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Weekend Open Forum: Do you still have a landline at home?
You might've laughed at that question as recent as a decade ago, but between expanding cellular coverage and affordable VoIP services, conventional landlines are increasingly redundant. I haven't had a wired phone in five years or so and I only know a few people who do -- at home anyway.
I acknowledge that fixed lines still offer an advantage in reliability and quality, making them ideal for businesses. But do you still have one for personal calls? If so, do you use it regularly or is it just bundled with your cable/Internet package and worth the few bucks a month to you as a backup?
**Phone pic via photofun/ShutterStock
User Comments: 57
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I still have a landline, although I don't tend to use it much. I can't stand my utility suppliers and other company's like TV Licensing ringing my mobile phone, so they all have my landline, and never get my mobile number, despite continually trying to do so.
I'm with Virgin Media here in the UK, using fibre-optic broadband. I think the difference between having a landline and not having one is like £2-3 a month when you take out broadband, so not too bothered really. I also have a HD TV box from them as well, which costs me nothing monthly, gives me all the freeview channels (plus a few more) and catch up and on-demand TV for nothing extra. Saves on a digital aerial, and the whole digital switch-over rubbish our country is phasing in right now.
If it was costing me more money I'd consider Skype and getting a landline number through them, but a couple of quid a month to have a landline really isn't all that bad. We also suffer a lot with 0845 (lets screw you loads on a mobile) numbers here in the UK, so having a landline for those alone makes sense - your talking ££'s to ring them from my mobile as its not included in the inclusive minutes.
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My broadband package includes a landline, and I use it pretty frequently since local landline calls are free.
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Yup have one but i access internet through it, one the most affordable & fastest broadband around here, even without internet the phone would still be there.
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hells yes we have a landline...mobiles are for individuals...but if u want to contact a family, landlines are still the way to go. + my dad gets free landline service from his office, so why not :P ?
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spikester48661 said:
hope got cell and web.
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Got rid of mine in somewhere around 2005.
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I have a landline purely for Internet access, with no telephones plugged in. Living in the rural UK with only a 2G cellular signal, it's literally the only option, but I look forward to ditching it as soon as it becomes possible to do so.
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I very rearly talk on phones in general. Txt msg works great, No I dont have a landline and im forced to buy 200 talk mins on my cell phone package that i think on average i use 20mins of that per month and thats only because im paying for it.
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hells yes we have a landline...mobiles are for individuals...but if u want to contact a family, landlines are still the way to go. + my dad gets free landline service from his office, so why not :p ?
Skype and its free
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It come bundled with broadband so yes we do. Like others who can't get Virgin's 'heavenly' cable, I have no choice in having it.
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Staff
In Sweden it's actually less expensive to have a landline phone if you want DSL.
Otherwise you have to pay a kind of penalty fee if you want it without the landline... Very strange indeed!
Thankfully I have a 100/100 fibre connection and no copper based landline at all
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Yes - and use it quite often - its more reliable and cheaper than using the mobile as in the UK the "national" and "local" numbers - often do not have an alternative (I know about saynoto0870.com that lists 0800,0870, 0845 and 0844 alternatives) and the line quality is poor.
As to Broadband - am getting a reliable 30mb service (download) 2mb upload, but the "fair usage" policy is reasonable, and when it cuts in - then for 5 hours the download is 15mb
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not since 2008!
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I will always have a landline(vonage for me), I had a Cell Phone for a short time but was getting calls every damn minute,and always about stupid "stuff" that I felt was disrespectful of my time. Now the crap calls are gone and people are forced to leave messages at home where they belong.
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I still have a phone in my house but it's VoIP from my cable company.
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LNCPapa said:
I've still got one... though I'm not sure why.
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No. Not for over a decade.
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Oh hell no - I haven't had a landline in over 10 years and don't visualize a situation where I'll ever need one again.
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we dropped our land line when we realized that we're getting more telemarketers calling than legit ppl. legit ppl call us on our cell phones.
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I have a land line only because it is included in my Verizon FIOS package. It is largely unused because most calls come/go by our cell phones.
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Nope. Just cell phones and Vonage. The only reason I keep Vonage is to keep the phone number I've had for 20 years because I still get occasional calls from old friends now and again on it..
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When I worked for US West/Qwest/CenturyLink I would advise people to keep their landlines for 911 use only. Now that cellphones are more reliable than ever and emergency services can triangulate the phone's position, I think landlines are only useful for DSL. I got rid of my landline almost two years ago and have not looked back.
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Yep. I actually don't have a cell phone yet, though I'm planning on getting one soon.
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Yeah, i still have one because here in india; bsnl is one of the best broadband service provider and to get their bb you need to have their landline.
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I think my old fashioned phone, which if I remember was mounted to the wall was dumped back in 1998. Back when good ole Pacific Bell was king in Sacramento, they've gone "belly up" since, probably bought out by AT&T!
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Unfortunately in a lot of countries in the world, you either need a landline to get internet or it's cheaper to get the combined package. Having lived in UK, Brazil and UAE I can say that UK and Brazil require phone lines; UAE makes it cheaper to have one. I even ended up getting screwed by my phone company in Brazil because I went for the cheapest phone package and they subtly tried to give me a more expensive one until I complained to the regulator. Here in Dubai VOIP is blocked so you can either use an illegal VPN to make foreign calls or deal with internet only calls. It's all still a bit of a challenge - bring on the revolution
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