My mother is thinking about dropping her landline. Altogether – counting the loss of some bundling incentives offered by her phone company (which also provides her TV & internet service), and including the cost of upping her cell phone minutes enough to offset the loss of her landline – this will save her about $30 a month. And, if she waits until her cell phone contract is up, she can switch one of her cell phone numbers to the same number she currently uses on her landline. This would make the transition fairly painless.
So, do any of you cell-phone-only people regret turning off your landlines? She called the phone company and asked if they had any reasons why she shouldn’t drop the landline. They only had 2 arguments against dropping them:
Your cell phone service might be interrupted during an emergency. This is true, of course, but is equally true of a land line. When we had our big hurricane a few years back, our cell phone service remained functional throughout the emergency but our landline was out for 6 days. So this argument is kind of six-of-one-half-dozen-of-another, IMO.
Calling 911. If you call 911 on your house phone, they can trace it even if you are unable to speak. My folks are getting older, so this one did resonate with me. Still, can’t you get some sort of tracking on cell phones, too, nowadays?
A third argement I thought of was that Mom usually keeps her phone in her purse, which makes it kind of hard to hear when it rings. She’d have to train herself to keep it out in a central place instead.
So, do any of you cell-phone only Dopers miss your landlines? Are you ever sorry you dropped them?
I haven’t had a landline for four years, and I haven’t regretted it for an instant. My cell phone is all I need, and I’ve not yet had an issue with it being my only available line.
Also, I believe you can indeed get tracking on cell phones now. Unless I’m miserably mistaken, my cell (Motorola Q) automatically turns on emergency tracking with you dial 911.
The only time I ever miss a landline is in the extremely rare event that a fax machine in the house would be useful. However, I can always use e-fax and my wife has fax machines at her work that she is allowed to use for non-excessive personal use.
Also, some people have trouble “getting it” that you don’t have a home phone, only a cell.
When I moved in 2004 I didn’t set up a land line to see if I really needed it. Four years later, I still don’t have one. There hasn’t been one time where I missed it. But if I had small children or elderly folks living with me, I might reconsider.
My son does this, and as he will tell you when people are talking about all of the features their phone has: “I like my phone to. You know what it does? It makes and receives phone calls very well!” That’s all he wants. He doesn’t text, he doesn’t need the PDA phone. He just wants a tellephone, and he’s happy with that.
Regarding the 911 thing. It’s been several years, but the last time I called 911 on my cell phone it went to the 911 operators where my phone was registered. In other words if you’re on a trip to a different state and require 911, are you sure it’s going to call the 911 closest to your actual location or will it call back to your home area?
I know it won’t apply to most of you, but if you have teenagers that tend to get in trouble it might. When you get arrested and you get your one phone call, it is collect from the jail. You can’t make a collect call to a cell phone.
I still have my landline. I have the bundle of internet, cable and phone, and when they were about to drop two no-commercial movie channels from the line-up, I wanted to drop the phone and order HBO. They made me a deal that if I kept my landline, they would give me ALL the HBO’s and Showtimes and whatever else free for a year, AND drop my overall bill. I kept the phone. The deal is up this month, however, and I intend to drop the landline unless they make me a similar deal.
The only calls I get on my landline are charities asking for money. :rolleyes:
Having raised two boys into men, I’m not sure this is necessarily a bad thing.
I’m reading this thread carefully because Razorette and I are considering doing this. Even in the relatively remote rural area where we live, cellular service is surprisingly reliable. Our only reservation is that we don’t like not being listed in the phone book – we’re both very active in local organizations, church, etc., and it might be hard for people to find us if they don’t know us well enough to have our personal cell phones.
The only reason my parents still have a landline is because they live out in the boonies and don’t have very good reception inside.
With how much I moved in college, changing phone numbers would have been a PITA.
Not a single one of my friends under 30 has a landline. Only 2 of my friends between 30 and 40, and 2 of my friends over 40 have landlines. They’re all married, FWIW.
I think within the next 10 years, 80% of landlines are going to be business lines.
No regrets at all. In spirit I’ve never had a land line since I left home in 2004, relying on a cellphone for all phone related stuff. Technically I did have a land line for a year or two in this time, but that was only as a side effect of signing up for DSL internet. Now that I have cable internet there is absolutely no need for it.
Maybe you could put together a listing of cell phones on the local organization and church websites? Our rugby club officers’ numbers are all listed on our web page, and it comes in very handy on Saturday mornings.
I have a land line for 911. I may be a Nervous Nelly, but I live alone and I had a medical scare a couple of years back that left me worried about how people would find me to help me in an emergency. That’s a big enough worry for me to keep a land line, and I would not want my parents (late '60s) to be without a land line for the same reason. That’s the only reason, though; if I didn’t have that personal concern, I would probably be “cell only” myself.
I hate that people can get a hold of me whenever they want so I just end up leaving my telephone at home anyhow where I get bad reception (who knows why, I live in a major city). When my contract is up, I’m going to pay as you go which should end up being miles cheaper considering my cell is off 98% of the time, and I’m getting a land line.
We haven’t regretted it a bit. We dropped our landline 6 or 7 years ago. We each have a cell phone and they are really all we need.
My Sprint phone has GPS tracking that automatically turns on when 911 is dialed, so not really a concern.
Our cell service may indeed be interrupted in a disaster of some sort, that’s what the HAM radio is for.
I use Skype occasionally to call other friends or family that also use Skype. I used it (Skype Out) more often for calls to telephones when it was free, and I paid for a Skype In number for a year that I never used, so I dropped that too. Gizmo Project works just as well for free.
I almost exclusively give out my GrandCentral phone number now, which rings my cell phone, my work phone, and Gizmo, and offers other nifty features.
Never missed the landline, and see no need to ever have one again.
Actually, if you dial 911, your current location will determine who you connect to for emergency assistance, rather than your phone number. After all, it’s the local authorities who’ll be in a position to help you out… not the ones back home.
Which brings me to a little known fact - in Canada, if you dial 911 from a cell phone, cellular carriers are legally obligated to put through your call to the local 911 operator. This is true even if that phone is not currently active with a cell number and service plan - so long as it can power up and detect a signal, you will be able to place the call free of charge.
As to the OP, I was cell-phone only for a good 5 years. I eventually got a home phone again because my employer was running a beta test for a VOIP-like phone service two years ago in exchange for 6 months free service, and I decided to give it a try. Once my 6 months was up, I ended up keeping it because a) the long distance rate is much less than the one on my cell and b) as an employee, I get the service half-price.
Since most of the people calling my landline are telemarketers or wrong numbers, I rarely ever use it unless I’m planning on having a nice long chat with Mumsy Dearest or Little Sis, both of whom live out of town.
I’ve only had occasion to call 911 on my cell phone once, and it was six hundred miles from where my phone is registered. I got the dispatch local to the area I was driving through at the time.
I went cell only for a few years a never regretted it at all. The only reason I now have a land line is because I started my own business. Otherwise, I would still be cell-only.
However, I must say it is nice to have fax capabilities at home, FWIW.
I should also note that I’ve got the local police phone numbers in my contacts. SRPD is set as speed dial # 9, but I’ve also got the County Sheriff’s #s in my contacts as well as SFPD as we’re in San Francisco fairly frequently.
