Landline - yes or no?

[Paula]

I am curious - do those of you who have a cell phone also have a land line? I have been arguing this point with the hubs since I got my cell phone in August. I say there is NO reason we need to pay $190 for the land line and then another $200 for our five cell phones.

His argument is that what would we do for internet? My answer is to have a dedicated phone line specifically for the DSL modem. AT&T offers that option.

His alternate argument is what do we do about our Dish bill? I say contact Dish directly and go through them.

Getting rid of the landline would give us an additional $123 a month!

So, those of you who have cells, did you keep your landline, or get rid of it?

[Jennilyn]

If we had unlimited plans here that were the prices they are in the States, we possibly would, but as it is right now, I'm paying almost $60 just for 200 minutes. Can't go a month with only that amount.

[abm234]

We're one of the few who have kept our landline. I'm always worried about 911 and emergency response. I think with new cell phones and enhanced 911 systems that most communities have it would not be a problem but I still worry.

[Chels85]

no landline here for a few yrs, imo, landline is out of date lol, have internet and cable thru Time Warner,

[NeverendingJen]

no landline. we have directv and time warner for internet and neither requires a phone line.

[eranslow]

Originally Posted by abm234

We're one of the few who have kept our landline. I'm always worried about 911 and emergency response. I think with new cell phones and enhanced 911 systems that most communities have it would not be a problem but I still worry.

^This is us. We have a pretty basic plan for our phone - we pay $40 per month. Which also includes long distance. It was included in the plan though we don't use it very much.

[SeattleSheri]

We pay $10/month for a our landline (with unlimited domestic long distance) and with small kids I think it's a good idea to have one. What if there is an emergency and they can't find a cell, etc ....

[Darcy Baldwin]

You can do a landline for $20 if all you really want it for is 911 (even less on some systems - we paid $15/mo for my grandmother). Or you could do an old slimline phone - the kind that aren't digital, to plug directly into the landline that would be used only for 911 calls.

[BrattyMeg]

we have a landline too thru u-verse with AT&T. I always worry about 911 and not having a cell phone handy

[AmberK]

We have a landline through magic jack plus and its $30 per year. Hubby just wants to have a landline for whatever reason. He works at home and can send and receive faxes through the landline too.

[kelley]

I still have one but hardly ever use it. Pretty much the only calls I get are telemarketers - ug. I want to cancel it but just haven't yet.

[isaacsmom]

No landline here either. I was worried about 911 as well, but living in the metro area, there are always neighbors available and at this point, our kids are never home alone. Not sure what we'll do when the kids get a little older.

[MamaBee]

We haven't had a land line in 5 years... we have an xlink box that connects all the phones in the house into our cell phones... so never had the worry of not being able to find a phone in case of an emergency. We do have a magic jack, too - but hubby has used that a few times when he was doing a lot of cold calling for his side business and didn't want to put the minutes on our cell plan.

[Stacey42]

We have a land line. If I had to rely on my cell phone I'd be standing outside at the highest point of the yard every time I wanted to make a call. Cell signal is not all it could be out here, even with a cell booster. Our internet signal is not strong enough for VoIP products like Magic Jack.

Probably if we lived in an area with good signal for cell or internet we'd ditch the land line though

[emmasmommy]

no landline here. haven't had one for about 3 years
we have DISH and use at&t for internet.

[mariewilcox]

We haven't had a land line for close to 4 years now and I can only think of 2 or maybe 3 people I know who have land lines anymore. Cheyanne and I both have our cells and they are always with us. My best friend calls 911 about 2 times a month and has never had a problem so I don't worry about that too much.

For internet we use wifi through a phone jack with our local company and we don't have a dish or cable. We use Amazon prime, Netflix, and Hulu through a Roku box.

[LeeAndra]

DH has a cell phone. I have a cell phone. We have no landline.

We pay $50ish a month for cable Internet and then stream Netflix ($8ish) and Hulu+ ($8ish) through our Wii. We have no cable, just a digital converter for the main over-the-air channels.

That is abt $156/month altogether (not including the one-time cost of the Wii and digital converter, of course). A deal if you ask me.

[SmallMoments]

We have a landline and probably will for awhile. At least until Luke has his own cell phone.

[Sarah8914]

That sounds expensive! I think we only pay $30/month for our landline including long-distance (and voice mail and call waiting, all that stuff).

We do only have 1 cell phone in our family though and don't use it that often. However, I would still keep our landline because of the 911 thing (and our cell phone is always dead!) and when my kids are older and we're out, I'd like them to still have a way to contact us (because we wouldn't get the phones right away, esp since we only have 1 ourselves!). However, it sounds like you all have them so you'd be fine!

[digideb]

We have a landline, but only b/c DH gets it for free. It's one of his perks being an AT&T employee!

[rach3975]

Almost everyone I know has a landline in addition to a cell. We've never considered giving ours up. First, there are lots of trees here so cell service in our immediate neighborhood isn't great. Second, we don't want to be bothered on our cell phones all day long. Unless someone needs me right away, I'd rather have most calls go to our home answering machine. Finally, DH's cell is through work and mine is the least expensive smartphone provider I could find. If we wanted to go all cell, we'd need to get better phones and spend a lot more per month on good cell phone service. But if you're already paying for good cell phones for everyone in the family and are already using mostly your cell phones instead of the landline, then you might as well let it go. If you change your minds later, I'm sure the phone company will be more than happy to get you hooked back up.

[Lizzy257]

No landline here. We had one a few years back when we lived in an area that meant we needed it for internet, but I don't think we ever used it! We both have cell phones, so don't see the need for having one.

[gracelikerain]

I've got kids in that preteen range. They don't have cell phones--and won't for awhile--so having a landline for them to talk to their friends on makes sense for us. DH is arguing about getting rid of it, but it's a great way for me to monitor who the kids are talking to.

[nun69]

no landline here either.....we have 4 functioning cell phones and one stays plugged in to the kitchen wall at all times (extra phone) so in case of an emergency we always have that phone charged. One of us is always home or my oldest DD is (19) with the other kids so in case of an emergency she has not only her cell phone, bu the kitchen cell as well....

we have a bundle for cable/DSL internet

[jessica31876]

We have our phone service tied into our internet plan and pay 100 dollars a month for high speed internet (speed varies but it is pretty good) and phone service. That includes long distance. We have prepaid cell service but because we live out in the middle of nowhere cell reception is spotty. The main road we live near our cell phone does not work at all. So we kinda need a home phone.

There are alternatives you could do like Magic Jack. I read that Magic Jack you do not even need cable internet anymore that you can plug it into a power outlet.

[Libby Pritchett]

No landline here. We just didn't see the need since we never even come close to using up our cell minutes. I've had to call 911 from my cell before, and I didn't have any problem. So, that isn't really a concern for me.

However, as Chloe gets older, we may consider getting one again. I figure I'll cross that bridge when we get there.

[Paula]

Thanks everyone! I am 100% sure that we don't need our landline anymore. Two of my kids don't even live here anymore and the youngest is 16 and she has a cell phone. I just can't see justifying the cost anymore.

[Lyd]

We had a landline until earlier in 2012. But, it didn't cost us nearly what you're saying that you spend, Paula. We still have a home phone, but it's Vonage - so not technically a landline. We love it, and it's cheaper than what we were paying for our landline, even though that wasn't very much to begin with.

[Sherri Tierney]

We had a bundle with AT&T that included our cell phones, Dish Network, our DSL and our home phone. As soon as the contract came up on the cell phones we canceled them and went with Virgin Mobile prepaid phones (much happier with them and only $27 a month for each too!). We switched over to Dish directly. We had to get a new receiver, but it didn't cost us anything and the new receiver actually holds more so it all worked out well. They just sent us a box to return the old receiver in. I didn't understand the purpose behind it, but whatever... Anyway, we dropped the home phone as well. We still have AT&T for DSL but that's all. We pay $43 a month (after taxes/fees) for high speed DSL. Ours isn't the fastest available since that isn't an option in our area right now, but it is the next tier down.

Anyway, we did without a home phone for a while and then opted to go with Vonage. We pay $10 a month for unlimited local and long distance calling (within the US). We only have it because my daughter is 10 and at the age where she wants to talk to her friends on the phone more and I'm not getting a 10 year old a cell phone. She was using ours a lot but we would run out of minutes (we only have 300 talk minutes but unlimited data and text).

We are now paying roughly $160 for 2 cell phones, the home phone, DSL and Dish. We upgraded our Dish package or it would be less. We were paying over $300 before for the same services.

[glumirk]

We have Ooma, which plugs into our Internet (we keep switching between cable and dsl). DH and I have prepaid cell phones (his has data, mine doesn't) and the only number we give out is our Google voice number. I'm home most of the time since we only have one car, so I use the Ooma phone calling through Google Voice. Ooma is free after you buy the box, you just have to pay taxes. So our "landline" is about $3.50, DH cell is $30, mine is $25 over 3 months, and our Internet just went up to $60, so we need to call around and switch again to lower it.

Of your hubby is insistent about the landline, you can probably call your company and drop features so you pay less. That's a lot.

[lovely1m]

I got rid of my landline years ago. Not worth the money.

[kscwgirl]

We have one.. I'm more comfortable with that than not having one. I worry about 911 and such.. plus Abby likes to talk to her friends and I don't want her doing that on my cell.

[kristijoy]

We live out in the woods where are cells don't work so all. So we still have a landline. When we lived in a city we still always had a land line. I don't want to give everybody my cell phone number for the silliest little things. I would much rather have somebody leave a message on my landline.

[mummytothree]

We have one and I don't think we will ever get rid of it, I need to know who my kids are talking too and what they are saying!!! Plus like someone else mentioned I screen ALL my calls and I don't want them bothering my cell phone all day.

[Shawna]

No landline here since probably late 2004. We've had U-Verse for a couple of years now and didn't need a landline for our cable & internet through them. We both have cell phones w/AT&T that work great in our house and our oldest just turned 11 so our kids don't typically stay home alone yet. More than likely she'll be getting a cell phone at the end of this school year since she'll be heading to middle school next year and it's only $10/mo to add another line to our family plan.

[maryinaz]

We have six cell phones and got rid of our landline a couple of years ago. I think it's really a matter of if you have older kids with cell phones or not. If our kids were still younger and didn't have them we would probably still have a landline.

[Paula]

That's exactly why I want to get rid of the landline Mary. All our kids are older - two adults and one 16 year old. They all have cells and TBH our landline only rings when it's a telemarketer. LOL

[origami]

We have one. We have 2 cell phones (probably three soon) but wanted to keep a land line. But we didn't want to pay a ton of money for it either. We dropped digital phone when we dropped our digital cable/phone/internet package. We kept the internet but decided we didn't need the cable TV or the phone. We decided to go with Verizon's Home Phone Connect, which is a landline that doesn't depend on our internet connection. (We've had Magic Jack but if your internet goes out, so does your phone connection.) Home Phone Connect only costs us $20/month but I think it's $10/month if you're willing to change your Verizon contract. (We have cell phones through Verizon and are grandfathered into the unlimited plan and we wanted to keep that for now.) At any rate, it's definitely cheaper than digital phone through the cable company. I imagine that eventually Verizon will make us switch our cell phone plan (like when we upgrade phones).

[ripal]

We have very basic service on landline... no long distance, no caller id, no call waiting.

Just few months ago, we ran into situation that made us more aware of why we need to keep the landline... and to make sure that at least one one phone is corded and not cordless!

One morning, my dad called me at work from his cell phone, but I could barely hear him. I called right back and couldn't make the connection. I called on home phone and no answer. My mom is always home, so that made me wonder if they were out shopping or something and were trapped or something. He drives old van, so it was possible that it wasn't started and needed me to pick him up. My brother and his wife were on their out-of-country trip. He called me few more times and I could barely hear him. This was over 2-3 hours. I REALLY started to worry about them by this point. I wasn't able to make contact with them. It wasn't like them to be out for that long. And if they did, they wouldn't have a reason to call me multiple times. Finally, I was able to make out what he was telling me ( I think he went outside of home to call me at that time) at one point... they had power outage. I called the power company and found out that due to some accident in their neighborhood, over 400 homes had lost power since 9 AM and won't be excepting back till 6 PM or so.

THAT explained the whole thing. They don't have good cell reception, so they're using cell booster. Of course, due to power outage, their cell phones weren't working well. And their landline phone didn't work because all of them were cordless! First thing we did was to get a corded phone!

[Milmomma]

We got rid of ours in '05. No sense in it every time we move. Totally useless overseas. We each have a cell and the kids have ipods they text with. We tried the magic jack but it really sucks in Korea. For us iPhones with imessage is the greatest thing since it doesn't count as texts and works with ipods and around the world. Plus I'm not really a talkative person. I'd rather just someone text. We have internet and Netflix, we don't have cable or any tv service. I think its a personal thing with what fits your lifestyle.

[rachaelsscraps]

We have our two cell phones, no landline. We have our high speed internet through our cable (we have the highest speed available in this area). So for two cell phones and our internet and cable (with additional channels added) those bills total about $250-260 a month. Once we buy our farm we're getting rid of our cable and knocking $90 off those We're in VT where the cost of living is pretty low compared to other states
(We've been together since 2005 and have never had a landline, just our cell phones)

[staciahall]

I kept a landline for years for my security system. Then the security company told me about the alternative of a dedicated cellular signal for the system that cost about $20 a month more. So I dropped the $55 landline bill and haven't looked back. It was so nice during election times this year, no telemarketers at all.

[xboxmom]

We have both because my 12 year old daughter doesn't have a cell phone nor my other younger kids and I hate that their friends call my cell phone so yes we have a landline still. My husband has been begging me to get rid of it and I said thats fine as long as all the kids friends call your cell phone....so we still have the landline. LOL

[navaja77]

No landline here for several years. DH and I have cell phones (and pretty good reception), we have DirecTv (and thinking to switch entirely to Roku but not sure yet) and using a local company for internet. We do have Vonage just to have a home phone number and for people to leave voicemail. For some reason, offices and the school are still hung up on us listing a home #

[*Celeste*]

the cell service in my house is abysmal we have a landline because of that.

[kim21673]

We do only b/c hubby works for the phone company and it's free

[color of my heart]

we don't have one. we both have cellphones, so we don't see the point to have the extra expense.

my parents have one, but my mother has gone back and forth between getting rid of it. i think the phone/internet/cable is bundled right now, and that's the only reason they still have it.