Any reason to have a land line?

90% of the calls on our land line are telemarketers. 8% are small children wanting to know if my kid can come to their house. 2% are relatives calling on holidays. 3 of the 4 people in my house have cell phones. And the little one texts from her iTouch. But the wife insists we have a land line. I can't think of a good reason why.

We've held on to ours, but there are times I wonder why. I guess ultimately it's a matter of reliability (phone always seems to work, even during extended power outages) and we've always had one.

IMO, they are a waste. You call people, not the house. I only carry a cell phone and did away with a phone that I'm never near. The money from the land line was rolled into a better mobile plan.

In reply to 1988RedT2:

I thought of this topic after reading your voicemail comments.

Land lines do sound far better, but I hate talking on the phone. If bad reception forces the conversation to be really short, that is great.

We don't have one.

We had our utilities set up with our cell phones as the "primary phone", so if for some reason the utility company needs to get ahold of us, they call me at work while I'm in a meeting or something.

Depending on cell plans, you can eat up minutes with dumb stuff like the neighbor kids calling to ask if Billy can come over.

My wife says she gets lots of sales/political calls on her cell phone.

That's really the only downers I can come up with.

I think for emergency purposes it helps (like when you need to dial 911 or something) as it provides an accurate location.

That said, we don't have one. In fact I dont think I have ever had one since I left my 'rents house. Just cell phones.

We did get a phone line when we bought our house, then I saw the bill with all the fees and taxes tacked on. It was pretty much close to the cost of one of the cell phones, not to mention I didn't pick the correct long distance plan and I in fact could not call pretty much ANYONE that I would ever need to. The service was promptly cancelled.

Also, we pay extra to have caller ID for one purpose - to allow my wife to avoid having to talk to my mother.

I keep mine because it's not power dependant and usually still works if the power goes out or during other emergencies when the cell system can get overloaded (I'm remembering 9/11 around here). It's also useful when I need to give a phone number but don't want to actually get a phone call from them. The phone doesn't take messages and I don't even have the ringer turned on. People who I want to talk to know to call my cell.

I do need to cancel the long distance service. That really is a waste of money for me. Been too lazy.

I haven't had one in years. I'll give you two good reasons (around here) to have one, though.

1) an old, plug-into-the-wall phone with an old style land line (i.e. no bundled IP telephony) can still work when power is out because it draws power from the phone lines, not the power lines. In the land of hurricanes, this can be useful. (cell phone towers quickly overload because of all the people trying to call each other to confirm their safe status.)

2) If it is bundled into a data plan (regardless of whether that's through the cable company or the phone company) you may NEED to get it, just to get your "high speed" [*] internet access.

--
* - we don't have high speed internet
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/28/why-is-european-broadband-faster-and-cheaper-blame-the-governme/

If you're a cheapskate like me who doesn't make a lot of cell phone calls and uses a prepaid phone, the math can work out a bit better for a land line with an unlimited calling plan plus a prepaid phone for on the road. If you're on an unlimited calls plan, and don't need the land line for a DSL connection (I'm also a cheapskate with no cable), then it might make sense to cut the landline.

My cell phone usage after 24 of 31 days in my billing cycle:

I've used 31 of my 550 anytime minutes and I have 4924 rollover minutes available. I am not a phone guy.

I'd love to dump ours, but one issue I'm wrestling with is our alarm system. It requires a phone line of some sort. They have the ability to use cell technology, but it's just as expensive as having the land line. :(

We haven't had one for a couple of years and hadn't missed it. I mean, for gawd's sake, two cell numbers, email, text. We have plenty of ways to communicate. I don't particularly like the quality of cell phone talk, but I'm also not a yakker.

The only purpose our land line served for a long time was just allowing a conduit for telemarketers...

By the way, do satellite TV suppliers still require them?

Basil Exposition wrote: By the way, do satellite TV suppliers still require them?

My Directv requires a land line hooked to the receiver to order movies with the remote. But you can order it on their website as well, so you can get around a land line if needed.

I have had voip and cell only going on 8yrs now. No issues to report. 99% of my "important" voice calls go over the cell - the VOIP is there for children to call other children on for free, to act as a honeypot for telemarketers and so I can do 5hr long meetings on muted on speaker without using up all my minutes. If there was wifi everywhere I'd ditch the cell phone too and just use a voip app on my phone.

Basil Exposition wrote: By the way, do satellite TV suppliers still require them?

Only if you want pay per view. 3 of the 4 boxes here don't have it. The other box had one PPV movie purchased and when the TV is on, caller ID shows up....

Haven't had a land line since 2003-2004.

Basil Exposition wrote: By the way, do satellite TV suppliers still require them?

Dish uses my wifi.

EDIT: Dish uses my internet - they require a wired connection.

Haven't had one in 5+ years.

We just got rid of ours. i can think of better ways to spend that 400 bucks a year.

Ours is included in our Internet/TV bundle. It costs more to not have it, so we keep it.

I havent had a land line since 2000. I was an early adopter. Basically moved out of my parents house when I graduated HS and got a cell phone.

Otto Maddox wrote: My cell phone usage after 24 of 31 days in my billing cycle: I've used 31 of my 550 anytime minutes and I have 4924 rollover minutes available. I am not a phone guy.

Me either. If anything, I would get rid of the cell phone since I hardly ever use it and then keep the land line.

The presidential caucuses here in Iowa were the last straw for our landline-- I don't really have an opinion one way or the other on Ron Paul, but I got tired of him calling every evening...