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Author Topic: thinking about dropping landline phone and going entirely mobile  (Read 5183 times)

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soybean

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thinking about dropping landline phone and going entirely mobile
« on: December 06, 2016, 11:42:09 AM »
I've thinking about dropping my landline phone.  I've had a cell phone for many years but used a basic cell phone (voice and text) until Sep 2014, when I finally bought a smartphone and subscribed to a mobile account which included data (for internet access).  I imagine many folks go through the same transition of using their landline less and less over time.  And then, you start wondering whether you really need the landline. 

My interest service comes from my landline phone provider, which is CenturyLink, but they offer Internet-only plans now.  Dropping the landline phone part of my CenturyLink service would save me some money. 

On a side note: higher speeds are now available from them.  My current internet connection speed is 10Mbps, which was the highest available for some time.  But now, I can get 15, 20, or 25Mbps from Century Link.  Oddly, the increase in price over my current 10Mbps speed, is the same for all 3 of the those faster speeds, so 25Mbps seems the obvious choice if I decide to increase the speed. 

One of the issues, perhaps the main issue, regarding this decision is the loss of speedy 911 functionality that is inherent in landline phone service.  This relates to police and fire protection, and medical emergency.  I do not have a home security system but I'm not too concerned about that part of this potential change.  I have neighbors on all sides of me and the police department is only about 700 feet from my place.  Regarding medical emergencies, medical alert devices seem to be an option; this is not something I need now but something we all eventually may need.

   

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Re: thinking about dropping landline phone and going entirely mobile
« Reply #1 on: December 06, 2016, 01:21:12 PM »
Many people are disappointed with traditional landline telephone service. Here in the United States people often pay a base price of $25 a month for the landline telephone service.  That price does not include maintenance on the internal wiring of the house or place of business. It is up to the householder to purchase suitable telephones and to provide wiring inside the house or premises.
I gave up on my landline system because the service was not reliable. And whenever something went wrong and I would try to tell him that there's something wrong with their lines, they wanted to have a technician come out and make sure it was not my home wiring. That annoyed me to no end, the problem with their lines in the area was well known and they never did anything about it except just switch lines over. What they needed was to do a complete install of new cable in this neighborhood. But instead of doing that they were trying to get the customers to buy new service products which did not really improve the matter. I can imagine that many other people have had similar experiences and adjust become fed up with paying the local phone company for service that was not as good as it used to be.
Now about the alternatives. Cell phone service varies widely. In fact, some cell phone service is so terrible they should pay you to use it rather than charge you for service. Really. Some phone services work so poorly you would think that they were still inventing the telephone. So be very careful when you choose a cell phone provider.
To date, I have not found any cell phone service that I would highly recommend. I do hope you don't have as much trouble as I did trying to find one that is reasonably priced and reasonably reliable.

EDIT:
The 911 cell phone problem.
This is a really bad issue.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/when-911-operators-cant-find-their-callers/416730/
Quote
Five years ago, Jamie Barnett took his boss on a tour of a 911 call center in Fairfax, Virginia, a 20-mile drive from his office at the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C. At the time, Barnett was the chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, the division that oversees, among other things, the operation of the national emergency number. The purpose of the trip was to give the FCC’s then-chairman, Julius Genachowski, a firsthand look at a persistent problem with 911: The system couldn’t accurately trace the locations of emergency calls made from cellphones.
The problem still has not been resolved.  :(
« Last Edit: December 06, 2016, 01:40:06 PM by Geek-9pm »

soybean

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Re: thinking about dropping landline phone and going entirely mobile
« Reply #2 on: December 06, 2016, 02:18:18 PM »
Well, I was not implying in my post that I'm dissatisfied with CenturyLink's service.  Based on your description of your experience with a landline phone service in your area, I can say CenturyLink looks good in comparison.  The main point of my post was to discuss dropping landline phone service to save money. 

I've been using Boost Mobile as my cellular service provider.  It's low cost but does leave some points to be desired.  I began using Boost Mobile when I bought a smartphone from them in Sept 2015.  [I stated the wrong date for this in my initial post; it was Sept 2015, not 2014.]  Boost Mobile operates on T-Mobile's network.  I still have my old basic flip-cover cell phone I was using before buying the smartphone in Sept 2015.  And, I could get another cell/mobile # and a SIM card from T-Mobile and use the old cell phone as a backup in case I lost or broke my smartphone, and I could get this 2nd cell phone # with T-Mobile for as little as $3/mo; again, this would be standby phone and would normally not be used.  If I began using it beyond this standby purpose, I would soon exceed the $3/mo allowance and have to pay more.

Thanks for posting the link to the article.  It's a good history of 911 and a good reference on the issues around 911 calls from mobile phones.   

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Re: thinking about dropping landline phone and going entirely mobile
« Reply #3 on: December 06, 2016, 04:13:39 PM »
Glad to help, Soybean.

Here is a tip for any who ha veto provide home care for others.
Thee is a low-cost  landline service for  people on a low-income.  This might be a way to have a landline service for a very low cost.

Let's say you have an elderly uncle that stays in your house and he wooed qualify for the low-income phone service. The phone would be in his name and would serve his needs if he had to call 911 while you were no tat home.

My wife's uncle lives in a detached bedroom and they put in a lifeline phone for him. He pays just $7 a month. I think it varies from state-testate.

Every little bit helps.   :)

DaveLembke



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Re: thinking about dropping landline phone and going entirely mobile
« Reply #4 on: December 06, 2016, 04:32:30 PM »
I did away with landline about 9 years ago. Fairpoint was charging almost $70 a month just to have phone and I rarely used it. I did away with this and spent $80 on hardware go go VoIP with Vonage and have had them ever since. Initially it was a nice $14.95 a month but they hiked the rates up some and so spending $30 a month now for Vonage. I have been tempted to drop Vonage and just use my TracPhone which costs me just $19.99 every 3 months, but my wife calls her mom a lot and that would burn up the minutes. Additionally for 911 purposes I guess its nice to have the Vonage too as for sometimes cell signal is weak where I live. If I was able to though I would be tempted to save $360 a year dropping Vonage. With this i would then be able to go to a lower ISP tier too for Internet and save another $15 a month. Comcast has an all in one package for Internet, Cable, and Phone but it costs more than what i am paying now for everything as it is.

patio

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Re: thinking about dropping landline phone and going entirely mobile
« Reply #5 on: December 06, 2016, 04:37:06 PM »
Other than not having an exact location i'm not convinced the 911 Cell call nightmares really exist anymore...
" Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

Geek-9pm


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Re: thinking about dropping landline phone and going entirely mobile
« Reply #6 on: December 06, 2016, 05:14:23 PM »
Other than not having an exact location i'm not convinced the 911 Cell call nightmares really exist anymore...
You would think they would have it fixed.
But some decisions are made by middle managers who don't understand the whole picture. It is not enough for the 911 to be good, it has to be excellent.
Some relevant links for study:
http://www.55vi.com/
(About GPS tracking)

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2988518/technology-law-regulation/why-the-fcc-s-911-locating-mandate-was-a-colossal-failure.html
(About FCC)

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-track-a-cell-phone/
That say it is easy!
But why do we still get reports like this:
http://www.kare11.com/news/investigations/princes-death-highlights-911-failures/158481966
That story made national news. The 911 operator did not get the location from the phone. So the 911 operator could not dispatch help quickly.

A year earlier USA today did a bit about the problem.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/02/22/cellphone-911-lack-location-data/23570499/
Quote
Anderson, 31, was delivering newspapers near Atlanta around 4 a.m. that day in late December, so she knew the cross streets, even the ZIP code. She repeated her location over and over, but it didn't help. Because Anderson's call was routed through the nearest cellphone tower to a neighboring county's 911 system, the dispatcher couldn't find the streets on her maps. Worse yet, the system couldn't get a fix on the cellphone's location before the call ended.
Here is how it ended...
Quote
It took 20 minutes for rescuers to get to Anderson and pull the 31-year old suburban Atlanta woman from her car, barely alive. She died a week and a half later in the hospital. Her 911 call is one of millions that fail to give police, fire and ambulance dispatchers a quick fix on location, a technology shortfall that can leave callers like Anderson in grave danger.

So.....the USA report says it happens a lot. Not all cell phones give  the location.

Something to think about.



patio

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Re: thinking about dropping landline phone and going entirely mobile
« Reply #7 on: December 06, 2016, 05:51:24 PM »
It's estimated Prince was dead up to 2 hours before any call was made...landline woulda not brought him back to life...

Last story is over 2 years old...
" Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

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Re: thinking about dropping landline phone and going entirely mobile
« Reply #8 on: December 06, 2016, 07:29:21 PM »
Thee have been a number of stories this year of 911 cell phone failures. These are more often reported by regional radio and TV stations. Some of the more gripping are broadcast on national TV.
Here are a few of many regional stories:

KOAT is in Albuquerque, NM
http://www.koat.com/article/911-can-t-always-track-your-cell-phone-call/5072380

WHO is in Des Moines, Iowa
http://www.whio.com/news/calling-911-from-cell-phone-not-always-accurate/v5iaXWc9lfgZ9E4x0NAyiP/

ABC news from Chan 7 in Chicago
http://abc7chicago.com/news/widow-has-urgent-message-about-calling-911/1320110/
Quote
The night of her husband's death, Alison Vroome did everything she thought she was supposed to. She grabbed her phone, called 911 and told the operator her address.
Then she told it to her again and again.
Almost everything seemed to go wrong.

TV station in Florida.
http://www.wtsp.com/news/investigations/10-investigates-911-inability-to-track-cell-phone-location/242671916
Quote
10Investigates set up a test to see how well it works. We went to Sarasota near the spot where Lee was when she made the call.
When White made a call to 911 on a regular cell phone he asked the operator, “Can you tell me the address that popped up on your screen?”
The 911 operator replied, “It is coming up as T-Mobile wireless  at 5049 Trout Circle SW in North Port.”
That is the address of the cell tower 3 and a half miles awa

The stories keep coming in, but they only  get regional attention. The national news wants video with gore,  not a talking head.

The 911 cell phone issue has not gone away. It is still killing people.  :(


Image about 911 calling reports.

strollin



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Re: thinking about dropping landline phone and going entirely mobile
« Reply #9 on: December 07, 2016, 07:35:18 AM »
I gave up on my landline about 5-6 years ago.  Something happened with the wiring in my house and the phone company wanted a minimum of $75 to troubleshoot it.  My cell carrier, Verizon, offered a device they call "Home phone connect".  It's a cellular based device that allows you to plug in regular home phones to it and use it just like it was a landline.  It was free to get the device and costs us $9/month to use it.  We have a cordless phone system plugged into it so we can have extensions thru out the house.  It shares minutes with the other phones on our cellular account which isn't an issue for us. I was even able to port my landline number over to it so didn't need to inform anyone that we made the change.  For the $9/month we have features such as voicemail, long distance and caller ID which were all extra cost items on the landline.  It is plugged into a wall outlet but has an internal battery so will work even if the power goes out.  I have heard of people taking it with them when traveling in their RV.

It has 2 limitations that I can think of, one is the 911 issue and the other is FAX.  The 911 issue has been discussed already so I'll just mention the FAX issue which is that FAX machines don't work with it.  It hasn't been a problem since fewer and fewer businesses are using FAX nowadays.  For the 2 times a year I need to send a FAX, I just use an on-line FAX service.

soybean

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Re: thinking about dropping landline phone and going entirely mobile
« Reply #10 on: December 07, 2016, 11:02:21 AM »
I gave up on my landline about 5-6 years ago.  Something happened with the wiring in my house and the phone company wanted a minimum of $75 to troubleshoot it.  My cell carrier, Verizon, offered a device they call "Home phone connect".  It's a cellular based device that allows you to plug in regular home phones to it and use it just like it was a landline.  ...
That's interesting, strollin.  Never heard of it before.  I might take a look at Verizon but I presume I'd have to purchase a new smartphone and I was not anticipating doing that for quite some time yet.  So, a switch from my current cellular service provider would probably be postponed for awhile.  Also, I'm sure Verizon would cost substantially more than my current plan with Boost Mobile, and that higher cost might completely offset the savings I can get if I drop my landline.  On the other hand, I'm sure Verizon has better service than such budget services as Boost Mobile, Cricket Wireless, etc.  My son uses Verizon, so I'm a bit familiar with it.  So, a switch to Verizon might be change on the horizon.