Rural Living- Landline or Cell or Both

hilld · Oct 30, 2009

Just got rid of our land line phone service, we still have the land line for DSL purposes. I tried going with Clear WiMax, but we are 1.75 miles from the tower and the signal is only 1 out of 5 bars, so they wouldn't sell us the service. We even got rid of our business line and moved that to a cell phone as well about a year ago. The only problem with had was in our all metal business building, as soon as you walked through the door, the signal went from strong to nothing, solution was to install a bi-directional antenna/repeater and that solved the issue.

Derek

moeh1 · Oct 30, 2009

I've had one of the dock and talk units for 4 or 5 years. Seems better on Bluetooth now that my phone has that. I also have an outside external antenna as we have weak cell service. Not quite as clear as landline but no extra charges either.

forgeblast · Oct 30, 2009

We are on the low side of a hill, which means no cell reciption, or we would have canned the land line a long time ago.
We do finally have dsl, and went with the unlimited long distance calling because everything is long distance from us. I think its about 95 a month, with unlimited calling and dsl.

Erik_in_Hoyt · Oct 30, 2009

due to poor cell reception - and the need by our alarm service for a land line, we have both. (we also have dialup and 3g wireless internet)

tallyho8 · Oct 30, 2009

woodchuckie said:
Keeping the land line because of DSL and weak signal on the cell. I have the cell calls forwarded to the land line after 10 seconds and just talk on the land line.

Just curious, when your cell calls are forwarded to your land line, does it still use your cell minutes while you talk or while it is being forwarded?

602466 · Oct 30, 2009

I dropped my land line and went with Magic Jack. It cost 19.95 a year and uses your computer and Interent. Now, I know you all have access to both of these. Sound quality is great and have not had a problem with the service for 2 years now. I was able to use my old phone to boot. Check it out, you can't go wrong at this price!

Thanks,

Wally

chh · Oct 30, 2009

Cell phone only. When we built our house the phone company quoted $10,000

to lay lines to the house. Right after making the switch we got a new tower in the area taking us from decent reception to great reception

. The downside was moving from DSL to Hughes

for internet service.

Mark_in_NH · Oct 30, 2009

I still have both Cell phones and the land line.
Due to business reasons, I have to keep the land line for the fax machine. I monitor a water system pump station whose internal computer sends me a daily fax of system status and the occasional alarm fax when there is a problem. The land line is also the number used for business advertising, billing statements, business cards etc.
If it weren't for those reasons, I would switch from DSL to cable internet and ditch the land line.

jinjimbob · Oct 30, 2009

If you have a cell signal, I wouldn't think you are living anywhere rural.

I have to power off my phone so the battery doesn't go flat from searching for no signal.
No ATT/Verizon/Sprint/TMobile here.

jayste · Oct 30, 2009

jinjimbob said:
If you have a cell signal, I wouldn't think you are living anywhere rural.

I have to power off my phone so the battery doesn't go flat from searching for no signal.
No ATT/Verizon/Sprint/TMobile here.

That used to be true here but in the last 10-12 yrs cell towers have popped up everywhere. I'm pretty rural I'm six miles from a hard surface road, in the sticks on a high river bank!

Jay