Do you maintain a landline? Is there any good reason to?

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by Scanner

I do still like a landline for my "long conversations" and then I get 300 minute plans from Virgin Mobile for quick conversations.

I think the minutes is really what keeps us tied to the land line the most. On our cells, 5 of us share 850 minutes/month. We have only gone over that once but that's because we all have land lines (3 different households are on the plan together). If any one of us dropped our landlines, we'd blow through the 850 for sure. That said, perhaps if all 3 of us dropped our land lines, what we would save would make up for the extra money we'd have to spend to upgrade our cell plan.

The problem is our alarm system uses the phone line, my mom's apartment buzzer uses her phone line and my cousin's front gate entry and alarm use his phone line so all 3 of us have some reason that we need a land line.

[Thrif-t]

We still have our land line but only because we're not big cell phone people. We only have trac fones and only our kids and siblings have our numbers. If we're not at home leave a message at the beep. I find cell phones intrusive. Plus I really don't like having long conversations on them. For one I don't like the audio and for another the freaking thing gets hot and burns my ear.ha

[asmom]

Originally Posted by Scanner

You know, this is a little family "spat" between my parents who are older.

They have a little vacation trailer they use for maybe, at the most, 50 days/year. It's probably more like 30 days. They've had a landline there for years - it was my grandmothers.

My father has suggested pulling the landline and just having a cellphone down there, for the little that it is used and save $25/month (there's no long distance on it).

I honestly beleive my mother refuses to do so because she's "emotionally attached" to the phone number. Even dangling more cable shows (she loves her HGTV; they just have a basic package down there) doesn't seem to allow her to take the bait of removing the landline.

I'll admit I have a little of my mother in me. I do still like a landline for my "long conversations" and then I get 300 minute plans from Virgin Mobile for quick conversations.

See that's just it; it's an emotional thing. I hate that about myself because it's really irrational. I don't even like to talk on the phone that often. Cell or landline, I pretty much screen all of my calls except those from my mother. AND like Steve said, I like the idea of having one number that relatives can reach anyone in the family with which is ridiculous because my husband and daughter are tied to their cellphones and my son is more like me. I'm about to talk myself out of this thing because I could potentially save up to $720/year.

[ktmarvels]

Originally Posted by disneysteve

The problem is our alarm system uses the phone line, my mom's apartment buzzer uses her phone line and my cousin's front gate entry and alarm use his phone line so all 3 of us have some reason that we need a land line.

This may actually be a non-issue. More and more these places are able to make those calls to a cell phone. Many of my friends in apartments now get those gate code calls to their cell (which wasn't an option in the past).

[ms06880]

My husband and I thought we could get away with skipping the landline and use our cell phones instead. But alas, we needed to have one installed (even a POTS -- plain old telephone service) in order to have a central security system running. Not having a landline would have cost us more money as we would have needed to install a transmitter in our attic. Now, we have one, cost us @ $40 a month.

[Scanner]

Ah, technlogy.

That which used to be wired (telephone) is now going wireless. ANd that which was wireless (TV) is now going wired.

And SavingAdvice can't keep up in the name of frugality and emotions.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

It's $10/month because not having it makes the package almost as expensive and having a landline is great in case the stupid cell phone is lost or misplaced or damaged.

We too have a 550 minutes cell phone family plan and that's because we try to use our home phone for calls to places. Most people who do the cell phone only and no land line use the unlimited minutes because they need to. Instead of $59.99/month they pay $119.99, but even the next step up at $79.99 gives you only 700 minutes and no way 150 extra minutes covers what I use my landline for. So $10 extra a month means cheaper cell phone plan instead of expensive plan.

[kork13]

disregard -- sorry

[BMEPhDinCO]

We only use cell phones. We also have a central security system AND no landline - they CAN do it if you ask!

As for costs of a landline, mine was $20 a month for super basic which I needed for the internet at my old apartment. If someone is paying (as the OP said) $85 a month, with $25 for internet, that means $60 for a landline!!! That's way too much....now you should be able to bundle the phone, cable, and internet for $85 or less...

For those of you who don't want to "give out the personal number" - google voice and other companies have "dummy" numbers for business use that you can program to go to vm, or ring different, or whatever you want...no need for two phones just for privacy!

Finally, you can add a cell phone to the "Do Not Call" list - that's not an excuse either.

If you want one because it's sentimental, fine, but otherwise no excuses.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Nope taking off the home phone saves me $10. To add minutes onto a cell phone plan? Way more than $10. $20 buys me 150 extra anytime minutes for 2 people. No land line I know we'd burn through that. Assuming we get unlimited for 2 people for $119 that's $60/month extra to a cell phone. Does my home phone cost $60?Nope. It's cheaper to keep the home phone and not upgrade the cell phone plan.

If people have cell phone only plans, how many minutes do they use? Are they on the cheapest plan? Then they definitely save money or prepaid cell and no home phone saves even more money.

But if you have a cell phone without a home phone, what minutes and price plan do you use?

[elessar78]

I was speaking to several moms the other day and they said the love their land line because they can monitor their pre-teens' phone habits and times better than with a cell phone. They either got rid of the cell phone or they have to turn it in once they are home.

[Snodog]

Got rid of the land line back in 2006. It was painless and if you want the same phone number you can port it over into the cell.

[photo]

Originally Posted by BMEPhDinCO

.If you want one because it's sentimental, fine, but otherwise no excuses.

My parents keep a landline because, even in 2011, cell reception is not very good where they live. That isn't a problem for most people, but coverage still has a ways to progress.

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by photo

My parents keep a landline because, even in 2011, cell reception is not very good where they live.

Good point. At my mom's house (a row home in Philadelphia), you really only got reception if you stood by the front door. She never could have just had a cell phone there.

[JoshuaHeckathorn]

I haven't had a landline since 2005, but I often get so pissed at my iPhone reception (ATT&T) that I want to throw it out the window.

[feh]

We dropped our land line several years ago. We use Vonage for our home phone. Monthly charge is something like $15.

[Frugal]

After living without a landline for about six months plus, I tried to get one once we moved to our house last year. I started it up with a local company, and one day about two months later, the service simply stopped working, and they were going to charge me money potentially in order to come out and fix it. Since this loss of service was not my fault (the phone worked just fine, and we had not done anything to the phone line...it just did not have a dial tone one day) i refused to pay extra for having the "privelege" of them restoring service. Thus, we have relied on cell phones for about eight months or more, and it is so much better. I had trouble hearing people on my landline.

I can understand the stability or sense of stability that a landline provides. It's like psychologically, we want to feel that we "belong somewhere". I know, because i have moved so many times, and never had the same number. I grew up at the same place for 17 years with the same exact phone number, so yes, you do kind of feel a connection to that number.

The upside of a landline is you don't have to worry about the studies coming out about potential risk(s) of long-term cell-phone use. I am somewhat worried about those, but can't afford to pay twice for minutes and restore my landline.

[bennyhoff]

My biggest issue was the attachment to the phone number, but I finally dropped my landline this March. It was $25/mo. Previously 95% of the calls were from collection agencies for my ex-spouse, so I finally had enough. Now I use the MagicJack for $25/year with a new phone number, and I also have a tracfone cell phone which runs me $80/year. Occassionally the MagicJack has bad service (like last night), but that's maybe 5% of the time.

[Kelli-Saving Money]

The only reason we maintain a landline is because we have a security system that requires one, otherwise we would have abandoned the landline years ago.

[josetann]

I have a landline, but only because it costs virtually the same to have a landline as it would to NOT have it (I can have DSL without a landline, but it costs about $60/mo...I'm paying about $60/mo to have a landline AND DSL). Back at our house in TN, we can't have DSL without a landline.

I too have an Obi110 (connects directly to Google Voice...so I can make/receive calls over the internet, but use a regular cordless house phone). Vast majority of calls go through over that, cellphones are more for urgent calls (such as, wife is on call but wants to go out of the house for a bit).