Until a few years ago, that is all that was available where I live. That or satellite. And yes I am over 50 years old.

 

I am no young buck either. I am 32! But every single one of my friends uses their cell phone for their home phone. If your goign to pay for the cell phone you might as well use it at home too! Why pay for two phones?

In my mother's case she is 61 and she doesnt even know how to use a cell phone or a computer. She grew up in a small mountain town in the Italian Alps though so she is excused.

 

I've heard of only one "issue" and notice I said issue and not problem. My girlfriends mom has Charter telephone and she can't accept collect calls, like when my gf's brother tries to call from jail.

 

Vonage works with e911. You just have to register your address. I have had Vonage for over 3 years with no problems retaled to it's service. now, I have had countless issues because Comcast's crappy ISP which gives me at tiems less than 50kbps upload bandwidth. That affects the calls, but otherwise, I love it. I don't think I'd use it if I did not have cell phones, though as my cable service is not reliable enough.

As to why keep it instead of just using cell phones? Well, it's cheap, $19/mo including taxes for 500 outgoing minutes and free incoming/toll free minutes with all the premium features (call waiting/forwarding/caller ID, VM, Simuring, emails for VM, etc). It's also nice to use for registering accounts as to not have soliciters from companies I do business withwaste my cell minutes when they call me. Oh, and then there is the matter of kids and others who use it and don't need a cell phone. For single people or DINKs, no land line is fine.

 

I have DSL, the cable around my area sucks. There is no naked DSL, so a land line is needed. I do have a cell, for emergencies, but the cheapest I could find. That and I do not want work and other people contacting me whenever they want. Been there, done that, not again. So they do not even know I have a cell.

 

My work pays my cell phone bill since I use it for work. But in construction you rarely get a call after 4pm. But you do get calls at 7am!

 

I don't know about your cable company, but when you get Comcast phone service, your cable modem has an internal battery backup that lasts 8 hours when the power goes out.

Bottom line, I would only get VOIP phone and get rid of the standard land line if you have a cell phone for backup.

 

i like having a landline to screen calls. The only people that have my cell # are the people that need it.
I think I have decided to let my wife choose the one she wants, I did ask her to talk to other people that have the service.
Thanks for all the info.

Tumba

 

I have to have a land line, there is no cell signal at my house. My cell phone is for emergencies only and the only ones who know the number are me and my husband.

 

mine dont have that i have a box on the outside of my house next to the bellsouth box. mine works when the power is off there is no power line going to it. tell them you want a box outside if they can.

 

Our service through GCI in Juneau operated over the phone lines. My phones plugged into the same jacks they always plugged into and used the same phone wiring in the house. I don't recall a box on the outside of the house but I could be wrong on that.

 

First its Vonage, not vonTage.

Secondly, BULL @@@@ on not being able to call 911. Matter of fact I got no less than 2 emails and a hand full of various papers fully describing how their 911 works, and continued to get emails from them daily until I registered my address with them for the 911.

Since you can have your vonage anywhere, you register your address so when you call 911 they contact the proper authorities. You move, and you just re-register your address. Haven't re-registered your address and you still need to call 911, go ahead and just give them the current address. Its pretty simple and straightforward.

I'd say either your buddy is telling a story to you, or your trying to pull one over on us.

 

I have VOIP thru my cable company. Works fine.

And as far as the inability to call 911, this is half true. Most VOIP can be set up to call the police when you dial "911". The only thing that is not as good real telephone line is that if you lose power, your cable modem craps out, etc, you will have no phone service.

However, I don't plan to call 911 until my 45 clip is empty and I need someone to clean up the mess. Plus it gives me an excuse if asked why I didn't call the police

 

I have a backup UPS for my cable model, router, VOIP adapter and computer. I'm out of plugs for the phone, though. Oh well, i trust my cell phone's GPS for 911 more anyway.

With most homes having all phones powered, having phone service without power is not useful.

 

Then you don't have VOIP, you have phone service provided by the cable company using the existing Bellsouth lines to your house. This does not require electricity. Comcast is VOIP, it uses the CABLE line, not the phone line, back to the office where it's put into the PSTN. Vonage works the same way except they don't necessarily use a cable line, they piggyback on your existing high speed Internet service whatever it may be. They both require electricity to run the equipment. My sister has ***, it works like yours. I dunno what Cable One here uses, but I don't want to find out, they suck. I use AT&T for my phone and DSL.