Living with no land line

In My Humble Opinion
1

Quite a few people mentioned in the “Things that you don’t have in your house, but everyone else does” thread that they had only a cell phone–no land line. I have never really thought about that before, since cell phones don’t work where I live, but all these folks got me wondering. How do you do that?

My house is multi-story. I have phones in my bedroom, my son’s bedroom, the kitchen, and my office–plus one cordless phone. When the phone rings, whoever is closest picks it up. If my wife is in the kitchen and I’m in my office, we both answer. Whichever one of us the call isn’t for hangs up. If our daughter calls, we’ll both stay on the line and talk to her. For you “no land line” folks, how do you handle this?

Do you clip the phone to your bathrobe (or underwear, or jammies, or whatever you wear when you’re alone in the house)? If the phone’s upstairs and I’m downstairs, I’m sure not going to hear it ring, and I don’t want to carry it all over the house with me.

Our son loses the cordless phone from time to time. We press the button on the base station and it makes noise so we can find it. What do you do if the cell phone is under the couch cushions and you don’t have a land line? Go to the neighbor’s house and say “call me in three minutes, please”?

2

I live alone in a one bedroom apartment. My phone is never more than two rooms away.

3

I don’t have enough house to need to run much for the phone. My phone, keys, and wallet are my three near-unreplacable things, and I tend to keep track of them. I’ve had my keys taken once, and my wallet disappeared last summer, never to be found, but I haven’t lost a phone.

I have missed some calls when living in bigger houses, though.

4

I have 5 phones. 2 cell phones, 1 wireless with antenna, 1 line phone and 1 VioP phone connected directly to the USA through my Broadband Internet. My wireless phone has 3 room connections, my line phone has 4 room connections, my VoiP phone has 2 room connections. I think I have enough phones for 2 or 3 families. I have 3 2-line handsets. Some people here in Colombia think we are crazy to have so many phones and lines, but we use all of them.

5

I’ve lived without a landline. It was in a one bedroom apt. Usually, though, I’d have the phone with me if I was expecting a call. Otherwise, it would go to voice mail.

6

I also live in a smallish apartment, but I **always ** have my phone with me. It is either in my pocket, or on my desk charging. If I wake up in the morning and I am not going out immediatly I usually hang in my room (where my phone is), or will take the phone into the living room with me if I am going to watch TV, and if I don’t its only one room away. I never really thought about it until now, but I suppose it is a strange way to live. I have always lived with room mates, and having a only a cell phone (which I am going to have anyway) just made more sense than splitting the cost of a landline AND paying for the cell phone.

7

Non-land line user here also. Haven’t had one for over three years now. I live in a one bedroom apartment so I can hear my cell ringing no matter where I am at.

8

I’ve lived w/o for about 5 years, here. I don’t know how viable it is in a family setting, though. I’m sure there’s a fairly low threshold where the expense of each member having their own cell phone outweighs the conveniences.

9

We had a phone at our last apartment and NEVER used it.

Cell phones now seem to get better reception than cordless landlines, and have electronic phone books so you don’t have to remember any numbers or carry little pieces of paper around with you that have numbers written on them. They store your call history so you can call the last person who called you, or the fourth to last person who called you, in addition to any of the calls you’ve recently made or missed. They have built in answering machines, vibrate options, and work as little flashlights when an overhead light would wake someone up or hurt your sleep-adjusted eyes. They fit in your pocket and continue working when you go check the mail or decide to drive down the street to rent a movie in the middle of a conversation. They also don’t distinguish between a call next door and a call to the opposite coast. Since I have friends and family all over the country, this is essential.

I’m going on 2 years without a landline and I don’t think I’ll ever have another one.

10

Me and my Boyfriend have a house. Both of use have cell phones. We have no land line. My cell phone is generaly on my desk or in my pocket. I put more effort into having it with me when I’m expecting calls. If someone calls and I don’t hear it or can’t get to it they can leave a message which would be returned when I got to my phone. If one of use loses a phone we have the other call it. I see no reason for a land line. He every once in a while thinks about it so we could use it for a fax machine.

11

Like Cisco said …

I live in a big house with no landline. Wife & I have cellphones. No kids.

My cellphone is always on my person. When I go to bed it goes on the charger on the nightstand. When I wake up, I take it off the charger, go find my sweats or shorts depending on the season, put them on and clip the phone to the waistband and forget about it. Wife does the same. Very easy. They’re small enough now they just about disappear on your hip. Leaving it laying around the house would be stupid and inconvenient, so we don’t do that.

A phone on your hip is about a thousand times more convenient than one in the next room, or even across the room you’re in, be it wired, wireless or cell. Hell. we even use them as intercoms when we’re both at home but out of earshot. No, they’re not Nextels.

The only hard part was getting my 80-year-old MIL to understand the idea of calling my wife or calling me, but not calling us or our house. After 3 years she’s almost got it. But when we answer she often says “Oh, I’m glad I caught you at home…”, no matter how many times we explain we’re at the store or driving or whatever. She just can’t quite get that idea to stick. She’s sweet that way.

Ditch the landline. It’s like black-and-white TV. It still works 100% OK, but after it’s gone you won’t miss it for more than a few minutes.

12

I haven’t had a landline in about 4 years now, since I moved to college. When I go home and use a landline phone, it seems so archaic since the phone is huge and you have to dial the number. I don’t know of anybody that has a landline who is under 30 and has a cellphone.

Most people have cell phones so the person would call either your husband or you. If you really wanted to all talk in the same conversation most phone plans offer 3way calling (you can dial another number during your conversation so three different phone numbers are talking in the same conversation).

You could if you wanted but cell phones make it very easy to call somebody back. I always leave mine on my desk and when I check my phone it will say something like “2 missed calls” and all I have to do is pick one of the two calls and press one button to call them back.

Cell phones can be easy to lose because of their small size. If another family member doesn’t have a phone to call you, there is another option that I use sometimes. Most carriers offer text messaging and most that offer it have a free feature on their website to send a text message to a phone number. I just send a text message (this can also be done through an email) and your phone will beep for a few minutes until you read the new message received.

I’ve never seen a land phone that was as easily programmable as my cell phone. Until that happens and land phone service is a lot cheaper, I’ll never use a land line again for my home.

13

I dumped my landline last spring. I got so few calls on the landline and 95% + were telemarketers it was $ 30 a month saved. IMO landlines are going to be heading into buggy whip territory before too many more years pass. The only way landlines make sense economically is if you have a lot of kids without cellphones or cell phone service is poor or non-existent, or you have to use it for dial up

14

I just carry the phone with me.
I get calls all day because of my job.

If I’m seated, it’s usually out so I can answer it in fewer rings.
At the computer it sits on the desk.
Watching TV it’s by the remote.
In the car it’s in the console.
At night it’s charging on the nightstand.

15

Really? It’s amazing the technology you all have out there in citified places. 'round here, I’m lucky if the !@#$@# cell phone works at all in my house. Just yesterday, my mother tried to call me from hers. She was in the mall. I couldn’t hear a thing.

Obviously, we still use our land lines up here. And probably will for a long time going forward, because the idea of a phone next to me at all times that people can use to call me whenever they want is my own little definition of hell on earth.

16

Maybe. I don’t have a landline, but I’m going to get one. I’m fine without it, but it seems to really annoy/confuse people that I only have a mobile. So for the sake of my friends and family, and big companies and such that expect people to have a landline, I’m going to cave and get one.

17

Don’t do it. It’s only a matter of time 'till devices such as these become available for every cell phone.
Basically, you plug your cell phone into this when you’re in your house and it routes all your home phones through your cell phone.
No land line for us either. I plug the cell into the kitchen charger when I’m home and set the volume for “outdoor”. I can hear it from any room in the house.

18

Haven’t had a land line in years. We had a cordless that died of old age and decided to just get rid of the land line. Had a friend buy us a phone because he felt he was costing us minutes when he called our mobiles and we were getting free phone service through A’s work, so we put it back in. Told everyone the number. Only my mom and the phone-buying-friend ever called us on it. When A left that job, we dropped the land line. We use maybe a third of our minutes every month between the two of us, not big phone talkers.

As for not being around when the phone rings? They’ll leave a message. I really don’t sweat it much if I’m not waiting for a particular call (like a job).

19

The OP really wants informed opinions, rather than a discreet answer to a specific question. So, let’s try this one in IMHO.

samclem GQ moderator

20

I ditched my landline in February. I live alone, in a 3-story townhouse.

I keep the cell phone on either the top or main floor (I only use the basement when I’m doing laundry, and don’t stay down there long enough to bring the phone with me): usually I’m on the main floor, and the phone is sitting on the coffee table. At night I charge the phone next to my bed, turned on (and with the ringer on) in case of middle-of-the-night emergencies.

So far, I love not having a landline. I’m not much of a phone person, and don’t make or receive many calls: when I switched wireless carriers in February, and got a better plan and a more robust cell phone, it made no sense to me to have that and a landline. I save roughly $60/month by not having a landline. Plus, I’m a renter, and when I move next summer I won’t have to worry about getting a new phone number – but I will have to make sure that I test the cell reception before signing any lease.

I’m not sure what you mean: how would anyone know that you’re giving them a cell phone number and not a landline? I’ve only been without for 10 months, but so far I’ve never run into anyone who asked specifically for a landline number.

In fact, one of the things I like about having just a cell phone is that I can give, say, the doctor’s office or the car mechanic my “home” phone number and not have to worry that I’ll miss their call: no matter how many times I’d give someone my cell phone or work number and ask them to call that instead, they’d default to the home number in their records.

That happened to me for the first time just a few days ago, and I did exactly what you said: I went to Verizon’s text messaging website, and sent myself a message (although I will admit that first I logged into AIM to see if anyone was online who I could ask to call me, but no one was). I have the phone set to vibrate for an incoming text message, but it will beep every minute or two after the message is received until I indicate that I’ve seen it. So I stood still in my house until the phone beeped, then followed the sound. It took a few beeps, but I found it soon enough – and it was, indeed, on the couch. :slight_smile: It cost me $0.10 to get the message, because I don’t have a text messaging plan, but ten cents was definitely worth it to find my $150 phone!