[tinapbeana]

*former phone company employee here*

before you make a decision, you might want to check out the regulations in your area. some areas require a soft dial tone for any house with a NID outside, meaning you could plug in a phone and dial 911 but not make or receive any regular phone calls. if this is the case in your area, then the safety concerns about cell/voip only are no longer a real issue.

with that said, chances are good you'll save money if you go with cell/voip vs landline if you make any type of LD/LT calls or use any type of feature such as VM, call fwding, etc. if all you need is a dial tone to be able to call locally, get a bare bones landline and you'll probably come out ahead.

personally, i was cell only from 98 - 05. i did a lot of driving, and felt safer having a cell phone in the car (used it more than once for that very reason). that, and i couldn't afford both. we got a landline when i had to travel abroad b/c it offered a int'l plan and i got an employee discount. and it helped when we got our mortgage. when the company closed my call center june of 06, i switched the land line to voip simply because i really like the number (whatta dork, right?) and b/c of "bundle pricing". sadly, the bundle my cable company offers is more like a loosely lumped pile and isn't saving me any money and i still have a cell phone bill to boot. now i'm about to switch that old land line number from voip to a new cell phone carrier w/ better rates and ditch my old cell number/plan/carrier. back to cell only....