neadods: (sherlock)
neadods ([personal profile] neadods) wrote2013-06-06 10:04 pm

Who has replaced their landline with a cell phone?

Who has replaced their landline with a cell phone? The rain has shorted my landline (again!) and I'm getting that much closer to just giving up on the service. I like the number... but then, I can port that to a cheap cell just to act as an answering machine.

[identity profile] stlscape.livejournal.com 2013-06-07 03:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Dissenting vote: I wouldn't dump the landline for anything. Every time we start seriously considering it, we lose power for an extended period (due to very bad weather/natural disasters). If we were dependent on cell service, we wouldn't be able to recharge them. (Also, one of our neighbours uses our landline to send her heart monitor report - she can't do it by cellphone - and my brother, when his power goes out, comes over to use our land line rather than use up all his cell minutes and battery on hold with the power company.)

Mind you, I'm only paying $100/year total for TracFone cellphone service, so my cell doesn't add much to my monthly expenses (and my unused minutes all carry over).

I've got a Skype VOIP number for my business, but haven't been thrilled with it. All too frequently I'm not happy with the transmission results - warped voices/voices cutting out/garbled to the point of unintelligibility. I've had to fall back to my house land line too many times.

[identity profile] neadods.livejournal.com 2013-06-09 02:08 pm (UTC)(link)
I had that 100-a-year service for ages, and sometimes miss it (having gone to 100 a month!) I'm not overly worried about power itself because I've got car chargers and backup batteries - enough to keep limping along for several days without house power.

But health reporting - that kind of thing is a good factor to keep in mind.