Wireless vs. Landline

[sunny]

Okay, I am seriously thinking about dropping my land line completely, and just have my cell phone. Will save me like $50 a month. I am rarely home anyway. But I am a creature of habit, and having had my landline for over 20 years, am having a little difficulty in saying 100% that I WANT to do this. What are the pro's and con's of doing this?

[george_r_1961]

I havent had a landline in nearly 2 years. For about $40 a month I get all the minutes I can possibly use on my wireless phone, plus unlimited nites and weekends. Free voice mail, 3 way calling, and call waiting. Free long distance. Plus when u dont want the ^&^%$ thing to ring u just turn it off. Going on a trip and need to stay in touch with family or friends? Many wireless phones work just about anywhere. All they have to do is call your number. No long distance calls to hotel rooms.

The only "con" I can think of is if u are home and you call 911 and for some reason cannot speak due to illness or just sheer panic. In the latter case give your address FIRST as soon as the operator comes online. If the connection is lost after u give your address police will be be priority dispatched to your home to assist u. If you call from a landline your address pops up on the operators screen. If you have health issues and are frequently homebound I would strongly suggest u have a landline. Ditto if u have children in the house whether they have their own cell phones or not. Just get the basic service with no frills.

[LAwxrgal]

I think cell phones are going to replace landline phones completely in 10 to 15 years. JMO

[coriolis]

I'm keeping my land line. I only give out my cell phone number to people that I really want to talk to. I give the number for the land line for things like utility companies, mail order, etc. I'm not going to waste my minutes on all those calls.

I like the idea of having alternate methods of communication. One day a couple of months ago, the battery in my cell phone died, our land line was malfunctioning because the dog chewed the wire, but my wife could still reach me at work by email. I would never allow myself to become completely dependent on one communicator.

[azsnowman]

I too, like Ed, enjoy the security of a back up plan. When we had the big fire 4 years ago, you COULD NOT get out on a cell phone because "Please try your call again, all circuits are busy!".....and if you forget to charge your cell phone your just SOL. Yeah, it'll save the money BUT...in case of an emergency, there's nothing like having a back up plan!

[MGC]

Sunny, that all depends if you are a heavy phone talker. If you are you would be surprised at the amount of time you spend on the phone when you consider the minutes used. We tried going without a landline a few years ago but went back because of the high cell bill......MGC

[angelwing]

I'll never give up my landline, the way the power goes out around here, its the only thing that works in an emergency, I have an old fashioned phone that I plug in and use that since you don't need electricity for it and when my hubby went down and we had no power and I had to call 911, it was a lifesaver.
I have a cell phone but its only for emergency calls for me in case I ever break down since I drive 118 miles a day and the only person that has my cell phone number is my hubby, no one else does. Its a pay as you go phone so its enough for us.

[sunny]

Sunny, that all depends if you are a heavy phone talker. If you are you would be surprised at the amount of time you spend on the phone when you consider the minutes used. We tried going without a landline a few years ago but went back because of the high cell bill......MGC

I really am not a heavy phone talker. I've really been paying attention, and 4 out of 5 calls I get are on my cell. Other than that, at work. I've been adding this up in my head and going WHOA!!! I do have 2,500 minutes per month on my cell, free long distance......

[Miss Mary]

We've actually discussed this very dilemma. We have a landline right now, fast speed with our landline phone bill and Satellite TV. My husband likes to get me going by saying - we could get rid of the landline, the fast speed hookup, the Satellite TV and go with cable, for everything. We'd save money and then I could go back to having any TV in this house, if it's cable ready or has a VCR hooked up, to have cable TV again. Turn on any TV and we'd have many channels to choose from. Sat. charges you for each TV. It's cheap if you want one TV hooked up but they get you b/c you find that you want several TV's with all those channels. Long story short, he doesn't want to give up Satellite TV. Claiming it's a better option.

If it were up to me I'd go back to cable in a heartbeat. Our power goes out so infreuqently, I wouldn't mind not having a landline. I could give that up.

Still we sit with what we have though.....lol.