Thinking of Getting Rid of Landline Phone

Updated on January 13, 2012
S.B. asks from Cape Coral, FL
15 answers

I really dont use my house phone much at all. Im old fashioned that I will use a house phone before a cell phone but with facebook, text, email and hardly ever home..I hardly use it. I was thinking of getting VOIP or Ooma. Does anyone have these and do they work well? Its crazy that i spend $30 on landline and usually $5 a month in long distance. That put into my retirement account would add up! Skype is an option too but can a regular phone be used for that?

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S.L.

answers from Kansas City on

We have electricity go out in storms and then only a land line that is not a cordless works. Cell would not work and couldn't be charged. For that I keep mine.

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S.H.

answers from St. Louis on

Paying for a landline is part of having an inhome daycare. It's a requirement for me. & yesterday is proof why: our local cell tower was hit by a vehicle & we were down to "E" service only. None of my calls went thru, nor did my text msges. Outtage lasted more than 12 hours.

& I learned a valuable lesson during our last tornado. Our corded phone was the ONLY working phone during our neighborhood's long recovery from the storm damage. We were contact central for all of our neighbors. Cordless phones did not work, nor did the cells.

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R.M.

answers from Cumberland on

In an emergency-it is always good to have a landline-wired directly into the wall-learned that the hard way!

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J.J.

answers from Denver on

Our house is on the side of a mountain...cell service is okay, but cuts out sometimes, I wouldn't do it because of this, but if you get good reception, that could work. If you have kids, how will their friends reach them? You don't want to be getting their calls on your phone.

1 mom found this helpful

V.C.

answers from Dallas on

We recently disconnected ours. But my youngest is 17 and has a cell phone. I would not have done it if he were younger.

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T.M.

answers from Philadelphia on

I will still keep my landline, until my kids are much older. In an emergency it is always there.... not lost or dead like a cell. I am not willing to risk it. Especially since my kids are home after school until i can get home.

What if they (kids or me at that) panic in a fire? Or someone trying to break in? They are not going to remember where cell is. But, house phone is on all 3 floors where it always is. That to me is worth 30 dollars a month.

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M.M.

answers from Washington DC on

We still have one.
Cells work off of the nearest tower. If the tower closest to my home doesn't pull my cell, how are the police supposed to find us? In an emergency you are not always lucid enough to let the police know where you are.
I have had to call 911 and they have my address immediately.
It's peace of mind.
I would cut cable first, and newspaper, magazine subscriptions.

1 mom found this helpful

N.B.

answers from Minneapolis on

We got rid of our landline a few years ago. Same as you, we jsut did not use it and 3 of us in the house have cell's and we never have the "can't find it issue".

I also do home childcare, and here in MN it was always the acceptable practice to have the landline, and most interpreted the "RULE" as saying such. But it just says an available telephone must be in the home and working, or some such. The verbage was not up to the technology like licensing would prefer (specifically stating a landline), so after some discussion and upset licensors here and there, they could not do anything about the coming wave a few years ago of people like me who wanted to give up the landline.

For Foster care it specificially states a landline, however.

When I have a sub I do have to make sure SHE has a cell phone, so there IS a phone in the house while she is here.

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C.W.

answers from Santa Barbara on

I have to keep mine for work (two lines), I'm in sales and have a home office (plus a Blackberry and a Droid). I even have a Fax machine!! Some of my documents must be faxed.

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R.J.

answers from Seattle on

I haven't had a landline for almost a decade.

The only problem is when you lose your phone!!! That's rareish enough, at least, but it does happen.

Everything we do online or via iPhones (including faxing when we need to fax, we have an eFax number).

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A.G.

answers from Norfolk on

We love our ooma. I love paying under $10 per month for our phone. It works really well too as long as your have fast internet. i just got an email for referrals so let me know if you want to use my referral #.

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S.W.

answers from Minneapolis on

I haven't had a landline at all for two years. I've never missed it. I keep my cell by me all the time. My daughter (9) has a cell phone that she can take with her if she goes to a friend's house or on a bike ride. In an emergency, I would rather she knocked on a neighbor's door (we live in a condo building) than call 911 anyway. But she knows how to call 911. And she knows our address, though in our city, I don't doubt that a cell call can be tracked quickly.

I had VoIP through Vonage for two years before that. It worked fine. It cost about $20/ month for a basic subscription. Now I see that it is up to $25+ per month, so no savings there. And, if your concern is safety, the phone will not work if your internet goes down. (I have a somewhat iffy DSL connection).

I have not tried Ooma, but I would recommend reading the customer reviews on Amazon. It seems to me that the customer service is terrible, and there are other possible complications to setup and use depending on your internet connection and other devices.

L.A.

answers from Austin on

I finally got rid of mine. I was thinking in case of emergency , it would be good to have, but after 3 years of never needing it. I dropped it a few weeks ago.

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W..

answers from Chicago on

I got rid of my landline in October and have not looked back.

You can make calls with the phone option in google mail. It's free and works fine.

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D.T.

answers from Chicago on

We were thinking of it too, but our kids are too small still and I feel more safe with the landline. We just called the phone company and checked to see if there were any cheaper packages or anything they could do. They were able to cut us a small break. We also got rid of cable and are saving a ton there to make it worth it.

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