Why You Still Need a Landline
Things to consider before canceling your home phone service and going totally wireless with only a cell phone.

By: John Shepler

In all the excitement of telephone number portability, you should think twice before canceling your home phone service. There are big advantages to having both cell phone and wired telephone service.

Hey, All I Need is a Cell Phone!
Are you sure about that? Granted, cellular phone service has made it possible for us to stay in touch regardless of where we happen to be. But, will we really be happy just transferring our home phone number to the cell phone and cutting off that old copper connection?

How about Internet service? You say you have broadband. If it's via cable modem service, wireless Internet or satellite, then OK. But if you're using DSL or plan to, that's provided on your telephone line. Dial-up Internet service, the most popular online connection, is strictly a telephone line service. You can get higher speed cellular-type Internet service for your laptop computer, but check the prices. It might be double or more what you're paying for dial-up service. Telephone lines are available everywhere, but most other forms of Internet service aren't, so check availability.

Do you like to talk a lot on the phone? Do you have children entering their teen years? They LOVE to talk on the phone. How's that going to work when there's only one phone in the house and its clipped to your belt? Minutes are an issue because you only get so many a month, unlike most standard local phone plans. The penalty for overrunning your time allotment can be pretty severe. With everyone wanting to use the same cell phone for personal calls, those minutes can go quickly. Choosing a larger package of minutes can waste money when you don't use them.

Does everyone have a cell phone? Are your children at home after school? How can they call for help in an emergency? How can you call home to check on them?

Speaking of only one phone in the house, what about extensions? Phones have become so inexpensive that we typically have one in every major room. Some have speaker phone capabilities, which are great when two or more want to join in a conversation or participate in a tele-seminar. There's no picking up an extension with cell phones. It's strictly one person at a time.

Security Issues
Are you concerned about your security? When you call 911 on a wired or cordless phone, the emergency dispatcher knows exactly where you are. That's because automatic number identification has a database of addresses for the phone numbers. Every telephone wire goes one and only one place. No so with cellular service. It's up to you to tell the operator where you are, if you can. Future improvements will help to track your cell phone, but it is going to be years before most areas have that capability in place.

Do you have a home security system that notifies authorities? Does it do that with a phone call? Many do, unless you have a much more expensive dedicated line just for the system. That emergency call pendant that some people wear around the house in case they have a fall and can't get to the phone also triggers the system to make a call to the monitoring service. It needs a phone line to do that.

Your satellite receiver or digital video recorder plugs into the phone line to update programming schedules and let you place orders for pay per view movies. Forgot about that? How about your FAX machine? Unless you switch totally to computer based faxing, those machines need a phone line connection. That's also true for those all-in-one printer/scanner/copier/fax units. The FAX is done via phone call.

By the way, how's cellular reception in all areas of your house including the basement? If perfect, great. Oh, there are areas where it's not so hot? Hmmmm.

You Can Do Better
Before you get carried away and ditch your landline, that handy pair of copper wires that connect your home to the rest of the world, give it some thought. Perhaps with a little shopping, you can reduce the costs of your local and long distance services to a point where you can easily afford both wired and cellular phones...the best of both worlds. In fact, we have some ideas on how to save on wired phone services in "Landlines for Less".