How big is your phone book??

[Gary Fowler]

We ditched our land line many years ago as well. :thumbsup:

Other than satellite, phone company is the only way to get a decent speed of internet. We tried the mobile cards and not enough signal, looked at satellite and they had limited data at the time, so it was no choice. Had to get a land line phone in order to get their internet service, so we have our landline that folks occasionally use, usually my sister in law calling from 200 yard away or a computer calling BS advertisement which we ignore if we don't recognize the number. We too had the rotary dial party line and was a PIA to use as almost always someone was on the line or interrupting you when you were on the line and BUSY BODIES, we had them. I used to just start talking dirty sex talk on the phone when I heard one of the old "biddies" start listening in just to embarrass them (maybe thrilled them who knows) We had a 10 party line at one time that was later reduced to 2 party so when we had the 10 party it was impossible to know who actually picked up, but we suspected certain ones and would even call out a name with "I guess that nosy old Mrs. XXXXX picked up again to catch up on the gossip" sometimes they would immediately hang up then.
Now with the unlimited calling on the cell and Skype calls my wife keeps in touch Worldwide for just a few bucks a month. I can remember looking at the long distance charges for just a few minutes per week calling the parents and it would be way over $100 per month. I sure would hate to have to pay the wifes long distance bill today what with her kids being all over the USA and friends all over the World that she talks to at least weekly.

 

[Western]

Our phone book (still get them even though we have no land line connected anymore) Is maybe an 1" thick, covers 4-5 small towns outside Ft Worth. Like you said, half of it is Yellow pages and that is the portion I still use at times.

As far as "party lines" I remember them very well, IIRC, the last time I knew of one was at my grandfathers farm we lived on in Arkansas.

 

[k0ua]

On;ly time I use one is when the power goes out to find the emergency outage #. Cant use the internet and laptop without power (well laptop works for a few hours but without wifi and modem it wont?)

Get a healthy UPS to run your Lan components (wifi and/or /dsL/cable modem, data switches) as little power as most of these devices use it would not take a really large one, then you are good for a few hours, which might get you thru a lot of power outages. But it does at least give you lots of time to get your generator started. Some UPS's don't like the nasty waveform that comes out of some generators, but I know most of the APC brand can be programmed to ignore the lousy power and go ahead and go back to standby mode and continue to charge their batteries. You just cant be offline these days Now you can go ahead and ditch that paper phone book Actually having a land line and a paper book as backup is not that bad of an idea.

James K0UA

 

[jinman]

As Gary Fowler mentioned, our phone line provides us with DSL. Recently, they sent me an offer to upgrade to a 10 Mbyte/sec service instead of just 3 Mbyte/sec. I called the phone company and found out that the offer was in error, the fastest speed they could offer was 4 Mbyte/sec. They wanted another $10 per month for 1 Mbyte/sec increase. I told the lady no thanks. Then, she went into a sales pitch for computer maintenance and security software. I told her no thanks. Every time I told her no, she upped the pressure to the point that she would challenge everything I said. All of a sudden I understood what they were trying to do. I didn't like her questions and routine and told her she needed to save that pitch for somebody who she could intimidate. I told her I was the customer and very offended by her attitude to the point that I'd be cancelling my service if they weren't the only phone company in this area. I just could not believe how pushy and offensive she was. She's the only representative I've ever had who acted like that. It made me wonder if the pressure to sell is being ramped up by a company struggling to continue in business?

I recently upgraded my DishNetwork to the Hopper and Joey configuration. The Hopper now attaches directly to your ethernet or wifi network. You no longer need a phone line if you have the internet. Of course, our DSL is through the phone line, so we are still tethered to the antique land line.

EDIT: Does anyone remember how you used to call other people who were on your party line? Since the phone line was shared, it wasn't like calling someone on another line. If I remember correctly, we dialed the last four digits of their number and then held the button down on the phone. Your phone would ring as well as the phone you were calling, but at a faster rate. When the phone stopped ringing, it meant the other person on your phone line had picked up and you released the button to talk to them. I could have this mixed up a bit, but that's how I remember using our party line back in the '50s.

 

[boggen]

at times give up on looking up number on computer. all the freaking ads. and then resorting the order and showing crud that is 200 plus miles from me. when i only want to know something locally.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

My dad lives on an island off the coast of Maine. He became locally famous when he was the first person in town to get a touch-tone phone. When he plugged it in he knocked out phone service to the entire island for a few days. That was about 25 years ago.

 

[MasseyWV]

Other than satellite, phone company is the only way to get a decent speed of internet.

We had the same problem and kept our land-line for the same reason, only in our case DSL was unavailable so we were stuck with dial-up until cable internet became available. After that, the land-line was history.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Iif we needed to contact our party line partner we just picked up the receiver. she was always on the phone. we always had to ask her to get off so we could make a call.

 

[herd0ne]

9x6 just under 1/2 inch thick. 286 pages total pages.



I remember in the 70's and early 80's my grandparents had a party line. Us kids would always get on there and listen to the neighbors.

 

[Oaktree]

Point well taken-- and I'm the first to admit that I typically just tap a few keys to find info these days. However there's still a significant portion of the US population that is not "connected" and that do still use the phone book. A number of them who I know personally are friends and neighbors of mine.

Good post, frankly I am a little surprised at the percentage of people not connected.

Define "connected". I (obviously) have internet access, but no cell phone or other "mobile device". Turn on the computer when I want/need to use it, then shut it down. Makes no sense to me to leave it up & running 24/7.

I'll look up a number on line if I think of it, otherwise I'll use the phonebook.

at times give up on looking up number on computer. all the freaking ads. and then resorting the order and showing crud that is 200 plus miles from me. when i only want to know something locally.

Very true. I have not found an on-line equivalent of the yellow pages that is worth squat. Too many non-local businesses, but lots of locals missing. What small business has the $ to advertise in all of them?
If you know the name of the business (or if they have a website) it's a lot easier to find them online.