Are landlines becoming extinct?
 

How much does a copper landline cost now? For south of 466A, Century Link is apparently turning their landline service over to ATT .

Is there anyone else who has switched to Comcast/Xfinity and kept their landline? Not the streaming type but the old fashioned ma bell kind invented in the 19th century.

What are you paying for it and from whom?

With fewer residential users and the same infrastructure, it seems the costs are just going to keep going higher.

Thanks for the feedback.

We have plug in wired land lines with Comcast $8.95/month unlimited calling and a bunch of features.

We have a landline now. When we move to The Villages we won't. Our landline here never rings unless it's a telemarketer.

Same here.

This is the major advantage of traditional phone service vs VOIP.
Accurate 911 service: Placing a 911 call from a landline is reliable and accurate. When the national emergency 911 system was established, landlines were the only phone option.

Plus I still get interruptions on my internet which would affect the phone service.

This if for my parents as I only have a cell phone.

and this

Emergency calls cannot be made from VoIP phones if there is no Internet connectivity for any reason whatsoever. Location, power and Internet connectivity are the three main reasons why VoIP providers are unable to guarantee emergency calling on their services.

On call so land line is required

I bought an Old School Phone Handset and hooked it up to my Cell Phone. That's as close to a house phone as we'll ever get.

There is a way to hook up your Cell Phone to a bunch of Wireless House Phones Via Bluetooth. It works. I did it for a friend who put the phones in a box in the middle of the '90s. He has a phone in every room of his house. I think he has 7 or 8 phones all off his Cell Line.

Been using only our cells for almost 10 years.

We have a landline through Spectrum along with internet and cable package. Just find it easier to talk on a regular phone than a cell phone. Personal preference. Spectrum also has nomorobo included so telemarketing calls are greatly reduced.

Haven't had a landline since 1999. We use Bluetooth connected phones so we can call or answer from any room.

Another major advantage of POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service, yes it's an actual term): when the electricity goes out, the phone still works, and you don't have to worry about your cell phone battery going dead (since, if there's no electricity, you aren't charging your cellphone either).

You don't have a car charger for your cell phone? Add that to your survival kit.. :icon_wink:

There are two types of "landlines". The old fashioned landline is an analog wire that comes into your house through a low voltage wire, not through a COAX cable. The "landline" service sold by Comcast and other cable companies is not that type of service. The Comcast service is a digital service that comes into your house through the Comcast COAX cable and connects to a modem. You can connect a regular analog phone wire from the modem to a phone jack in your house, which will power all of the phone jacks in your house. But, it is not a true analog landline. Comcast does not offer a landline service powered by the analog wires that come into your house. If you want a true old fashioned analog landline, you need to buy it from another phone service provider, not a cable company.

about $68 per month

Here, my copper-wire landline from CenturyLink costs about $38.50 per month.

After tropical storm Sandy on Long Island, NY, my landline was the only thing working. No electricity. No VOIP. No cell towers.

I try to have fun with the telemarketers.

I haven't used a landline in quite a few yrs now.

Just pick up the landline receiver and hear the dial tone, lets you know you are not alone in the world.
Hardly use it these days, but like an old pair of slippers, comforting to have around!

When we moved here earlier this year we planned to do away with landlne but got a bundling deal with xfinity that landline was very cheap so we did it.

Do use it very infrequently and when talking to our kids now use cell making 3 way call.

It does seem that that our analog copper landlines are at risk.

Save Landlines! – Defending Our Analog Copper Landline Network

Comcast offers VOIP. Not traditional phone service.

In a hurricane where power and cell phones go out, or when your internet service drops out(which still happens occasionally) , VOIP doesn't work.

Why is your landline phone dead?

They also favor VoIP for regulatory reasons. In 2012, the state lost authority over VoIP, so the California Public Regulatory Commission can’t require backup power. Companies only offer it voluntarily. And there’s no obligation to guarantee universal access and fair prices to consumers, according to the nonprofits Electronic Frontier Foundation and The Utility Reform Network.

Dropped our land line 30 years ago. If someone wants me they call my cell, if they want my wife they call hers.

It’s just not a home without a home phone

When my parents were retired and into their later years (80+) I made sure they had a POTS line just for the accuracy of 911 calls and available service even in a power outage. For that reason alone I feel the cost was justified, I would probably want it myself in about 20 years if they are still available.

I use Ooma VOIP for landline service. Backfed through home jack system to make multiple phone use possible. Downside, as mentioned before by others, when power/internet fails so goes phones. I do have a cell phone which can serve as a backup in the event of power/internet failure. Cost for Ooma -$5/mo.

The problem with POTS these days is that it largely no longer exists at least as it was 50 years ago.

Yes, there is a copper wire coming to your house. That wire connects to your house is dumped onto a fiber trunk at some point(often before it gets to the central office) and it's no longer analog. It no longer has the reliance and fault tolerance that the POTS of the cold war era had.

When the backup generators and batteries of the cell towers go down in a power outage, chances are good that your POTS will go too. In fact, they may shut down the POTS first to allow a longer run time of the cell service.

I haven’t had a landline since 2007. Google and Apple have rolled out a service that will give your location if you call 911. If you set up your emergency contacts it will also notify them that your phone has requested emergency assistance and share your location for a given time. See first link below. Later versions of the Apple Watch will call 911 if your heart stops for a certain time or it senses a hard impact like a fall or car accident. It asks you first, if no response it calls for you. Pros and Cons to that, but we don’t want to bogart the original post. Keep your landline, mine only received spam calls too. Just know there is technology out there that will still you let you make an emergency call on a smart device.
Use Emergency SOS on your Apple Watch - Apple Support
Use fall detection with Apple Watch - Apple Support

Magic Jack
 

We solved the problem of a landline by using Magic Jack. It is only $29/year and we give it to those who we don’t want to hear from by phone so we know we don’t need to answer them. It just plugs into our regular phone jacks.

Yes! This is the main reason we kept our landline up North. Then we switched to fiber optics and were sorry we did. Goes out with the electricity. Ugh! 😫 Had no idea.

No will not give up my landline. I have a cell phone, but I still do all my business on the landline. The cell is an emergency phone, only close friends and family members have the number. It works for me.

Haven’t had a land line since the late 90’s.

love your acronym POTS nice FI

I would love to find a way to do this! I hate talking on my cell, miss how comfortable talking with the old fashion handle .

Of course you need gas for the car for that to work.

We do too, for these reasons & 911 accuracy. Also it is easier to read the ID of a caller on our television as we only give out the landline # to businesses.

Amazon has several devices that will do what you want. I don't know which one to buy or how well they work. But, they do get good reviews.

If you have the Xfinity Mobile cell phone service and landline, you could replace your Xfinity landline service with an extra cell phone for a very low monthly fee, probably less than the cost of the landline. If you kept the extra cell phone in your house, you wouldn't need to use any data because it would always be connected to the WiFi network. Also, it would serve as a temporary replacement if you lose your other cell phone.

I still do some consulting work...so I have a land line for my business number...however it's not the plug in type, it's included in the Comcast bundle. When we were in Ft Lauderdale the old copper wiring was horrible and I couldn't eliminate receiving the radio transmissions on our phone from a tower that was nearby...moved here and decided that it ain't broken, so left it be

We use it when home alone to call our cell phone when It’s been misplaced.

I'd say about 70% of the people I know have no landline. We dumped ours nearly 10 years ago.

Obsolete