Why Are You Still Using A Telephone Land Line?
October 5, 2007 by Erik Folgate
Filed under Budgeting, Consumer News
Seriously, what are the benefits for you to still own a traditional land line? CNN has an article about people that are getting rid of their telephone land lines altogether.
I’ll admint it, I’m one of those people, and I am under 30, which is exactly what the article talks about. My wife and I have only had a telephone land line once, and that was so we could hook up the alarm system. Now, I have a land line, but it’s for my home office, and my company pays for the line, otherwise, I wouldn’t bother with one.
So, give me one good reason for you to continue to have a telephone line? Here are some reasons why I don’t have a land line.
- Virtually every cell phone plan now comes with free long distance to anywhere in the nation.
- My wife and I share 1000 anytime minutes with free nights and weekends minutes. We hardly even touch the 1000 anytime minutes by the end of the month.
- It’s one less bill to pay!
- Land Line service has not gotten any better! My business line has been up and running for 1 month, and one day I picked it up and there was no dial tone. Surprisingly, AT&T fixed the problem relatively quickly, but that was only because they didn’t have to come out to my house to fix it
- NO SOLICITORS!!! I know that some still squeak through to your cell phone, but that’s probably because you gave out your cell phone number on some questionaire or website not realizing that they would call you.
- Cell phone signals have greatly improved. I realize that many of you live out in the middle of nowhere, so it may be impossible to get cell phone service where you live.
For those of you that live in somewhat urban areas, I’d like to know why you still pay for a land line. Is it just because you’ve always had one, or do you like the security of knowing that you have options when wanting to make a phone call? I know that some of you have alarm systems, and that is a valid reason. You can always just pay for the minimum service. Anyway, think about saving the $30 or 40 bucks a month and even more when it comes to the long distance fees.
Hey, Bellsouth and AT&T, don’t hurt me. You know that your technology is dying, too. You’re just banking on the fact that VoIP remains to be a frustrating service.
It is required for DSL. By having the bare minimum phone service, I have DSL +phone for less than then cost of a cable modem service.
Once I can get naked DSL, it will be gone.
I switched to a cell phone for all of my business. A few of my customers complained about the quality of the call. My cell phone provider would drop calls. I was in jeopardy of losing business.
I don’t like it, but $50 a month is not much compared to my livelihood.
There’s a couple of reasons at our house:
- DSL line requires it and with our DSL line being $10/month, it’s cheaper than Internet through the cable (which we don’t have because it’s more expensive).
- Pacemaker testing equipment used the old-fashioned “handset” to do modem communications back to the Dr’s office. My wife is young (28) and has had a pacemaker almost all her life. We haven’t looked into replacing her testing equipment (used every 3 months), but it’d probably cost more than the effort is worth.
- Less than $0.03/minute long distance (check out http://unitelcommunicationsgroup.com/ I don’t get any money for promoting them).
Our house phone bill is right now at $30/month with DSL & taxes included. We’re the freaky ones looking into getting out of our cell-phone contract, move to a pay-as-you-go cell phone and use the house phone for our calls.
My main reason:
I LOVE my freedom and I dont like how this thing (the cell) follows you every where you go.
Unless you need a cell phone, ie your bussiness or personal affairs, I see cell phones as a hassle in most cases.
Don’t you people hate how this thing is attached to you at all times?
Because cell phones sound terrible. I was an Army tactical communicator 20 years ago, and if my tactical phone lines sounded as bad as most cell phone calls I’ve had, my commander would have been on my tail to fix it right away!
Reason to have a landline — blackouts in the city — cell phones did not work the last time also you lose your cell phone and finally, faxing. I still need mine or faxing.