Red6

Cellphone only for several reasons.

The only reason to keep a landline is that since it is powered by the phone company which has backup power, it will work after power outages. Otherwise, it is the least flexible and often the most expensive.

VOIP is not really considered to be a landline even though it is usually connected by cable through the cable company. Often cheap, but can be considered unreliable. The true landline phone had a reliability record of probably better than 99%. Is your cable service that reliable? Mine sure is NOT, it comes and goes almost on a daily basis.

Probably more expensive than VOIP but on par with the landline. Service is reliable if you have good coverage. This can usually be fixed by selecting the right carrier. Most cell towers have backup power for several days if the power goes out so if you can keep your phone charged you are probably good unless a real major incident occurs.

We stream all our TV services, so we only subscribe to internet, which is reasonable at around $50 per month. If we subscribed to cable, phone, and internet the cost would be close to $100 per month. Since there are a lot of cell phone plans now at around $40-50 per month per line. I think that is the best option for us. Maybe not the cheapest but this gives us TV, internet, and phones that we can use just about anywhere we go, including many international destinations.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I'm assuming it's necessary to buy that Ooma base unit which connects to the modem. Does your home phone connect to that? Ooma sells it for $99, but Amazon has a refurb for $49. Does it matter who I buy it from?

starlifter Loc: Towson, MD

No land line here. Cable for WiFi only. Roku and prime for tv and an antenna on the roof for local stuff.

paulrph1 Loc: Washington, Utah

You have to purchase their unit and then once installed you only have to pay the taxes. But you can opt for more than one line for a minimal charge.

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

And that only works if you have a phone that don't require a power supply!!

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I think I'm going with Ooma. I can keep my current phone number for $40.

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

Dropped my landline years ago and do not miss it at all. My only regret I guess is that I did not have to go searching for my landline, as it was always where it should be

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Thanks.

aphelps Loc: Central Ohio

Do you have any other options for internet only service?

Bmarsh Loc: Bellaire, MI

Try 1-voip. About $120 per year and they tie in with nomorobo. Very happy with the service.

mr spock Loc: Fairfield CT

We rely solely on cel phones in my house. However we keep our land line, which we never use, because as you properly point out, cancelling it would raise the cost of the other services.
Isn't that kinda sick?

Canisdirus

Have a cherry red AT&T phone from the 50's in the house for incoming only.

Family has that number...I get ZERO phone spam on it...if it rings...I know it is family.

I get amazon for the shipping so the prime is free (sort of).
Netflix is shared...I'd drop it if it was mine...meh.

Anything I want to see...I just go to putlocker...via Tor.

SteveFranz Loc: Durham, NC

Jerry, as a long time Ooma customer, I don't think you'll regret it. For quite a few years I had Ooma Premier. That gave me several lines, an additional phone number, voice mail records on my computer and call forwarding to my cell phone. That was a lot of fun, but after I retired, I decided the extra bells and whistles were unnecessary. So I dropped to the basic.

For most of the time, I used the Ooma wireless option. When I got a new home phone system, I connected the base unit to the Ooma and it works perfectly.

sgt hop Loc: baltimore md,now in salisbury md

we use a land line...i have a cell, but seldom use it...my bride uses her cell quite a bit....won't get rid of the land line....

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

In our area, if the power is out, land lines are usually out, too.

Since the smartphone boom of the late 2000s to present, the neighborhood land line infrastructure has been withering on the poles. In a 2020 storm, several phone lines on the poles in our front yard snapped. The utility company just cut them down, with no replacement. They left the wires on the ground for us to clean up!

During the 2020 Census, I was a field supervisor of 19 Census enumerators. A few weeks in, we were having trouble getting responses, nationwide, especially in neighborhoods populated by minorities (the ones who may have benefitted MOST from results of the Census).

So some bureaucratic idiot decided it would be a good idea to add the phone numbers of the last known residents at each address to our Census iPhone app. We were instructed to call each number if no-one answered the door when we knocked. The response was about 80% some variation of "This number is no longer in service..." recordings. Of the calls I made, fewer than 0.5% of the listed phones even answered. Most who answered had a recycled number, or I reached their cell phone and they now lived half way across the country!

That exercise was a total waste of time, since so few people use land lines now, and the chances were *ridiculously low* that those few who did in 2020 — and still lived at their 2010 address —would answer them.