Do You Have a Landline?

Do you have a house phone? A landline? A phone that when no one is home it goes to … what is that thing called … oh, an answering machine?

Seems like landlines are getting to be a thing of the past, so when we moved into our new home last year I asked around to others to find out if keeping a home phone was necessary.

As with most topics, I had answers all over the spectrum and my friends were about half and half with those who chose to keep their home phone and those who chose to have it cut off and only use a cell phone. I posted the question on Facebook as well, which gave me some great insight. (I posted those responses at the end of this blog.)

In the end, we chose to keep our landline and I am so glad we did!  We have lived in our new house for 11 months now and I have not regretted purchasing our bundle package. The number one reason I am thankful for our landline is that my children are 8 and 10 and they do not own their own cell phones, yet they are old enough to make a phone call. When we moved into our new neighborhood, they came across a bunch of kids their ages to play with. The friends are spread out on different streets, so some are a quick hop across the road, while others are at the other end of the neighborhood. The phone rings every afternoon and every weekend with a child on the other end asking if my kids can come down to play kickball or to meet at the fort in thirty minutes. My kids are calling others as well to round up games of capture the flag in the backyard, ask what their homework might be, or invite them over for a sleepover. All of these phone calls would be made on my personal cell phone if we did not have the home phone. Not what I would enjoy, that is for sure.

I also like the fact that when I purchase something, or am asked for a phone number from someone other than a friend, I can list my home phone number to guarantee that I will not get any solicitors on my cell phone. All political calls, sales pitches, etc go to my landline. If it is important, they leave a message. If not, I never know they called.

How about you? Do you have a landline? Why or why not? For some additional food for thought, here is the stream of Facebook comments from my post last year. I tried to delete the ones that were repetitive. They definitely helped me and I hope they help you make a decision as well if you have been contemplating!

My post: We will be moving into our new house next week and we are trying to figure out whether or not to keep our home phone. Would love some pros/cons from those of you who chose to disconnect your land line and only use cell phones!
– We haven’t had a land line phone in 3 years. I haven’t run into any issues. The only thing I can think of is if you have a security system most of the time you will need a land line or you will pay extra for cell back up. I don’t think I would ever pay for a “home” phone again.
– We keep it for emergencies. My cell could be anywhere, the land line is always in the same place. My girls know to pick up & call 911 if they need to. I guess once they get older, we will probably do away with it.
– We’ve had a google voice number for almost 2 years. We paid $40 for a bridge so that we could still use our handsets. I wasn’t quite ready to dump the home phone (ie get all my kids cell phones) but refused to pay money for a traditional or VOIP line
– My husband has tried to convince me for years to get rid of our landline, but I just cant. Its security for me, for all the reasons mentioned above- small children, address register, 911, and cell never being in the same place twice!
– We have cell phones. And even when I lost my cell, I just used Skype to call my husband. And I agree you never miss a call. People can get you wherever and whenever.
– I keep it for all the reasons above. The kids don’t have phones and if I leave them for a few minutes, they can get me. Also need it for security system.
– Internet phone is the way to go
– Can depend on how good your cell phone service is in your home. When we didn’t have problems we never used a landline but now that we have service issues we are about to get it connected again!!!
– We kept our home phone # through Verizon when we purchased a router to connect to our home phones. It’s very little on our cell phone plan and we have unlimited calling. It allowed me to keep my home phone number that I’ve had for 12 years.
– People who I want to talk to call my cell. The house line is for solicitations and the school.
– I keep it for emergencies as well. My cell is fairly reliable, but I do like having a house phone. We still have landline. First reason is that our cell phones do not work everywhere in our house and reception can be sketchy. I would wait until you are sure you get good reception in all the rooms you would be using phone. Second is I do not want to have to get my kids a cell phone. If I leave them home alone I want them to have a phone for emergencies. Soooo, they have the landline. My 2 cents.
– Landline is nice because I don’t like my cell ringing all day long everywhere I go for appointment reminders and recordings, etc. Lots of those calls can be caught by the answering machine and my day is less “noisy”… I don’t mind real people calling my cell, but the rest of the daily stuff can wait.
– This is a never ending argument with my husband. He’s been wanting to ditch the landline for years. Bottom line, with a young diabetic child in the house, I need to be able to call 911 at a moment’s notice. We have an AT&T booster for our cell service, even with that, it can still be tough getting a good signal on my cell to call out. Most people are ditching their landlines, moving into a new house would be a good time to “try” it. But remember that when kids want to talk to your kids, who are they gonna call? Your cell phone.
– Gave up our land line about 2 years ago… only problems are when the sitter or grandparent is here to watch the boys and forgets their cell phone.
– Keep it in case your cell decides to take a swim in the toilette. S*** happens… Pun intended.
– We ditched ours and will gladly pocket the $90 rather than pay it so telemarketers can call us.