Where does residential phone go?

8/13/2010 1:53 AM EDT

Depending upon you and your family usage patterns, a home land line phone can be cheaper to use. So if saving $$ is a factor, consider keeping the home phone.

Furthermore, land lines are in general more reliable than cell phone connections in almost all conditions. The phone company supplies its own power source allowing any corded phone to work.

In cases where you may fall ill or get hurt, if you can get to your (or any) land line and dial 911, you can be easily located even if you cannot talk since the 911 operators know the physical address of the phone. If you have a cell phone, even with strong signals in every part of your house, the location is a GPS co-ordinate accurate between 50 and 300 meters, not a physical address. Multi-storied apartments would present a harder task to find you, since there would be no floor or apartment info to go by.

So for security I will always have a corded phone in my house. Services for the elderly such as Life Alert also require a corded phone.

Will I also always have a cell phone? You betcha!

8/13/2010 9:06 AM EDT

I actually had to make this choice recently. When my daughter got a new job, she found the company provided cell phones to all employees to use for business and personal at no cost to the employee. So one line of our family-share line was not going to be used. Instead of paying the ugly "early-termination fee", I decided to port my land-line number to this line, thus solving the "extra line" problem, and eliminating my monthly Qwest and AT&T land line bill. The only compromise I had to make was with a home-based fax system, which requires a land line. This was solved using a "virtual fax company". I have to admit that it was difficult to give up the land line, and if circumstances would not have forced me into the decision, I likely would still be paying my monthly land line bill.

8/15/2010 7:01 PM EDT

Yes its a common thinking that a home phone is something extra on the monthly bills. But I think the home phone will always stay. I think your cell phone can dies on you but home phone will never. In many countries home phone bills are considered as address proofs.

8/16/2010 7:16 AM EDT

It is your home phone by which somebody can trace you, get your address and contact you as the phone directory is published only for these land lines. Some of my old friends have been able to contact me after many years only because I have this ubiquitous apparatus whose number has not changed for more than 20 years.

No attempt has been made to publish a directory of mobile phones in any country. and with mobile , so many companies offer so many attractive plans every month here in India that you are not likely to keep the same mobile number over time.
This will of course change when number portability option will be available.

8/16/2010 8:39 AM EDT

In the States, you can transfer the land-line phone number you may have had for 20 years to a cell phone, which makes the transition much easier. Most cell plans include local and long distance service, which duplicates the land-line and extra long-distance carriers. Another case of overlapping functionality.

8/16/2010 9:07 AM EDT

I ditched my landline phone shortly after "portability" was allowed (that's been ~7 years ago?). It took [local carrier] over a year to finally port my landline number to my cellphone! I've never looked back, never had problems with my cellphone where a landline would have been more beneficial, and never switching back to [local carrier] for anything.

8/16/2010 1:46 PM EDT

As much as we all love our cell phones, there is a certain feeling of security in keeping that old land line phone that always just works. Most of our phones are cordless, but I keep one corded phone too -- it's the only phone that still works when the power goes out!

8/24/2010 11:56 AM EDT

If you live in an area where the cell providers service is good there's little reason to have both a cell and a land line. I've always felt that someone should offer a base unit (perhaps bluetooh enabled) into which you could drop your cellphone and it would drive all the wired phones in your home.

8/24/2010 4:24 PM EDT

Our landline is for the family. To call the family or the home, there is one number, and you can hear the ring anywhere in the house. The alternative is to cycle through each of four cell numbers to get one of us. Cell numbers are not group or location based.

Landline voice quality is better. I have poor hearing, and a landline call is always more intelligible.

I agree with the power outage advantage. Not all cell towers have power backup.

We have both cell and landline, and will continue to have both.

8/24/2010 4:37 PM EDT

I dropped our copper service in the spring and moved to a self administered VoIP system over Verizon FiOS. Cell coverage is just too unreliable in our home, to be without something other than cell service. Additionally, I find a regular phone has a much better ergonomic feel and better sound that's welcome on extended calls. A dialpad apart from the handset is mighty nice, too. I expect that home phones will be with us for quite a while.