Moving;... Home Phone vs No Home Phone?? VOIP?

Hi C.,
For safety, I would keep one regular phone line with a regular old fashion phone. These phones do not go dead when the electricity goes out and can be used if you cannot get cell service. You can probably get a low cost plan where you only pay for local service. It is also probably easier for your kids to use if they have to call 911. Some of the home phones that go through your cable will go out with the electricity so I'd stick to the regular phone company.

For business you can have faxes sent to your computer but for safety nothing beats a real phone line.

Hope this helps.

1 mom found this helpful

I disconnected my fax line and now do it online. If someone faxes you it's converted to a pdf and emailed to you. If you can scan a page into your computer, you can fax it from there. I used a service at http://www.trustfax.com I pay $5/month!

When you dial 911 from your home, they can locate you and send local emergency response. When you dial 911 from your cel, it goes to the CHP! They cannot locate you and you'll end up getting transferred and it can take longer. If you are going to eliminate the landline, look up the local emergency phone number for your area and program it into your cel phone. If there's an emergency, dial that number, not 911. If your children will do this, make sure they now how and can give your street address. And, you'll need to make sure the boys have a cel phone to access for emergencies if you and your husband are not around.

Good luck.

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Hi Cindy ~

This is an AWESOME question that you posted, and I'm sure many others have the same concerns & questions.

As a former 911 Operator for the City of Los Angeles, I can tell you that NO MATTER WHAT you here on the radio shows or see on the news - NOTHING is as reliable as a land line in the event of an emergency. Yes, it's true that we have the ability to "track" a cell phone call, but it's only within 500 ft or so, and if you are incapacitated in any way & cannot tell the operator EXACTLY where you are (in a car, inside a home, at the bottom of a ditch, etc...) help MAY arrive too late, and every second counts.

The same is true for VOIP callers. I took a call one time from a man regarding his deathly ill mother...he told me all her symptoms, what was happening to her, etc...I verified with him the address that was coming up on my screen & sent help. When the Police & Paramedics got there, there was no such person at the location with a problem of any kind. I called the man back & discovered that, in his atress & anxiety, he verified his OLD ADDRESS that the VOIP was registered to. In fact, he was in ANOTHER STATE! He had forgotten to notify his service provider of his change of address when he moved...(with ALL the other things on your mind when you move - notifications you have to make - this is a very common area that is overlooked)

I hope I have shed some light on this aspect of your question & I ALSO hope that whomever else reads it will REALLY heed this "safety warning". If you don't use your landline for anything else, the bill will not be that much. AND, wouldn't you rather pay just a small bill to have the piece of mind?

Good luck to you, mama!

1 mom found this helpful

C.,
I have just the product for you!!! We too have moved and decided not to go with a landline. It has been a very money saving deal for us. We thought we would try to use the MagicJack. It is awesome. I can fax from it, and if you can fax you can probably receive faxes. They give you a phone number that is yours forever with your area code and the calls are clear as day. I love this system. You just need to have a computer that can stay on all the time, but it has voicemail and everything. It's like $20. for the whole year and you can buy more years at a time if you like. It has been fabulous. We have no more phone charges and we can use our home phone for everything we used to. I would look that up online and check it out. It is so worth it!!!!

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I would say that it is critical to have a landline phone for 911 calls. When you call 911 from your cell phone it goes to CHP which can take literally 10-15 minutes to answer a call especially during busy times and then they will still have to transfer you to the proper agency. If you are having a major emergency that just isn't good enough. The other important thing to know is that when you call 911 from a landline the dispatcher generally is able to get your address from a screen in front of them so if you are unable to provide it they can still send help. Your cell phone does not provide this information.
If you still decide to go without a landline please at the very least find out what your local agency's 7 digit emergency number is and program it into your phone. That way at least you won't be waiting for your call to be answered only to find it has to be transfered to another agency.
The reason I'm so adamant about this is because I answer 911 calls for a living.
I would note that VOIP is fine in terms of 911 calls - the only thing is that sometimes the address information is not as accurate when it comes through to the dispatcher as it is with a regular land line. I'm not sure why that is. Generally though 911 calls from VOIP work like a 911 call from a land line.
Good luck with your decision!

1 mom found this helpful

Keep your land line for emergency purposes. If one of your boys have to call 911, then they don't have to:

1. search for your cell phone and
2. search for and dial the local police dept number

With the land line, they just pick up the phone & dial.

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Hi C.,
I am a police dispatcher/911 operator and I had to respond to this. Let me tell you first hand.. KEEP YOUR LANDLINE. You don't have to actually pay for service to have it for calling 911. Even if your phone is disconnected you can still call, but we can't call you back. So if you hang up, we just won't know what's going on, but we'll still receive the call. Cell phones SUCK for 911, as does VOIP.
When your cell calls 911, we only get the general area from which the call was made. If you are unable to talk to us, the best we can do (at my department) is an area check to see if the officers see anything suspicious. Some departments won't even respond at all. This is because we get SO MANY cell phone 911 calls that are mistakes or pocket dials, etc. When you use your landline, the actual location address shows up on our screen and we can at least start going to the right place.
VOIP is a whole different nightmare. We get calls from this that are in entirely different countries!! The technology just isn't there, and from what I understand, it really won't be for a while. That's the reality. Sorry... but it is so frustrating for us when we are trying to do our jobs and help people and we can't or we have to delay our response because of problems with locations, or because we have to spend so much time trying to call back people's purses where their cell phone got bumped and called us.
Hope this helps.

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If you call 911 on a cell, you must give a location otherwise it will take them a few minutes to track you. My suggestion is to keep a landline and have no services or packages. I keep a landline for this reason. I still use it to fax, it has no voicemail, caller id, etc to keep the bill as low as possible. If you are going to do VOIP just ask the company you use, how can you do faxes and what will happen if you call 911.

1 mom found this helpful

I too think you should keep the land line. It has a home base and your kids should always know where that is for emergencies. Cell phones could be anywhere in the house or be left in the car or somewhere else not accessible to children. Keep a non cordless phone handy at all times as well. This is especially great if you have a baby sitter watching your children.

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I am a police dispatcher, and as part of that job I answer 911 calls. Here are a few things to consider when making your decision:
1. Most cell phone 911 calls made in CA still route to CHP first. Their phone lines are overtaxed and you may hold for up to 20 minutes before they answer. Once they determine where you are, the call will be routed to the proper agency.
2. 911 calls made from a home phone show the address that the person is calling from. 911 calls made from cell phones show the address of the nearest cell tower. (No, it doesn't work like it does on tv.)
3. VOIP calls made to 911 usually show the address of the person paying for the service, but this is not 100% reliable.
4. In an emergency, the cell towers are usually the first thing to go down. Last earthquake we had took the cell towers out for almost 40 minutes.

If you feel that having a cell as your only phone is still the right choice for you, please keep a regular phone stored somewhere in your house. The phone lines are set up so that 911 calls can be made out of a residence, even if the resident is not paying for phone service. At least this way, you would be able to plug in a phone, use the more reliable hardline and provide accurate information to your police department. I have talked to too many panicked people and children who do not know their address. This delays the response of emergency personnel. Please take this into consideration when making your decision. :)

1 mom found this helpful

I use Vonage VOIP for my home based office, unlimited phone & fax $35/month! I have heard that you can also set up land line for incoming calls only & 911 access for less than $10/month, check with the phone severice in the area you are moving to.

1 mom found this helpful

My husband uses a service, myfax.com, to receive faxes. He even has a toll free "fax number". It allows him to receive material from fax machines into his email and also to email to a fax machine. Very convenient. We have a scanner, so he scans original documents that are not electronic and "faxes" them via his email.

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Landline with a phone that is not cordless is crucial, especially living here in CA. You want to be able to make or receive a call in case of an emergency. With a cell phone you will not be able to do that in a lot of situations.

1 mom found this helpful

I see that several people have told you the importance of keeping a landline. I just want to add that a cell phone will not work in case of an earthquake... it shuts down the towers.
My brother has VOIP, and he says it is annoying. He always has an echo in the background, and it goes in and out in the middle of a call. And, in case of an emergency, he cannot use 911.
There is a way to keep a landline for not much money. When you the phone company ask for basic service. (Most offer it for under $12 per month without the long distance and all the other gizmos. (They will always try to sell you everything else, but stick to it and they will finally give it to you). We have been without the extras for about 5 years now, and it has really saved us alot of money.

Hi Cinthia, I would suggest you get a Vonage line. My husband is in the military and we have moved several times and kept our number for years, even over seas. It is not very expensive and has great features.
Good luck

Love our VOiP - Packet 8 (http://www.8x8.com). They now offer faxing at additional price, but their business package is very competitive pricing wise and the customer service is excellent. I use it for a small home office and been with them for 5+ years. Best of luck!

Hi C., Lots of people are relying only on cell phone. My son works as a supervisor dispatcher and he says that's very dangerous. Everyone should have a land line in event of an emergency. Also at least one phone should be a standard stationary phone ( not the type you can carry with you from room to room). My sympathies with you for that extremely long commute time- not fun. But I guess there has to be some trade off for living out on a ranch, huh?

C. T

I personally have not used VOIP but from what I hear there is a lot of feedback while you are talking or listening to conversations/conferences. I have my phone connected to the computer and yes it does have a printer/copier/fax attached. You can use this type of set up. Just don't use the phone for your main number. To send fax's you will need the long distance, but that is all. I hope this helps, Good Luck.

For faxing, I used and loved a service like maxemail.com, which sent me my faxes by email (pdf attachment). You need a scanner for outgoing faxes, but these are routinely part of printers now. I also keep my old fax machine on hand to plug in and send a fax when it's easier, but mostly it sits on a shelf like an homage to the "old days."

We set up special email accounts that went to both me and my partner, so we both saw all faxes even though we were working at different locations. It was also easy to keep an email folder archive of the faxes. You are also able to see your faxes when you travel.

I see that maxemail also offers voicemail by email now, too.

I have happily only had a cell phone for 5 years now. True I have never had to call 911 so there are probably unanticipated issues there, but in the last earthquake last summer, neither land lines nor cell phones worked. In fact only the internet service worked (not phone line based).
Now that my son is getting old enough to be by himself at home for a little while at a time I added him to my plan for $5 a mo.
Good Luck

Hi C. - Like everyone else said, keep your home phone if for emergencies only - you never know if your cell phone's battery will be dead, etc. But I have a question for you - what stay at home business are you promoting? I'm always looking...thanks!
~K.

Best to use your land line whenever possible. Cell phones may ultimately give you a plethora of health problems...

http://www.emfnews.org/

http://www.cellphonelies.com/

http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/