Landline phones

[Rusty Blade]

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?

 

[smudge]

I'm in the UK and use VirginMedia. I've wanted to get rid of my landline for years, but if I remove it from my package the price goes up and by a fair bit.

 

[Rhody]

We have a LL in the bundle billing too. It’s reserved for spam, telemarketing and robocalls. In a blue moon a relative will call i by mistake so we keep an eye on it. However I’ve taken to completely ignore it. Most of the time the caller Id is not meaningful. Sometimes I fumble with the phone trying to add the caller to the ignore list but never seem to figure it out or hit the wrong button and answer it. It’s just a pia. When cell phones were new, had unreliable coverage or lane batteries I thought the land line was necessary but I’d easily not miss it because it’s become habit to ignore it.

 

[Cphobes]

Was useful for when the kids were in school, ported the number to Google voice. At one point we got another line thru the cable tv bundle. We kept it and it is in the fax machine which gets used 1-2 times a year. If it saved money to get rid of it I would but it's pretty much a zero cost.

 

[garyg]

The only advantage to a land line is that it is unaffected by power or cable provider outages, I've been trying to cut the cord as the ATT bill has risen but still hanging back. There is a substantial savings if I switch to a cable provider "land line", but that would involve running phone wire in a crawl space as my present phone locations are in other rooms from the cable modems ..

 

[Bakker1964]

We gave up our land line (just outside Toronto) when I joined the 20th century and got a cell phone.

I sometimes wish I had never done so.

 

[InkStainedWretch]

I live in Montreal and cut the land line late last year. Most calls were spam, so I don't miss it. The only reason I kept the land line for so long was because the house alarm system was tied into it. Then I upgraded to Bell fiber internet which broke the home alarm. The alarm is now wireless.i haven't subscribed to cable tv in years.

 

[TexOkie Shaver]

In October we cut the cable, keeping only or Internet. If I can find a cellular provider that provides as much bandwidth and data as I have now, I’ll cut the Internet connection if it saves me money.

We now get out TV entertainment through Amazon Prime, Hulu and Disney plus, saving about $150 per month. We use our cell phones for our telecommunications thus not being tied to the landline.

Cable is a ripoff and con game.

 

[Billski]

I am with Spectrum. I get Internet for $25.00 a month. It isn’t the faster internet.
And for a Land line : It costs only $10.00 a month
For the TV : Broadcast TV is fine

 

[Jim99]

We dropped the land line in the house once our kids got cellphones. That must be over ten years now. No regrets here.

 

[ZJ68]

After getting a cell phone and cable internet I had no more use for it so I got rid of it. That was a very long time ago, haven't missed it.

 

[Fred D]

I haven't had a landline phone since 1997, but I do.so miss those old heavy duty land line phone from 40-50 years ago. Nothing felt better than being able to slam one of those phones down to hang up on someone!

 

[Contact_vs_Feedback]

We are still catching up here (India), mostly the cable is gone and replaced by D2H/ Satellite Television etc.

They are sub brands of major telecom players, so the ISP are providing Landline and Television packages.

Currently, we have broadband and Landline bundle and no Television Channel services, but family is demanding a Channel services to be added.

Our Government tried to play the ' for the people ' card, which in turn made the satellite channel services even costlier (2-3 times).

 

[Mr. Bonney]

We've decided to keep the landline as long as the phone company keeps the system alive. We also get our internet thru the LL. DSL is fast enough for my needs.
We have a pair of flip phones. It's a carry-over from when I ran my own business - now it's mainly just an emergency connection to 911 or the Mrs. I rarely text, and the internet function is not activated. Distractions are unwanted, especially when driving.
Broadcast TV is fine for a few shows (Last Man Standing, Tough as Nails, original Star Trek, etc.), and we opted years ago for movie rental over cable. We still have a 27 inch tube TV! (with a spare that a friend gave us), and we play DVD's from our ever-growing collection instead of cable.

Here's my low tech phone center. An old steel frame ATT Slimline phone with LCD ID box. Total cost: $6

 

[Boghopper]

I work for a cable company. It's mainly older people who hang on to their landlines. They think if the power goes out their phone will work. Not the case most of the time.
I haven't had a landline for years and I would get it for free.
Like others have said, it's cheaper to bundle all three products. Many people get it but never even hook phone up.

 

[RSC]

We have a Straight Talk home phone setup. Our landline phone looks and acts like any other landline phone, but it's wired to a box supplied by Straight Talk that connects wirelessly to the cell phone towers. I would get an ordinary landline phone for redundancy in case the cell phone network goes out, but the Straight Talk plan is $15 a month, and landline for us would be more than that. The Straight Talk box has a battery backup for when the power goes out, but I'm not sure how long it lasts.

TV is over the air, but sometimes we watch movies over our internet connection as long as we're not getting close to our data allowance.

I have a Tracfone cell phone for when I'm out and about that runs me about $7 a month, but it's almost always turned off.

 

[borwish]

My folks made me get a cell phone as part of being able to drive. The wife's parents supplied her with one when she started driving. We've never had a landline. The local phone book is probably 1/5 of what it was 20 years ago, so I guess the majority of people have dropped them.

Before I got married and was still living with my parents I repaired an old rotary phone of my grandparents and used it. I guess I've always had an affinity for vintage tech.

 

[TexLaw]

We still have ours. Every time we think about letting it go, we decide not to. I have too many memories of storms knocking out cellular towers, leaving folks with no way to communicate. It may seem like an expensive service (since we so rarely use it), but it's cheap insurance. We keep an old, corded phone around just in case.

 

[Vespasian]

The criminals that run my digital outreach programs control my cable, internet, and land-line. I tried once to drop my land-line, but they informed me that my bundle would cost me the same, land-line or not. Then the took away Turner Classic Movies, and want big bucks to install it again.

Ugh. But I am not a tech person. Everything works, and I don't have to think about it, except when I pay my bill.

 

[Go West Young Man]

My last landline was put in my house by my then company 2005-2008. My last personal land line was given up when I left Montreal in 2001.