I still have an old-school landline, from AT&T, just for emergencies and for 911 calls. But I never have emergencies or make calls to 911, so it’s strictly an insurance policy. The problem is that AT&T keeps jacking up the price to the point where I’m not sure it’s worth it anymore. I already have the cheapest plan they offer.
Comcast, my cable TV and internet provider, will give me a “landline” for much cheaper, but my question is, is this really as good of a backup? If my cable goes out, will the phone still work? The Comcast lady who answered my call claims it will, but I find that hard to believe. And does it really get your location to the 911 center like a “real” landline will? Anyone have any experiences? Thanks!
I have the Comcast/Xfinity cable, broadband, and landline package. When we had physical problems with the actual cable coming into our house none of the three services were operational. Whenever there are technical difficulties with one the other two seem to work fine.
I don’t use Comcast for several reasons, one of which is the remarkably high price after the initial discount expires. I use VoIP.ms and am quite happy with them. Due to the infrequent use, the pay-per-minute plans are great for this situation. A fraction of the cost of a real landline.
My big 3 isuses (YMMV):
Costs. Like I said, this is quite a bit cheaper than even Vonage and stuff for the rare call situation.
What happens when the cable/power goes out? I have a UPS for the device plus modem/router. If my house power only goes out, we’re fine. But usually it’s a wider outage and cable goes out, too. In my case I have it set up where if the device is unreachable it rolls over to my cell phone. Handy when going on a trip. Just unplug the thing. I know Comcast made some claims in the past regarding they work all the time via using the old local telephone connection. Not sure what they do currently or in all situations. Be very careful in checking into that.
With VoIP.ms you pay a bit more for E911 service (optional) if you want to tie your number to a location.
(BTW: I disconnected the incoming phone line at the box. Made a crossover phone cable and plugged that into my home telephone wiring. All the old junctions work but I only use two since that’s probably all the device can drive. One is for the base of a wireless phone system and the other to a classic phone. The latter works even if the house power goes out.)
I should add that I’ve never had to rely on the location finder either, but Comcast landlines are popular enough in my area that I probably would have heard about any issues.
It is possible to lose voice OR TV for technical reasons (ie, not a physical issue like a broken line). If your internet is down, that, I believe, will take the phone out with it unless it’s an issue with the modem itself.
The way I see it, you’re about as likely to lose your VOIP service as your POTS, especially if it’s just there for emergencies, so you might as well go with the cheaper option, plus you have a cell phone.
Here’s what I’d suggest. Find out how much your cable bill will go up if you add voice service to it. Let’s say $10/mo. Call AT&T and see if they’ll lower your bill. If they can’t get it to somewhere in the neighborhood of $10/mo, cancel and switch over to Comcast. You can always go back.
Go with a standalone VOIP provider. Vonage is the biggest, but there are many other companies. I have used PhonePower for years without any problem. Use a standalone provider so you don’t lose your phone if you switch internet providers. If you go with Comcast, you will have to port your phone number if you switch cable companies. With VOIP, your phone provider is independent of your cable company. A Comcast phone is basically a VOIP phone tied to Comcast and you can plug your phone cord into the Comcast router. With standalone VOIP, they send you a little VOIP device which you plug into your router and you plug your phone into the VOIP box.
The VOIP providers typically have 911 support, so that works pretty much the same as your landline. The important difference is that the phone won’t work if the internet is out. However, that’s not such a big deal since you likely have cell phones which could work as backup.
One big benefit of a VOIP phone is that you get every imaginable phone feature included–caller id, call waiting, 3-way calling, call forwarding, integrated voicemail (can be disabled), free long distance, limited free international calling, fax-to-email, and so on.
A traditional landline doesn’t require separate power. The little bit of power used by the phone comes via the connection itself. As long as the phone lines are up you are likely to still be able to use the phone unless a blackout is very widespread.
VOIP is dependent on both the internet connection functioning and having electrical power supplied to your home. That’s two points of failure versus one for landlines. There’s an important caveat. If you don’t have a corded phone at least stashed somewhere to pull out for emergencies you probably still lose the landline when you lose power. Cordless systems typically rely on separate power for the base station.
Something else I just thought of. IIRC, telephone companies are required to still allow 911 calls to any phone that’s connected to their system, even if it doesn’t have an account. If, after you cancel your service, you still have a dial tone, 911 should still work.
If all you really need the phone for is 911, that’s probably the cheapest way to get it. Granted, there’s not a lot of peace of mind that it’ll work when you need it to, but technically it should.
Why do you need a landline? It’s not any more reliable than cellular for all practical purposes. If you are worried about reliability, there are very inexpensive annual prepaid cellular plans. Get one, where the minutes for it will last a year, and have a second phone.
Of course if at least 2 people live in your household who have cell phones, if one person’s phone is down you can use the other.
If you are worried about the cellular network going down, consider Google Project Fi. They are a virtual cellular provider where your phone uses TMobile, Sprint, and wifi, whichever is available (with preference for wifi) to carry your call. About 20 bucks a month for the first line.
Just get internet only from Comcast. By far the cheapest. And threaten to cancel every year so you keep paying the introductory rate. (And actually cancel and come back with a Sock account if they refuse)
You have hours to do something. You can plug your phone into a power bank battery if you have one, they are $20 and can recharge a phone from empty a couple times to full. You should have a car charger, again they are about $20 for a fast one or they give away slow ones. Also most cars now have a USB port.
If you plan to stay in an area without power for a long time you should buy a generator and install the interlock kit and external receptacle to plug it in.
Rather than get a regular phone power bank, get one of those lithium battery jump starters. They are basically like a really big phone charger that is powerful enough to jump start your car. They have USB ports for charging. Some even come with a cigarette lighter dongle which you could use to power your laptop if it had a car charger cord. You could charge your phone lots times with it if you had a long power outage.
They are less dependent on separate power not independent of it. It depends on how charged the cell phone is when power is lost and how long the power’s off. Lose power for long enough and cell phones start shutting down. There are other ways to have backup power to keep the cell phone functioning. The main issue is that having power for the cell phone for emergencies becomes an issue that needs more thought without a landline. Switching to VOIP or just getting rid of a home phone entirely leaves a gap in capabilities that used to just be there.
I have a landline because I almost never have service in my house on my cellphone. It’s a basic TracFone flip phone and I don’t know if upgrading to a smart phone would improve this situation, which is why I haven’t done so.
I already did that. My bill would actually go *down *by a couple of bucks if I add voice service, due to it pushing me into a different bundle. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but remember that we’re talking about Comcast here.
Thanks for all the great replies, gang. Lots of stuff to think about here.
How does a sock account work with something like a cable service account, where I assume they’re doing a credit check on the person requesting service? When they try to run the credit check for your sock account, they’re going to find that the “person” does not exist.
That was the case with me as well. I had a VOIP phone/modem with Spectrum for 2 or 3 years just sitting in the box collecting dust. Every time I had to call them for any reason I’d ask about removing it from my account and it was always the same thing, taking it off would make my bill increase.
I finally went into one of the spectrum stores to ask about getting my bill lowered because the most recent hike was huge. When they lowered my bill, I asked about getting rid of the phone and that lowered it even more.
They also told me that in a year or so the price would jump up again and I should call them up, add the phone to get a better deal, then remove it a month later.
Such a waste of time. A la carte can’t get here soon enough and with every new streaming provider that shows up, we’re hopefully getting closer. I have soooo many channels I have zero interest in, but I have to get so I can have the channels I do like.