It seems like the only calls we get on the old fashioned land line are charities begging for money. I am seriously considering dropping the landline in favor of my cell phone. I am a bit hesitant to do so, in part because I have had the same phone number for 30 years. Can you think of any reason to keep the landline?

We have had the same number for long time, 30 plus years. The only reason to keep the landline for me is the quality of the call is better and most important is the 911 recognition of your address associated with your landline number if you cant speak clearly. Who knows what may be going on in an emergency.

You might be the only guys left that still have a landline.

my 85 tear old mother, who lives with me, will not use a cell phone

We're about to ourselves. Just need to make the call to Comcrap and then send out the mass-email.

Anyone with a cell is essentially paying at least $50/mo for redundancy. Prolly much, much more if you're dumb enough to still be using Qwest/MaBell.

Any phone jack will make a 911 call even if it's 'disconnected,' same goes with any cell phone, no matter how long it's been out of service.

Any of you guys who are still using a landline and are reluctant to trash it should consider switching to a voice over IP line (something like Vonage). The sound quality is great, the long distance is free, and you can check voicemail and change settings remotely (anywhere you can get an Internet connection), all for about $30/month. If you make a lot of long distance calls and don't want to worry about losing a phone charge or reception, this is a great way to go.

I think you can thank the telemarketing industry for the death of the landline.

We haven't had a landline in two years. When we built our house, they had to run a 1/4 mile of phone line to reach us. The call quailty was absolute crap and they were not interested in fixing it. We cancelled and all but my youngest have cell phones. The 911 thing worried me some, but somebody's phone is always laying on the counter in case of emergencies and I believe they can actually tell where you are from your cell phone now as well. I didn't know that about 911 calls working on even disconnected lines. I'll probably put a phone into the wall jack if thats the case.

The money we saved by disconnecting allowed us to move up to more minutes. I think my landline was ringing about once week anyway... we've never looked back.

And if you do go cell only, and if the coverage at your house/biz ain't so great, ATT has a "microcell", which gets you to 5 bars.

Haven't had a landline in 10 years, and haven't missed it a bit.

I don't know. There seems to be a sense of security knowing that you have a land line available.

At our location we don't get our cell phone reception to well. I know, that can be fixed by a micro cell or what ever that Verizon has.

During the mondo wind storm we had a few years ago that took out power to a million people; Internet was out, cable was out, so any one who had VoIP didn't have phone service. Our plain old telephone line was still working.

I may be the minority here, but, I'm keeping my land line until the Cell companies, and the internet providers can prove that they can maintain service when when the power goes out. This year may be the year.

What's a landline.............

It's 2010 yo..........

Keith

I went without a landline for five months and relied on the cell phone while still working and my wife was living over here. Didn't miss the landline at all. My wife got a landline in the new house. When I moved over here I said let's get rid of it, but she called the phone company who dropped our bill from $70 to $50 a month (Canada and U.S. unlimited calling). She wanted to keep it then so I said ok.

Then another interesting development has occured. It seems Time Warner Cable and our phone company are competing. Our landline just dropped to $32, with the same service. This right after Time Warner was trying to sell us $19 for the first year and $34 after that.

I guess the bottom line is, as long as the landline remains this cheap for unlimited calling in the U.S. in Canada, I will keep it. At the same time I was able to reduce the number of minutes on my cell phone and saved $20 plus there. It's redundant in my opinion, but when Sh#t hits the fan you will not get out on a cell phone.

So I guess it just depends how it works out for you financially. If you can afford it, the redundancy in my opinion is worth keeping.

Good Luck!

almost every dispatch center has enhanced 911. They can ping your Cell phone and even track your cell phone up and down the road. Funny to see someone report a hit and run from an intersection and they say they are somewhere else.

I don't know about that Bait Dunker. Your cell phone can be pinged, but not by a 911 dispatch center. I believe it would require a call to the cell phone company to ping it. That would only delay any emergency response. Not entirely sure on that, but Dave should make the call to his 911 center to know for sure.

I did a search and came up with this from the Seattle PI. Might answer some questions that have been brought up. I might give up my landline thru Qwest. Dont see a need for it now. With a cell for the wife, one for me and one built into the truck I dont need to pay for a landline.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattle911/archives/159497.asp

Do land lines work to call 911 even with no phone service?
Q: My wife and I don't have a landline and instead use cell phones as our primary phone.

In an emergency at our house, using cell phones could be problematic if emergency personnel can't find our house.

We've heard rumors that if we were to plug a landline phone into a wall jack in our home calling 911 would still work – even without having a telephone service.

Well, would it?

A: Probably not, and it's not worth taking a chance, local police and fire officials say.

But authorities say using a cell phone shouldn't create a problem for emergency crews trying to find your house.

"Callers do not need to use a land line to call 911," Seattle Fire Department spokeswoman Dana Vander Houwen said. "Dispatchers in the Seattle Fire Department Fire Alarm Center get automatic location information from cell phones based on longitude and altitude.

"Dispatchers will always verify the address of a caller because they can't assume that the location of the caller is the location of the emergency."

With the phone service gone, the jack may not be wired properly. And in some cases, even people who pay for a phone service may have trouble reaching 911.

Qwest broadband phone service customers can't call 911 if there is a power failure or if there is disrupted Internet connectivity. To read more, click here.

Other phone companies can have 911 service interruptions if the phone is connected through broadband service.

In information on its Web site, Qwest recommends customers "always have an alternative means of accessing traditional 911 services."



A spokeswoman for CenturtyTel, a company that had some local outages during December storm, said the idea of plugging a landline phone into a wall jack without having a telephone service is a bad one. That won't work, she said.

But even if cell phones are your primary phones, emergency personal will find you, local officials said.

Thanks to people who submitted questions. Click below for answers to previous questions and to leave comments.

No land line here......gone and forgotten. Whole house relies on satellites. If they get shot down, well, it will be quieter. How can that be a bad thing?