Comments on: Why Do People Still Have Landlines?

By: landline anonymous

landline anonymous — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 06:24:00 +0000

I still have a landline. But that is because my company expenses an international phone card. Using the phone card on my cell would still eat up minutes.

By: prodgod

prodgod — Sun, 24 May 2009 17:32:01 +0000

@lilyradiohead – Since you asked, yes, I’m self-employed and have been for many years. You make some good points and if I were just starting out, I’d probably keep the land line, too, for the reasons you state. However, faxes were mostly replaced by emails over the years and I mainly received junk faxes, so I don’t miss that at all. I don’t like spending every minute of the workday near the office phone, so I always had that forwarded to my cell phone anyway. You make a good point regarding yellow pages advertising, but that’s a presence that is no longer necessary in my situation. Different strokes…

By: lilyradiohead

lilyradiohead — Sat, 23 May 2009 15:37:12 +0000

One good reason to keep the land line is if you are self-employed.
Are any of you people self-employed? Or considering it?

Try starting and maintaining a business and then see how another big dynamic comes into play. If you offer goods or services to the public -or even a special population- they have to find you and need to keep in touch. Try getting credit with new vendors without a landline (or physical address) in this economy. But again, to order in materials or inventory, you need to offer some stability to those you are in business with, especially if you are new.

On the plus-side, businesses can now use cell numbers in internet/on-line /print/yellow pages advertising. Question is: how do you get a decent phone book without a land-line? Yellow pages are a great way to get your web address in the hands of the older folks who don’t spend their lives googling.

The big issue I have with our land-line is that EVERY segment of the bill is taxed by our local jurisdiction. We need the land-line for the fax; we get dsl too, but living in a rural area we have limited options. We don’t have cable.

There are some good ideas here.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 23 May 2009 04:22:05 +0000

I have a landline (on the $9.99/month 30 outgoing calls/month plan) because if there is a fire I can dial 911 and run and they will still be able to use ALI to find the exact address, including apartment.

I live in Florida and there are hurricanes which can down landlines, and mobile phones but the chances of both failing is less than only one. I also have an Iridium phone so I am covered there.

Fax machines do not work well with mobile or VoIP phones. They were developed for POTS and work just fine on that.

Cool lights from dealextreme.com. I have lights that plug into the phone jack and work from that power which are really very, very handy when the power goes out.

By: Becca

Becca — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:45:00 +0000

We have a landline because:
1) Our internet is DSL (with dial-up available as a backup), and around here you need to have a landline for it.
2) For the level of phone usage we have, it’s far cheaper. $12 per month on the landline takes care of all our local calls, and long distance is $0.03 – $0.05 per minute with no flat fee. So our landline costs us about $16 per month, and we use our cell phones only for calls made outside the home (or when our prepaid minutes are about to expire). We have basic pay-as-you-go cell phone service, and I use about $9 per month and my husband uses about $20 per month. $45 total per month is less than we’d spend for just 2 cell phones if we used them for all our calls.
3. The sound quality is better on the landlines, which is really good for me because I have a hard time hearing people on the phone.
4. I don’t have to remember to charge the landline phones. I don’t have to remember to check pockets for them before doing laundry. I’ve never lost one or had it stolen. The corded variety can easily last a decade without breaking.
5. Since we have more than one phone on our landline, my husband and I can each pick up one if we want to both talk to someone on the other end. This is nice for holiday family calls.