I am seriously considering giving up my cell phone

[Atticus Finch]

I would have dumped my land line years ago were it not necessary for my PC. Where I live, high speed is only available via the phone line or by satellite...and satellite is the always the first to go during periods of foul weather.

AF

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's only those lines that are on FIOS rather than traditional copper pairs that go out in a power failure. If you're on a regular POTS line served out of a central office, with no fiddly-diddly digital/fiber optic doodads, you're fine. Unless your phone company is Verizon.

As far as plug-in AC powered phones go, pfffffrt. Who needs 'em?

 

[Retro_GI_Jane]

We haven't had a landline for years and even with my cellphone, I am still terribly unreachable. I just toss it in my purse and forget it unless I absolutely need to make a call. I also am an undiscriminating call screener. It could be my own mother calling and I will just let it ring.

I'd keep the phone and get a bare bones plan, so that way you at least have some sort of communication if you should desperately need it.

 

[kamikat]

The main reason I got rid of my phone, in order to get reception at my house, I had to go outside and sit on the front porch. I work at home, so a phone that couldn't receive calls at home was worthless.

 

[sheeplady]

^ Yup. I had cable phone service a few years ago... went out with the lights every storm...... Had a cell when 9/11 hit (lived in Virginia) and you couldn't use it. Guess what still worked every time?

On 9/11 no one I knew was able to use the traditional landline telephone, all we could get was a busy signal, be disconnected, or not get a dialtone, and we were 6 hours drive from NYC. I can actually remember the last phone call that came through when the first plane hit while I was at work, and then everything went dead.

When the lines get overloaded, they get overloaded- there is only so much capacity. And our aging infrastructure doesn't help that. In many places in NY, the lines were jammed.

 

[C-dot]

When I did CPR-C training, the firefighter who conducted the lessons told us that in an emergency, a landline can be traced by a 911 operator in seconds, but a cellphone can only be traced to a general location. Your landline quite literally becomes your lifeline if you are alone and unable to speak. For this reason, I would never give up my landline (and not just because not having one is "a shade uncivilized," as my cousin would say).

My father had the same dilemma the OP has, so he struck a balance, precisely because he doesn't want to have a cellphone but wonders what he would do in an emergency: he pays $10.00 a month for 15 minutes of airtime on a basic model cellphone, and leaves it in his briefcase. Only family members know the number.

 

[4spurs]

After Katrina you could not get a 504 area code cell phone to ring for weeks; needless to say the landlines wouldn't work either as they were all under water . . . .

What to give up? Give up as much as you can; most of it you don't need anyway.

 

[Travis Lee Johnston]

One thing to consider is if you go to jail and have to call somebody, you can only reach them if they're on a land line.

 

[Undertow]

(...just don't tell the missus what I'm about to say...)

I have NEVER owned a cell phone, and I really don't want one. I've seen the convenience of them in a couple situations, but overall, I just do not care for them. It's not even that I'm a Luddite, I just don't see their utility in my life.

If I need to make a call, I use a payphone or my own landline. I don't need to be able to text/call while I'm in line at Hardees, or sitting on the pot at work. Just sayin'...

 

[amador]

To send messages I used to have a tomato soup can with a string, drums in the night. Smoke for long distance in the day, bonfires in the night. I try to limit cell phone use to the simplest of communications. I refuse to carry on personal relationships via the airways. I like the eyeball to eyeball, pressing of the flesh interpersonal relationships. Thank you.

 

[Tomasso]

One thing to consider is if you go to jail and have to call somebody, you can only reach them if they're on a land line.

Are you joking?

 

[HeyMoe]

When I did CPR-C training, the firefighter who conducted the lessons told us that in an emergency, a landline can be traced by a 911 operator in seconds, but a cell phone can only be traced to a general location.

I know our E-911 system can trace cellphones if they have their gps location on for 911 calls (starts up when you call 911). Hanging out in the call center one day I heard "Ok, I am showing you at the intersection of blah blah, can you confirm that?" A few days after that, we were dispatched to a cell phone 911 with no response from caller - we went to their GPS location. So it can be done, just depends on the system in your area.

 

[Retro_GI_Jane]

When I did CPR-C training, the firefighter who conducted the lessons told us that in an emergency, a landline can be traced by a 911 operator in seconds, but a cellphone can only be traced to a general location. Your landline quite literally becomes your lifeline if you are alone and unable to speak. For this reason, I would never give up my landline (and not just because not having one is "a shade uncivilized," as my cousin would say).

My father had the same dilemma the OP has, so he struck a balance, precisely because he doesn't want to have a cellphone but wonders what he would do in an emergency: he pays $10.00 a month for 15 minutes of airtime on a basic model cellphone, and leaves it in his briefcase. Only family members know the number.

I'm not sure how much belief I would have invested in this. I know personally of someone whose family member was in a serious accident. No one could contact her to inform her of this because she had her cell phone shut off...not only was her service provider able to turn it on remotely but able to find her instantly so they could airlift her to the hospital to be with her family member.

 

[Travis Lee Johnston]

Are you joking?

Nope, when they let you have your one phone call, you can only call out to land line numbers. So I'm told anyway.

 

[Connery]

I have always avoided a cell phone for work as I like to take Fridays off and do not want to be able to be reached. Now that I do have a cell phone I keep it off and only have used it to telephone AAA once.

I would never give up my land line though.

 

[scottyrocks]

It's only those lines that are on FIOS rather than traditional copper pairs that go out in a power failure. If you're on a regular POTS line served out of a central office, with no fiddly-diddly digital/fiber optic doodads, you're fine. Unless your phone company is Verizon.

As far as plug-in AC powered phones go, pfffffrt. Who needs 'em?

So FIOS and Verizon will put me SOL in a power failure. I think we have cable. I'm probably still SOL.

Nice candlestick, btw.

 

[LizzieMaine]

So FIOS and Verizon will put me SOL in a power failure. I think we have cable. I'm probably still SOL.

And this is precisely why the dismemberment of Ma Bell was a crime against the nation. In less than thirty years we've gone from the most dependable communications network the world had ever known to a hodgepodge of chintzy, unstable, outsourced technologies passed off on a gullible public on the basis of price and gimmickry. "Progress," they call it.

 

[Tomasso]

"Progress," they call it.

Spelled "Fiasco."

 

[JFriday]

In reference to 911 service, the ability of the public service answering point and/or your phone service provider to locate you in an emergency, whether on landline or cell phone is based on several factors. The first is what sort of emergency communications centre and technology your community has invested in. There are still locations in North America that do not have universal emergency numbers (911 etc.) where all calls are routed via a control centre of some sort, where you instead call the appropriate emergency service direct. These are diminishing but still are out there< each service may or may not have a way to track cells, most can ID a landline. Next come the 911 systems, some are basic, and have no call identifying capacity (other than a backtrack trace system circa 1950 utilizing the phone company externally) also now thankfully rare; most are enhanced 911 (E911) operations which have the ability to at the minimum have a printout of the landline caller's number and address. Newer, more sophisticated systems have some varied capacity to perform these services with cell systems, however there are variables, ranging from whatever cell system features your provider has selected, and also the phone technology you are holding. Locating older phones can be done by a rather painstaking triangualtion process that is often very general as to exact location, more modern phones and 'smart phones' which have built in GPS and tracking options are the easier to trace, sometimes to in ront of an exact address or piece of roadway, park and such. All of this is only useful if the details can be easily relayed to the communications operators and dispatchers in order to deliver the appropriate resource to the scene. Still, the best way for help to arrive is for a concious caller to stay on the phone, be aware of their surroundings, and provide an address or at least a cross street. Fear not, if you can not talk or communicate, very few systems will not make every effort to track down the "dead air" call. Note for those who work in facilities with phone switchboards, extensions rarely show up, not massive if a small office, but if you are in a large industrial or government type complex, the number received is that of the central exchange, (which may itself be offsite), we had this issue on the university campus I attended years ago and there are few good simple solutions to this other than installing individual parallel lines, so if this is the case, and you are in distress, if you can get to one, trigger an emergency call box or a building alarm, hopefully they are investigated promptly (frie alarm pull stations are optimal for quick location, as most modern buildings have easily accessed annunciator panels which will provide rapid guidance to those responding to your call for help......be advised that there is the potential for legal action around raising a false fire alarm in some jurisdictions, though in the event of a confirmed medical crisis these are rarely pursued, check with your local emergency services for potential ramifications.
As for power failures, older self powered telephone landline systems are the most reliable, with 1)..classic rotary phones or 2) basic tone/pulse dial hardware has the best option for communication (best of all was the old crank power phones form the early 1900's as they actually sent their own current down the line, now a long lost option), be advised that some digital systems will not accept the pulse signal from a rotary phone so test the phone on the system before your emergency arises. Many of the new digital phone systems rely on the power grid staying in some way intact, even with backup power the number of servers and relay points will effect the reliability. Note that even the best landline system will cease to work if there is extensive damage to the lines such as poles knocked down, lines burned by wildfire et cetera.
All systems will overload in times of crisis, it is often impractical to have enough switch capacity and operators to handle the influx of calls when a major incident develops. Some systems still have variations on what what once called line load priority, which dedicated first access to switch capacity to dedicated emergency centres, citizens with a need to be quickly contacted in crisis (home lines for emergency workers, physicians, media, lines to utilities, contractors etc.) Often all pay phones were a component of this, however as the number of these have diminished and many are now in private hands, the reliability of this option is variable, (when I was young, along with the now rare "in Emergency dial 0 for the Operator", we were all drilled in an emergency (read earthquake in my part of the world) to hang up any off the hook payphones ).
This is in no way a comprehensive guide, but some notes to provvide some insight for those curious. On the central topic of having a phone or not, that is an individual choice, based on need for communications capacity and preference. I use a mobile phone for work and community commitments and as a safety device as a part of my professional equipment and community responsibility (the vigilant citizen). For personal communication those I know professionally and personally are aware that they are more likely to get a letter, large envelope with a report, or a landline call rather than an email (complete with real ink from a fountain pen, Parker 45 or Lamy 2000 for those in the pen thread). I also carry a pack of quarters as I use as many pay phones as practical to try to support their preservation....use them and they will stay. Also, check you local pay phone for a dial tone when you walk by, they fail to protect you or your community if they are dead when someone needs them.
Be safe and enjoy whichever mode of communication you chose.

 

[Stray Cat]

One thing to consider is if you go to jail and have to call somebody, you can only reach them if they're on a land line.

NICE.. :biggrin:
..but what's it like if you're not arrested alone? :grouphug: