survey says: nix the land line?

Wondering how many people out there have decided to ditch their home land line? we get so many more robocalls and telemarketers than actual calls from people we want to speak to, its annoying. I know that it would take some figuring out who needs our cell phones # that currently don't have it - but other than that whats the point of a land line?!

cs2i said:
whats the point of a land line?!

It will still work if there's a widespread power failure that takes out the cell towers

For me it's helpful for business calls where I need to understand more than 80% of what people are saying. I find that cell phone audio quality is still not on a par with land line.

With Fios we do have a limited battery backup in case of a power failure, after which it's dead. If you have an alternate power source like a generator or high-capacity battery then yes, it will last longer during a power failure.

With a landline when you dial 911 the police department sees your physical address on the screen. When you dial 911 from a cell phone the police department only sees lat/long which can give a radius of anywhere between 30-100 feet depending on the triangulation, weather conditioners, etc. This only makes a difference if a 911 call is made where the caller is unable to speak or give their location.

Knowing this I still decided to drop our landline. It was wasted money each month, especially considering how our land line went down a few times a year due to poor maintenance of the copper lines in our area.

I think only copper works in the outage, not fiber, which many SOMa homes are now using through the near-forced bundling of Phone, Cable and Internet.

marksierra said:

cs2i said:
whats the point of a land line?!

It will still work if there's a widespread power failure that takes out the cell towers

I thought you were planning to buy the vacant lot next to your house.

I agree with mrincredible about call quality. I gave up my land line years ago, but I do miss being able to hear and enjoy phone conversations. The sound is so beautiful on copper.

We have VOIP (voice over internet protocol) service at home. I like it. It's inexpensive. The most important feature is that the audio quality is so much better than on my cell phone or any cell phone, for that matter. Cell phone audio is fatiguing for me. I also like that the cordless phone at home is bulkier and fits in my hand and on my shoulder better.

If you have phone service through your internet provider, that's VOIP, not a landline.

There are ways to combat robo calls. One popular way is http://www.nomorobo.com. I hooked up something similar myself through VOIP hackery. When a call came in, it didn't ring our phone immediately. The call went to a touch tone menu I built. I think it just said, "If you are calling to speak with one of us, press one. If you are a telemarketer, please hang up and go to hell." Pressing one would ring the phone. Robots don't know how to navigate that, so only humans were able to ring our phone. For some reason, the robo calls have pretty much stopped for us, so I turned my system off.

The Do Not Call list has no effect any longer, if it ever had any. It is trivially easy to spoof outbound caller ID. In other words, I can call you and have "202-555-1212 The White House" come up on your caller ID. Since telemarketers can present any number they wish, the calls are completely untraceable. They are not accountable whatsoever. It is basically the Wild West now.

Landlines will probably go away entirely or almost entirely. Because they have become unprofitable for phone companies, they don't maintain the lines well any more. Even now, the guarantee of staying up during power outages is reduced because of this reduced reliability. The compensation for this is that most of us have a cell phone, which might work during a power outage, though no guarantees. Having both VOIP and cell service is a better hedge, but still not a guarantee.

My life was transformed by NoMoRobo.com. It cut off 98% of all robo/marketing calls, after the Do Not Call thing failed totally. Check it out: it's free, legal and works. You get one ring from a robo call, then the service cuts it off. That one ring makes the following silence even sweeter.

marksierra said:

cs2i said:
whats the point of a land line?!

It will still work if there's a widespread power failure that takes out the cell towers

Not if the power is out because a falling tree took out the wires.

I suspect the phone company is behind all the robocalls because they don't want to maintain the copper anymore.

Red_Barchetta said:

I suspect the phone company is behind all the robocalls because they don't want to maintain the copper anymore.

What does this mean?

marksierra said:

cs2i said:
whats the point of a land line?!

It will still work if there's a widespread power failure that takes out the cell towers

But it won't work if a tree falls down in the wrong place.

I was on the verge, but I do prefer the quality of a non-cell call. Thanks to Tom's suggestion, actually, I switched from Vonage VOIP service to Voip.ms,. and instead of paying something like $30 every month after taxes for the tiny bit of service I was using, I've paid about $45 total in the 9+ months I've been a customer.

Yeah, in a power outage that also takes down cell towers, I'm out (once my UPS's die and assuming I don't hook up my generator, though I also don't think it's a 100% guarantee power will be on indefinitely at the FiOS offices that would normally be providing me internet in that case, so my own power situation may be irrelevant -- but that's not the most likely scenario, so I don't stress over it. (In fact, I don't think I've EVER had a power outage where the cell towers were out, though service was spotty during the Sandy aftermath -- but i think that was overload issues.)

Face time audio and Wi-fi calling are both improvements over a standard cellular network call. A face time audio call to another iPhone or iPad is crystal clear. Obviously, this is specific to Apple devices. So, perhaps moot in your case. Also, home security networks no longer rely on a landline connection. I unbundled my landline and used the savings on a faster internet speed (FIOS).

Tom_Reingold said:

Red_Barchetta said:

I suspect the phone company is behind all the robocalls because they don't want to maintain the copper anymore.

What does this mean?

I've said something like this. I don't recall EVER getting a robocall on my cellphone. I believe cell lines are more profitable so the telephone comps have every incentive to protect the usability of those lines. This would include no annoying SPAM/ROBOCalls. While not preventing the same on the landlines. Also, this would accelerate folks moving off landlines to all cell lives; freeing up those phone numbers.

My only concern is that I still use a fax machine once in a while. How could I do that without a phone line? It works fine with fios.

Google voice ( free)

Obihai box ($40-$100) ( more expensive ones can handle multiple lines)

Plug into your router, plug your cordless phone

Free phone!

Best thing I ever did for phone service.

/p

We ditched the land line four months ago. LOVE IT. Anyone who knew us already had and used our cell numbers anyway.

But we have Verizon Triple Play, so the phone is bundled with FIOS internet and TV.

Mr LL INSISTS on maintaining a copper landline, just in case

What can I say to convince him otherwise? Sandy really spooked him

No land line for 9 yrs. During Sandy, I recharged my phone in the car

FilmCarp said:
My only concern is that I still use a fax machine once in a while. How could I do that without a phone line? It works fine with fios.

To answer your question, there are many online fax services available such as HelloFax and MyFreeFax. If you google it, you'll see various options.

Oh, and I have no given up my landline due to 1. the superior sound quality, 2. I find using a phone physically easier that a cell phone espeically for longer conversations and 3. I know that if there is a real radiation risk, I have minimized it.

Pete,

Isn,t there a monthly charge to keep your phone number

Until a few months ago, we had been without a landline for 8 years. It was fine. I had occasion to call 911 once and it took an additional step to first communicate my city and state, but otherwise it was fine.

Now we added fios VoIP because it was cheap and easy to bundle and our 3 year old was learning about 911 and emergency services. We wanted a phone that she could pick up and dial 911 without the complexity of finding and unlocking one of our cellphones.

If not for the kids, I would not have a landline.

Another question- Is fios phone VOIP? The quality is outstanding. Are other voip services as good? Any faves? $$$ ?

OK that,s a bunch of questions

Apollo_T said:
Pete,
Isn,t there a monthly charge to keep your phone number

No, there is no charge. One time fee of $20 I think to port number

And FIOS phone line isn't VoIP.

Google voice with Obihai is VoIP, when Ihad Cablevision that was VoIP. I think Google voice/ Obihai is better than Cablevision, and Verizon non- VoIP is the best

T H A N K S!!

I think Comcast is VOIP (my phone is plugged into the router rather than the phone jack in the wall like I did with FIOS in Maplewood).

I won't ever give up my landline. It's bundled and I don't mind whatever the charge is for the comfort of actually hearing the person on the other end of the phone. Besides, I get practically no cell service inside my new house (I was wondering why I was seeing everybody sitting in front of their house on their cell phones). AND I love love love my new Panasonic phone -- among other great things it tells me audibly who is calling me when the phone rings.

I can't block robocalls -- I get too many legitimate robocalls (Comcast repair confirmations, doctors' offices confirming appointments, etc.)

We no longer have copper wire. (We're on FIOS.) But the landline is bundled with everything else and the savings from eliminating it are minimal (if at all) and we do get MUCH better reception on it. Plus I have every account set up to be linked to that number and I shudder to think of the effort involved to change that. However, I AM going to set up the NOMOROBO thing. Unfortunately, you have to be at home to do that setup because it requires you to answer the phone on a test call. They should warn you of that before you start the setup process. (I'm currently away and saw this thread and decided to sign up but now I can't complete the setup until I get home.)

Oh gee! I was all set to use NoMoRobo, but now I realize that my mom's specialists all use robo calls to remind and confirm. My FiOS is set up to: Incoming Call Block is currently activated: All Anonymous/Private calls are rejected. That only works for a few because some of them identify location or weird company names (like Web Ranking or SSI).