course you still need the telephone line.

EFax or an equivalent service is really a lot more convenient. Fax machines aren't all that reliable anyway. Jam, take up space, waste pages if some jerk sends fax spam.

[DereX888]

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 service, 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...

Sure. You can get an external USB modem, but for a desktop PC a PCI card is more convenient and very cheap. As for software, the granddaddy is "WinFax". And I believe there is/was a free Windows fax utility from Microsoft. And you may get a free fax utility bundled with a modem (used to be standard). (They are still called "fax modems", if you look on the box.) These use the modem and PC instead of the fax machine, it may be more powerful, but you have to leave it on all the time and of course you still need the telephone line.

EFax or an equivalent service is really a lot more convenient. Fax machines aren't all that reliable anyway. Jam, take up space, waste pages if some jerk sends fax spam.

Just to add:
make sure you'll buy fax modem PCI card with WOR (wake-on-ring), unless you want to keep your PC up all day/nights
also set your home answering machine to kick-in after less number of rings than the number of ring you'll set for your fax (or switch to using PC for everything like I do - answering machine and fax are handled by my PC; but for that you need "voice modem fax" PCI crad, which are maybe few bucks more but still cheap)

[unclebud]

I use a Cell for calls, my cable service has phone service that sucks (Time Warner).
Got the TW phone to lower my cable cost and lose the landline cost. Savings $50 a month.

[handyguy]

Free home phone service. Unlimited US calling with no monthly fees., no other charges, Ooma. www.ooma.com I haven't tried it.

[schematic2]

I have Vonage. Works great for the price. I also have a cell for emerg. I'll never go back to land line...

[redwudz]

Where I used to live, we had a large storm a couple of years ago that took out several cell towers, but most of the landline system survived. Some areas with microwave phone links also lost connections. We also have had contractors cut through the only fiber optic phone/internet line to the south and then only the older microwave phone link south still worked.

Where I am now, cell service is about the same price as a landline, and I find it much more convenient. Since it's mostly flat ground, cell service works about anywhere and there are five or six cell carriers available.

[budz]

Yup, I still have a landline which I thought about canceling. But 2 years ago we had a earthquake and my cell carrier was out of commission. My land line was solid while the electricity was out for over 24 hours. After that earthquake the local phone company gave out land line phones for free. And they had a new ad out which compared the their land line service to phone service via cable. It went something like this, "Phones via cable service during a electricity power outage", then there's silence. So the local land line ph company made their point very clear!