I got rid of my land line a few months ago, it was a waste of money really, since I'm already paying for cell phone service with Verizon. I don't even use up my 700 minutes a month on that.
Anyone else still have land lines, and use them a lot?
Or have you gone way of the cell phone too?
We do. I like having my name in the directory as well as my wife's name is there also, and both are there at no extra charge. We want to make it as easy as possible for people who want to, to find us, without having to put out our cell phone to all possible callers.
We also like the convenience of having an A/M which gets our attention only when at home, and is taking messages from those we don't want having our cell phone number. Also they are there undeleted with a blinking red light as a constant reminder until whatever needed action is taken. Cell phone voice mail is not as convenient in queing up in that way.
Cell phone calls will reach us no matter where we are; driving a car for instance; and we want to keep cell communications to a minimum except for the most important/urgent communications.
All our home phones are not only land line, but also none of them are cordless; we have 5 of them, and this means we can take a call from all our most comfortable locations and not have to get up to retrieve the damn cell phone.
Also we have a fax machine we use for business purposes. I know that you can fax through the internet, but the time to scan in is far more time demanding than simply sliding a copy into the fax, punching in a phone number and pushing "start". Fax copies are exactly to scale, too, and computer copies are not. This is important for shop drawings or scale drawing for business purposes.
If I want to reach a politician, I believe that a fax copy has the importance of a written letter, but e-mails can be generated and are not equal to a hard signed fax copy.
Our cost for this hardline phone service is $35.00 per month, and they have just installed wireless internet service free of charge in our home through all new fiber optic lines. We aren't subsctribed to that, but when broadband service by COMCAST along with the TV/Cable gets less competitive, and possibly slower than the fiber optic broadband we'll be able to effectively net some off that phone charge by lowering a higher overall cable/internet bill.
Cell phones cells are sometimes not as effective in all locations inside a home; in the basement for instance. I notice some of our "younger" (and therefor "hip") neighbors who've no doubt abandoned landline phones, standing out on their porches even in cold weather talking on cell phones. I doubt they are out there doing that to combine getting fresh air with taking their calls for health reasons.
Calls to 911 are location sensitive for certain emergency calls which might become necessary.
