Death knell for landlines - RANT

[ovrszd]

I switched to Verizon Wireless Home phone and could not be happier!
It costs me $20. a month, I have caller ID, unlimited local and long distance plus other features that I don't use so I don't know what they are.
The REALLY COOL THING?
I can take the wireless box with me and have my home phone anywhere there is Verizon service! Vacation, anywhere!
The box has a battery back up and plugs into AC, can plug into your home wiring.

Please don't take this wrong. But,,, these discussions always get fuzzy.

So, you are telling me for $20 p/month you have unlimited cell phone use, Home Computer Internet access and can unplug and move anywhere you want with the same reliable service??

 

[TnAndy]

I switched to Verizon Wireless Home phone and could not be happier!
It costs me $20. a month, I have caller ID, unlimited local and long distance plus other features that I don't use so I don't know what they are.
The REALLY COOL THING?
I can take the wireless box with me and have my home phone anywhere there is Verizon service! Vacation, anywhere!
The box has a battery back up and plugs into AC, can plug into your home wiring.

Yep....we did the same for $25/mo after years of being bent over by Century Link for twice that a month for simple basic phone service.

We do still have DSL, a whopping 512k speed, for the bend over price of $61/mo with Century Link, but there are two wireless options getting ready to come to our area for $30/mo and 20mb speed. Can't wait to tell CL where they can stick their 'service'.

 

[DFB]

In his case there is no point it seems if the phone goes out with the power. Why have the added cost of battery backup.

About the only reason I still have landline (besides being old ) is twofold...mainly if there is a electrical power outage along with really bad weather storm the phone line has almost always continued to be active and also for when there is no available cell service either for those same reasons or some other.

Like when the tower went down in windstorm last winter.

Secondly the rip off communications company has the internet option also (unless your attached with satellite) and you "save" if you bundle. I tried to cancel the phone once and they said I would be charged more for the stand alone internet which would have been approximately the same as I pay WITH the phone. :confused2:

Just a side note we actually had dialup service as recently as two years ago and I easily remember this because my 2 year special rate introductory internet pricing since inception expired last month and they renewed it for a single year at the same rate, but charged a one time $10.00 installation and activation fee as part of the renewal. And the "savings" is supposedly a waived (by them) continued monthly activation fee charge of the additional $10 for the duration of the contract.

What a rip...but its still better than the 3 way cable bundle costs others have inside the city limits. I ain't paying for for no TV

 

[newbury]

Why do you have a landline?

Because over the years around here we would get power outages and cell phone outages, but the landline always worked.

 

[TnAndy]

Please don't take this wrong. But,,, these discussions always get fuzzy.

So, you are telling me for $20 p/month you have unlimited cell phone use, Home Computer Internet access and can unplug and move anywhere you want with the same reliable service??

Two out of three......

Home phone use, NOT internet (unless you had a dial up account with some ISP). And yes, you can take the small box with you anywhere you get Verizon service, but you have to have a phone to plug into the box. It's not 'cell phone' as such, though the box does use cell service from Verizon to your home phone. Instead of plugging your home phone into a phone company wall jack, you simply plug it into the box. We use a 'base unit' into the Box, with multiple cordless units that connect to the base unit (a completely separate phone unit)

The Verizon box normally plugs into a 120v outlet with a 'wall wart', but it has a small internal battery that allows you to still use your phone (if your phone doesn't need power, most do now) if the power is out, or take it on the road with you. I'm thinking it was good for 8hrs if I recall right.

Verizon also makes a wireless home internet box, but while the home phone box WOULD work for us here ( I suspect it is a higher watt unit and even then we usually get one or two 'bars' out of a potential three), the internet unit would NOT work here....we tried it, and returned it, they have a 15 day trial free here. PLUS you have pretty serious data limits, just like any cell phone plan.

The Verizon box works for us....cut our costs in half, and better service. The POTS system (Plain Old Telephone Service) copper lines are shot in our area...lot of static, down time, etc....which is WHY we can only get 512k internet over the DSL part of it.

Century Link has seen the handwriting on the wall, and will not spend a dime to upgrade their lines/equipment.....they know the whole world is going wireless.

 

[JBourquin]

As far as I know we are. So,,,, you are saying your landline company allowed you to cancel your landline and still provide you with Internet service for $30 p/month??? Cell phones have NOTHING to do with your landline. They function off towers.

Yes, I know how a cell phone works.. And yes, I have Internet service(DSL) through frontier with no landline phone for 29.99 a month. Not the fastest service but it's the only option we have unless we want to go with satellite (with caps on data). No cable down this road, and not likely anytime in the near future.

 

[oosik]

Hmmm - been here 34 years and never had landline service. When we move here in '82 the phone company wanted $25,000 to run the land line in to the house. They would only run the phone line buried and the mile long run is a little over 3/4 solid bedrock. Joyous times - no phone for two years until the wife learned about the Motorola bag phone. I now have a cell phone that sometimes gets reception plus satellite internet and satellite TV. I try to remember to turn the cell phone on every evening and see if anybody left a voice message that I might want to return. Life is good.

 

[newbury]

<snip> I try to remember to turn the cell phone on every evening and see if anybody left a voice message that I might want to return. Life is good.

After getting a bunch of spanish spam phone calls that I couldn't understand (my phone has no way to block numbers) I turned off the voice mail and directed the spam to voice mail.
If people need to contact me email is best.

 

[japody]

Two out of three......

Home phone use, NOT internet (unless you had a dial up account with some ISP). And yes, you can take the small box with you anywhere you get Verizon service, but you have to have a phone to plug into the box. It's not 'cell phone' as such, though the box does use cell service from Verizon to your home phone. Instead of plugging your home phone into a phone company wall jack, you simply plug it into the box. We use a 'base unit' into the Box, with multiple cordless units that connect to the base unit (a completely separate phone unit)

The Verizon box normally plugs into a 120v outlet with a 'wall wart', but it has a small internal battery that allows you to still use your phone (if your phone doesn't need power, most do now) if the power is out, or take it on the road with you. I'm thinking it was good for 8hrs if I recall right.

Verizon also makes a wireless home internet box, but while the home phone box WOULD work for us here ( I suspect it is a higher watt unit and even then we usually get one or two 'bars' out of a potential three), the internet unit would NOT work here....we tried it, and returned it, they have a 15 day trial free here. PLUS you have pretty serious data limits, just like any cell phone plan.

The Verizon box works for us....cut our costs in half, and better service. The POTS system (Plain Old Telephone Service) copper lines are shot in our area...lot of static, down time, etc....which is WHY we can only get 512k internet over the DSL part of it.

Century Link has seen the handwriting on the wall, and will not spend a dime to upgrade their lines/equipment.....they know the whole world is going wireless.

I've got the same deal through Straight Talk for $15/month. I had to buy the box. It sells for $69 at Wally World but, I went on the Straight Talk site and got a refurbished one for $9.95. Works great. After 29 years the Verizon bill had risen to $92/month. Biggest joy was telling Verizon to stuff it!

 

[grsthegreat]

We got rid of our landline 5 years ago. Never missed it. At same time i got rid of my satellite tv.

We do stream netflix over internet, as i have a microwave style internet provider.

Except for the 2-3 times a year ive had to go to staples to send a fax, ive not missed either.

My wife worked for the phone company so we got real cheap service .... After employee discounts. But after they shut down her center, our phone bill went from a few bucks to nearly $120/month. I cancelled the same day the first bill arrived.

All i ever got were telemarketers on that thing anyways.

I have verizon wireless with unlimited text and phone calls. Again, who needs landlines.