Dump the Land Line…?
Dumping the land line and relying only on a cell phone for your main form of communication seems to be a trend these days. My sister and her husband do this. They don’t have any problems. Why am I having such a hard time with this decision? There are a few reasons, but I am not sure that they are good enough to continue to pay for a land line.
The first reason why I have not canceled the land line is because we currently pay only about $16.95 per month through our cable company and this includes long distance. It’s a promotional rate, however. When it expires in the next year(and I’m not exactly sure which month this is going to happen) the price will go up to $39.95. Perhaps then I’ll feel better about canceling it. The other thing I am worried about is that we get a bundled rate for internet, cable and phone. What will happen if I cancel the phone and go back to basic cable for $15 per month? I’ve been wanting to do this with the cable for awhile now. The Disney Channel is driving me crazy!
What about all of my contact information for work and school? I suppose this is a lazy excuse. It shouldn’t take that much time to update my phone number. I am also worried that if there was some kind of emergency and I was unable to charge my phone if the electricity was out, how would anyone get in touch with me? That may be a legitimate concern.
Supposedly it is now alright to dial 911 from a cell phone and if you are unable to talk, many metro police departments can pinpoint your location from cell towers. That makes me feel a little better.
There are also some alternatives to land lines… Does anyone out there have any experience with Ooma? There are some up front costs, but it allows you to make free phone calls using your high-speed internet service. I’m curious about this – leave a comment if you know anything about it! Vonage is about $24.99 per month and it also uses your internet service. I know that a lot of people use Skype to communicate as well. Skype offers a “pay as you go” plan as well as a monthly plan.
Truthfully, this all seems too complicated to me. I think I’d rather just eventually cut the land line and rely on our cell phones – currently everyone in our house (except our 8 year old) has one. Now all I have to do is call the cable company to figure out when our phone rate will go up and then I’ll know when it’ll be time to dump the land line. Do you have a land line? Do you regret not having one? Tell us about it!
Google ‘Magic Jack’
sounds like a good deal, I’ve heard good reviews of it. but I’m not sure if you can take your number with you, that’s something you’d have to look up
I saw the commercial for it. If it’s really any good, the marketing is all wrong. It looks like just more junk. I just checked out different reviews and they seemed to be really mixed. The magicjack website was obviously out of date. In the FAQ under choosing your own phone number, it said that that feature would be available in 2009.
Here’s a fairly good site that has a balanced review: http://thecoffeedesk.com/news/index.php/2009/05/29/magicjack-review/
For $20 a year it may be worth it to just try, though according to the review they have a suspicious privacy policy with regard to collecting information and advertisements.
If anything it might cause the big companies to lower their prices to stay competitive.
Jenny and I dropped our landline and haven’t missed it a bit. Now, to be honest, we thought our kids were nuts when they all did this. But after we moved to Beavercreek, we had to sign up with Beavercreek’s telephone company and the only free numbers are those in, well, BC. So we couldn’t call Oregon City unless we were willing to pay EXTRA for long distance service. Which is, well, free on our cell phones. So the minute BCT agreed to set us free we went. The best part, besides the $40 a month we’re saving, is that we have not had a single telemarketing call in the past six months!
All wires got snapped on my street when a tree came down on them last week. Still no sound of a Verizon truck to get it back up. Promises, yes…results, no. I’m thinking of dumping my land line and just going with the cell phone. If you need it, Verizon is really slow at getting service back.