Ditching your landline phone?

[werepossum]

We dropped our land line a couple years back when AT&T announced that for our convenience we would no longer be allowed to not have a monthly plan. Also, our phone land lines went out about as often as does our cable or cell service. Damned thing was already nearly thirty bucks, two-thirds of which were taxes. We haven't missed it at all. And if I need help and can't speak, I'll fire off a magazine through a window instead. THAT will get them here quickly!

Seriously though, you need a good generator and a good backup heat source. That totally transforms a power outage from a major unpleasantness to an adventure.

 

[bobdole369]

I am wondering how many of you have chosen to ditch your landline copper phone, for either a VOIP or Cellular solution for your primary phone...

I want to do this, as i can realize a significant monthly savings...

but how do you feel about E911 readyness?


When you call 911 from your landline phone, they have the ability to pull up your registered address etc, which speeds up emergency services. with E911, they only know which tower your call has connected to, if your 911 center is E911 phase 2 ready, they can eventually get the GPS coordinates from your cellular phone, or nothing at all from your IP phone.
This can delay emergency services by several to 20 minutes...

For those that made the jump, did you consider this, and how weighted did you take this into consideration when making your decision.
i guess i am apprehensive about giving up my land line thus far...

PFFT people still have old fashioned copper cable pairs running PSTN in their homes? Maybe your parents and grandparents.

I'm all cell phone, some VOIP (using asterisk and some polycoms to get extensions and to piss my wife off by making her dial 9+1+(area)+(number)).

As for E911 - Whatever. I would expect to be able to dial and tell the operator where I am.

 

[bobdole369]

It's really, really, really important, in the event that you are NEARLY incapacitated. Otherwise you just speak to them your location.

I mean it's no different than your cell phone 911. Do people worry about 911 so much when they are outside their homes? Unless you're a shut in I would imagine you need to call 911 more often when you are not at home than when you are at home.

Goddammit people! This is why you have to know MORSE CODE! In case your lips are sewn shut by an ass-rapist. So you can bleep out your location on the number pad.

 

[bobdole369]

Note that this only applies to the 18 states with a DND policy. In all the other 32 states they are not required to connect to 911 all the time. Also note that "every telephone that can access the network is able to dial 911" - however not all phone lines in your home are connected - and there is no requirement to keep the lines connected to the network. Common practice is to disconnect your line from the network upon non-payment.

If you are really worried, cancel your phone service but keep a phone connected to the jack. You will need to test it, but if I recall correctly, any phone line active or not hooked to a phone network must be allowed to dial 911.

From wikipedia:

In the U.S., FCC rules require every telephone that can access the network to be able to dial 9-1-1, regardless of any reason that normal service may have been disconnected (including non-payment) (This only applies to states with a Do Not Disconnect policy in place. Those states must provide a "soft" or "warm" dial tone service, details can be found at http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_Link/IAD/pntris99.pdf) On wired (land line) phones, this usually is accomplished by a "soft" dial tone, which sounds normal but will allow only emergency calls. Often, an unused and unpublished phone number will be issued to the line so that it will work properly. With regard to mobile phones, the rules require carriers to connect 9-1-1 calls from any mobile phone, regardless of whether that phone is currently active.[29] The same rules for inactive telephones apply in Canada.

 

[AMDZen]

Never even had a land line and never would.

I don't base any decision on a very small "what if" that would probably never happen. I live alone, if I ever needed to call 911 and couldn't tell them where I was - I'm probably going to die any way so who cares?

Keeping a landline just in case you might have to make an emergency call to 911 and not be able to tell them where you are is preposterous.

 

[KeithTalent]

I have not had one for about 3 years now. I'm not worried about calling 911. I don't have a dog or a gun either.

KT

 

[IndyColtsFan]

VOIP as an add-on should be priced at $10/month max. All providers want premium rates for something you can get for almost free anymore.

That's right, and that's why I am looking to ditch VOIP from Brighthouse. I am just trying to decide if I go with Obitalk or Ooma. Ooma is more expensive up front ($200 vs. $50 for the hardware) but it seems more polished and we could port our number. Either plan would have a very quick payback period.

 

[Sixguns]

Had one three years ago when I got married. We were always getting calls from bill collectors for other people and that was getting annoying. So I called up qwest to see if I had to have one to continue to have DSL and they said no. I dropped it that day and have saved 50.00 bucks a months since than. Dont think we ever plan on getting one again.

 

[olds]

I'll never ditch my land line. In the event of a national or large regional emergency, your cell will be blocked and only land line and emergency worker cell phones will work.
My employer had to pay and extra 5 bucks a month for my phone when I worked in Haz Mat so the cell would work in those instances.

I assume this is still the case.

 

[TheVrolok]

I haven't had a landline for the past 8 years, but I may pick one up again once I settle down with a family.

 

[Wyndru]

I dropped land line about 4 or 5 years ago for vonage, for the last 2 years I've had Ooma.

Both companies required that I fill out 911 information, so if I called 911 could cross reference. I think it might even be a law for voip companies to request this info.

 

[PsiStar]

I'll never ditch my land line. In the event of a national or large regional emergency, your cell will be blocked and only land line and emergency worker cell phones will work.
My employer had to pay and extra 5 bucks a month for my phone when I worked in Haz Mat so the cell would work in those instances.

I assume this is still the case.

Not necessarily true. With the advent of computerized telephone switches there has been priority over ride capability. As a contractor to PA State Police during TMI, this occurred ... even then. I am referring to land lines getting prioritized to those in charge & the local population getting a busy signal upon just lifting the hand set. There is no difference between land lines & cell phone service with the exception of "no dropped" calls during uneventful times.

Anything public has control features. If you always want to be able to communicate .. get a ham radio license. LOL

 

[PsiStar]

Also, E911. I worked on an antenna design 9 years ago intended to be apart of e911 ... and e911 is unevenly getting implemented across the country.

Back to the antennas; triangulation is not necessary. Just 2 tower locations are all that are necessary. The antenna design & associated analysis electronics can accurately determine a cell phone's location based on phase differences of the signal arriving at the 2 tower locations. The phase differences provide an angle and just 2 angles are all that are necessary. Ergo, 2 tower sites. So even in sparsely populated areas the likelihood of enough signal appearing at 2 sites is still quite good compared to having enough signal at 3.

And, in rural locations there is are no street numbers. Hell, the roads may not have names so cell phones may be better. VOIP usually has the ip addresses well associated with the installed location. Exceptions are people as I that travel with my Vonage box. I make calls "from Pennsylvania" while in Illinois or Florida. Freaks people out when I call them from the next room & they are all over the caller ID. LOL

This wikipedia entry is pretty accurate about E911

 

[GeekDrew]

what another narrow set of circumstances.

WHAT IF I'M BEING ROBBED AND SOMEONE CUTS MY TELEPHONE LINE!?

land line 911 = you're fucked


see what happens if you play the what-if game all day?

No shit. My point was that it's not an unheard-of circumstance. It happens *often*.

 

[GeekDrew]

The main problem with no land line is in any real disaster the cell towers will be over subscribed. You would still be able to dial out on a landline.

Not necessarily. While it's definitely likely that land-lines will be able to complete calls long after the local cell network hits max capacity, there are only so many trunks at the central office -- it's entirely possible that any hop along the way would deny the call due to unavailable facilities.

 

[jlee]

I haven't had a land line in my name, ever. Last one I had was my roommate's and I didn't use it...

 

[alkemyst]

No shit. My point was that it's not an unheard-of circumstance. It happens *often*.

actually according to police reports it doesn't.

But cellular blockers are out there too.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Bump for more VONAGE vs. OOMA comments?

 

[alkemyst]

Not necessarily. While it's definitely likely that land-lines will be able to complete calls long after the local cell network hits max capacity, there are only so many trunks at the central office -- it's entirely possible that any hop along the way would deny the call due to unavailable facilities.

There are magnitudes of difference between those scales and being down here in the Hurricane Belt, there have been several times cell phones were incapable of calls yet land lines never did not work.

Heck there have been busy holiday times where I got the error message on my cell phone the first couple attempts to make a call.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Bump for more VONAGE vs. OOMA comments?

This, and I'd also like to hear from any Obitalk+Google Voice users as that is a cheaper, but not as polished, solution.

 

[Wyndru]

Bump for more VONAGE vs. OOMA comments?

OOMA is up front cost ($250 IIRC), Vonage is monthly cost.

Other than that obvious difference, I have had very few issues with either. Vonage may have been a little clearer and outgoing callerID worked better, but OOMA is free, so I can't complain (I made my initial cost up a long time ago).

What I mean by the callerid is that sometimes it shows up as NULL, NULL on the other end, incoming works without an issue though. OOMA had a 2 day outage in my area 1 time over the past 2 years. On their forum they did keep updating us on the status though. I have a cell also so it didn't really bother me too much. 2 days outage for 1.5 years free service isn't bad.

The only thing that worries me about OOMA is how long it will be around for. Their hardware seems to hold up really well, so there really isn't any reason to send any money to them. I just pay $12 a year for 911 service. I don't know how they can afford to keep the service running once new clients slow down. They do have a premier service that you can buy, but I doubt the ratio of premier vs. free would be enough to sustain providing free service to everyone.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

The only thing that worries me about OOMA is how long it will be around for. Their hardware seems to hold up really well, so there really isn't any reason to send any money to them. I just pay $12 a year for 911 service. I don't know how they can afford to keep the service running once new clients slow down. They do have a premier service that you can buy, but I doubt the ratio of premier vs. free would be enough to sustain providing free service to everyone.

That's my concern as well and why I am considering using the Obitalk 110 ($50) and Google Voice instead. Of course, Google could start charging for Google Voice at some point but at $50, I will make the cost up within a couple of months.

 

[SlowSpyder]

We got rid of our land line about a year ago. The reception in my home can be a bit spotty, so that is annoying. But overall it's still worth having just a cell phone for the money saved, in my opinion.

 

[jbbrown]

I got Ooma this past January and it has been great. I have been pleased with the voice quality. I paid $200 for it and then there is a $3/month tax (used to have no tax until about a year ago I believe).

I was a little worried about how long the company would be around as well, but just decided to go for it.

 

[olds]

...

Anything public has control features. If you always want to be able to communicate .. get a ham radio license. LOL

Do you need one for handhelds?