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This morning at 8:30 am my home phone rang. My suspicions were true. It was a telemarketer. Until recently, my husband and I hadn’t had a landline in about four years. With each call I wonder why I have a home phone, so today I’m exploring the pros and cons of having a landline.
1) Landlines have 911 tracing to your home which provides extra protection and security. This is a main reason why people with children have a landline. Some cell phone provide tracking.
2) You can call your cell phone when you misplace it. When I only had a cell phone I would search the house for my phone. There was no way to locate it.
3) Cell phones have limited coverage. The increase in cell phone towers is helping the coverage to get better, however, there are still many places with limited coverage. Some of my friends have told me that their cell phones do not work well in their homes.
4) The landline is an additional cost. This is certainly my biggest complaint of having a landline. I haven’t missed this extra expense each month. We have a package deal from the cable company, so it doesn’t seem as bad as once before.
5) Cell phones receive less telemarketing calls. In the last five years, I’ve received less than five telemarketing calls on my cell phone. Now that I have a landline, I’m receiving that many each week. With a landline, you can register your number with the Do Not Call Registry which cuts down on the number of call you receive.
What other advantages are there to having a landline?
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You left out the biggest issue of all: a cheap scanner from radio shack will allow anyone to listen into cell phone calls. If you are on a cell phone, the odds are 50-50 that *someone* is listening to you. So it isn’t safe to give out SSNs or credit card info over a cell phone. That can be VERY frustrating when you are trying to set up accounts with utility companies, banks, brokerages, etc., or when trying to pay for something you want to order.
That is by far the biggest problem with getting rid of a landline, IMNSHO.
Bonus tip about cell phones: you can text message yourself from your instant messaging service (aim, ichat, adium, etc). All you do is type “+(country code) (area code) (phone number)” without quotation marks or parentheses. If my cell number were 555 456 7890 and I lived in the U.S., I would text myself by starting a new im to +15554567890.
So long as you have sounds turned on for text messages, you can locate your lost cell phone without using another phone!
Anyone with a land line also needs to make sure that they have a corded phone along with any cordless phones in case the power goes out.
I will always have a land line. I like knowing that I can dial 911 and the police will know exactly where I am without me having to give them more information. What if you can’t talk? What if you’re running away from someone?
Paranoid? Maybe, but I’ll spend the $20 a month to soothe my conscious.
Also, I hate doing job interviews over a cell phone. You never know when a call might drop, and the reception can be spotty. And I agree with the previous commenter. I don’t want everyone calling me on my personal cell phone. Business stuff can go straight to the land line.
I keep one-when I sign up for something-a freebie or coupons, it always asks for a phone number. The land line is our “dump” number for that type of thing. We don’t answer the phone-we check it once a week or so-generally scan the numbers and delete and listen to the messages. Telemarketers leave very few messages. W also use this for voter registration-politicians leave lots of phone calls and we can delete without listening to all.