Landline phones

[Rusty Blade]

Nothing could match the sheer panic of calling Diane to ask her to the Friday night dance on the dial up phone hanging on the wall the kitchen, while parents sat in the dining room barely containing their laughter. Fortunately she said yes, and I could be smug for just a few minutes walking past the parents sitting at the dining room table.

 

[FarmerTan]

My wife and I are old enough to remember having party lines, and those huge charges for long distance calls to family. We've had the same cable & fios landline # for 20+ years. If it wasn't for me, my wife would have gotten rid of the landline years ago. She uses her iphone for everything. I never turn my iPhone on and use the landline #. When my wife suggests we get rid of the landline, I suggest we get rid of cable tv. It's been a stalemate for years.

You know that I was that kid listening in on the conversations every chance I got on our party line! Ours was, if I recall correctly, "two longs and a short" ring! I can't remember my son's name most days but I can still remember that old phone number! And we had a strange setup for phone service. The only known millionaire in our little town, the guy with the library named after him, and a face that looked like he was always constipated owned the phone company. EVERYTHING, and I mean sometimes houses on the other side of the street! was long distance. Insane rates, like the equivalent of a dollar a minute today! I'll never forget the time my Dad opened the phone bill and called him up at home one night! The nicest, and most family friendly thing he said in his tirade was "you and your Mickey Mouse phone company.....!" How that guy lived as long as he did I'll never know! First time I saw the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" I thought "he looks just like Mr Potter!"

 

[FarmerTan]

Nothing could match the sheer panic of calling Diane to ask her to the Friday night dance on the dial up phone hanging on the wall the kitchen, while parents sat in the dining room barely containing their laughter. Fortunately she said yes, and I could be smug for just a few minutes walking past the parents sitting at the dining room table.

I thought I had it made when I saved my money to buy a 50ft coiled cord for our phone! Then when we got a second phone for mom and dad's bedroom me and my little brother would try to listen in on my big sister's phone calls!

I was such a precious gift to her...

 

[hairless wonder]

I still have a copper landline because I want to have a way to call out in case of an emergency and the cell towers are all jammed or down. Of course that may not work, if the phone company hooks up the land line system to an electronic switchboard or anything else that requires electrical power.

 

[razorboi]

The telephone companies want to get out of the business of traditional analogue (copper wire) land-line service. They no longer make enough money from it, but they are still required by government mandate to maintain and power the lines.
For several years now they have been quietly lobbying governments to allow them to discontinue the service, arguing that it is obsolete as most people have switched to mobile phones. Unfortunately for them, many areas, especially rural ones, still depend heavily on analogue phone service, as do the elderly. Many critical government and business needs still rely on analogue phone lines, but that is changing.

AT&T has secured approval to discontinue service in many parts of Florida. It has already begun, and will probably only take a couple of years before traditional land-lines are a thing of the past here.
Beware. They are coming for your land-lines next!

I have a VOIP land-line, but I would rather have a copper-wire connection, if it wasn't so expensive. I believe the phone companies are deliberately pricing them expensive to discourage use. Bare-bones service is over $40 a month all told, and that's without caller-ID, still an extra cost option in 2021!
With all the junk calls to-day, how can anyone be expected to have a phone that doesn't have caller-ID?

 

[Mr. Bonney]

Several years ago the local utility ran an optical cable to the green phone pedestal in the alley behind my house. I thought it was a digital upgrade (and eventual replacement) for the copper wire lines, but then it would have continued up the alley. They have not gone any further than behind my house. Then I saw a neighbor about a house down from the end have a cable installed and buried up to the pedestal. Must be cable TV or something.
Couldn't that optical cable be used for phone and internet as well? I know they have carrying capacities far above copper wires.

 

[stone and strop]

I still have a LL for now. Just renewed with Bell for everything for the next two years. Fibe tv, unlimited internet, home and cell phone (no data).
Landline before new package was nearly 50.00 a month, now its 10.00 AND I have long distance and every other stupid option for a LL even though I didn't want it.

 

[Sicilian]

I know it's different everywhere, but in Canada our cable, internet and a landline phone all come wrapped in a bundle. And it is ridiculously expensive.

We are thinking of getting rid of our landline phone and just use our cellphones, but we are of the generation that grew up with a landline and it will seem strange to not have one. It is a cultural icon.

Anyone on here still use a landline phone at home?

Yes we have Comcast voice.

 

[TexOkie Shaver]

I still have a copper landline because I want to have a way to call out in case of an emergency and the cell towers are all jammed or down. Of course that may not work, if the phone company hooks up the land line system to an electronic switchboard or anything else that requires electrical power.

Telcos traditionally had battery backups that would last for days. I don’t know what they do now, generators in tandem with batteries would be my guess.

One of our customers has a fiber network that carries telephone and Internet traffic. They use batteries in tandem with generators for backup power.

 

[TexOkie Shaver]

Several years ago the local utility ran an optical cable to the green phone pedestal in the alley behind my house. I thought it was a digital upgrade (and eventual replacement) for the copper wire lines, but then it would have continued up the alley. They have not gone any further than behind my house. Then I saw a neighbor about a house down from the end have a cable installed and buried up to the pedestal. Must be cable TV or something.
Couldn't that optical cable be used for phone and internet as well? I know they have carrying capacities far above copper wires.

Yes. Most of the high traffic copper pairs have been replaced by fiber. They just don’t bring the fiber into your house because the bandwidth you need can still be carried over copper coax and would only use a tiny fraction of fiber’s capacity.

 

[Mr. Bonney]

I used to work with a guy who had previously done phone service as a career. He said the phone system then was 48 volts, powered by huge room sized batteries as I recall to run the system. That's how the phones would still work if the power went off. I don't know if that's still the case, but I seriously doubt it.

 

[ackvil]

My wife and I are old enough to remember having party lines, and those huge charges for long distance calls to family. We've had the same cable & fios landline # for 20+ years. If it wasn't for me, my wife would have gotten rid of the landline years ago. She uses her iphone for everything. I never turn my iPhone on and use the landline #. When my wife suggests we get rid of the landline, I suggest we get rid of cable tv. It's been a stalemate for years.

Wow, party lines. That brings back memories.

In the 1960s I was building a house in western NJ. The town was considered rural. When the house was about two months to completion I called the independent telephone company and asked to have telephone service. The rep told me I would have a three-month wait and then it would be a party-line shared with two others. Speaking to supervisors made no difference.

I was working for the federal government at the time. I told my boss what I had been told and he informed me that it was mandatory that I have a private phone to handle emergency situations. He told me he would take care of the problem. That was on a Wednesday.

On Saturday we drove over to the site where our house was being built. The weather was terrible: sleet, wind, and cold temps. I saw three trucks from the telephone company putting up telephone lines! When I returned to the apartment we were living in, I had a message from the telephone company telling me I had been approved for a private line for telephone service. On Monday I told my boss and he just smiled and said he had called the telephone company headquarters and got the same run around I did. He then said he made just one call, to the state utility commission, and that "fixed" the problem.

Later the next weekend I went back to the building site and met some neighbors. They said that my house was the first one to have a line going from the street to the house. I told them what my boss had done. They told me that now after three years they could get a private line and get rid of the party line!

 

[MichWR]

I rebuilt this house when we moved here 13 years ago. I removed all of the landline wiring at that time. Prior to that all that I remember is paying $35/month for the landline service before I even made a call. We just cut the cable TV cord a couple of weeks ago. We were paying $110/month for about the cheapest package that they had. Right now we're paying $17 for 3 streaming services. It will take about 4-1/2 months to pay back the new streaming hardware (Roku, antenna, DVR, and cables).

 

[dmshaver]

We cut the cord several years ago. It was bundled, as others have said, with AT&T with our internet & cable tv. We quit AT&T cable TV so it then became affordable to not have the landline.

 

[TexOkie Shaver]

We cut the cord several years ago. It was bundled, as others have said, with AT&T with our internet & cable tv. We quit AT&T cable TV so it then became affordable to not have the landline.

I find it funny that I get offers from AT&T every week to sign back up. I stopped opening them and just chuck them in the trash. I get 500mbs Internet for $95, Prime for $8.50 and Hulu with Disney+ and ESPN+ for $75. I know that if I sign up with AT&T it will be cheaper, but only for about the first year, and my Internet wouldn’t be nearly as good as what I now have. I’m tired of doing the cable price escalation dance.

 

[sneefy]

Have been land line free since 2005. Moved into my current house and never subscribed to trad. phone service. Haven't missed it at all. OP, it will seem odd at first without a land line, but you'll get used to it quickly, especially if you port your number to either a cell or google voice and forward it so you can still receive calls at that number. If you still want the 'feel' of a land like, you can get a VOIP box and port it to that, but I find those kinda pointless.

I also don't subscribe to any cable or dish TV service. I have an antenna I installed in the attic for 'emergencies' but otherwise stream. I only subscribe to cable internet service.

For nostalgia sake, I ported my childhood home phone number into google voice when my parents finally sold the house I grew up in. I'll give that number to my daughter when she's old enough for a cell phone. Kinda neat to keep it in the family.

 

[shaveitoff]

I know it's different everywhere, but in Canada our cable, internet and a landline phone all come wrapped in a bundle. And it is ridiculously expensive.

We are thinking of getting rid of our landline phone and just use our cellphones, but we are of the generation that grew up with a landline and it will seem strange to not have one. It is a cultural icon.

Anyone on here still use a landline phone at home?

I'm also in Canada. I haven't had a land line for years now. It was redundant because I had a cell phone, so there was no need to pay two fees to be able to make a phone call. I have never missed it. I only pay just over $50 for the month on the phone (that includes the tax). And I bring my own phone, so I'm not paying off the phone as part of the payment.

As for bundles, if it is overall cheaper, just keep the land line. I don't pay for cable. I only watch what comes over the air and what I can on Prime or Youtube or other no cost channels you can get on a smart TV. I don't even bother with Netflix any more. So no thoughts of a bundle for me.

I've found that by calling in to my cell phone provider every now and then they will drop my cost a bit. They occasionally have a better deal than whatever I currently have. I don't have a contract. I just have an evergreen price, so if a better deal comes along I can take it. I just stick with the same provider (Virgin mobile). A while ago they bumped up my data from 2 Gb to 4 Gb per month (at no cost), but I never used anywhere near 2 Gb. Unless you want to do a lot of web surfing away from home you don't need a lot of data. But I'll take the 4 Gb. Who knows, maybe some month I'll use a lot of data.

I'd say ballpark for phone, internet and Amazon prime I'm paying about $125 per month.

 

[StillShaving]

I’ve got a question for you guys...

Isn’t a voip connection not really a land line? That’s what we get with most all of our internet packages. It’s basically an internet connection that sends the call in a digital format over the internet.

Isn’t a land line an analog signal that is dedicated for phone calls?

Yes, a land line is the decades old technology of using an analog signal and the phone receiving power from the central office. I believe this service is being phased out and is no longer offered for new sign-ups in some areas. I believe many of the VoIP packages offered by cable internet providers mostly emulate the traditional "POTS" services of the landline plus voice mail, so that it becomes a direct replacement for most people (except for not being powered externally).

It could be that there is still too much of an installed based of analog phones in the home, but there is not much of a barrier for home internet providers to supply the same capabilities to your home phone as your mobile. I believe that is how many of the lowest cost smartphone service providers function, basically sending everything over your home wifi + internet that it would otherwise have been sent via a cell tower.

Skype, Messenger, WhatsApp, FaceTime, Zoom, ... are now taking much of the traditional phone minutes as well. I rarely make a "phone call" using the mobile voice service provided by the likes of AT&T or Verizon. Using these VoIP based apps are a good way to cut down on spam as well.

 

[Atlantic59]

...If you still want the 'feel' of a land like, you can get a VOIP box and port it to that, but I find those kinda pointless...

VoIP can be very useful depending on your needs. For those doing a lot of international calls, VoIP can be very cheap in comparison to other offerings. Some antiquated institutions still insist on using Fax. Fax send/receive as well as email-Fax combo services can be done easily via VoIP.

 

[ouchyfoot]

I still have a super heavy old Bakelite rotary dial phone at the cottage. It takes forever to make a phone call. Between putting my finger in the number hole, turning until it hits the stops and then waiting for it to return to the neutral position so I can begin the next number, I always forget where I was and have to start over.
Its also billed as a party line although there’s never been anyone else on the line. Maybe that’s because I have to get there by boat and don’t have any neighbours besides bears.