Anyone dump their House phone and go Cell only?

[BigRed150]

  I'm seriously thinking about dumping the house phone and going cell only for the whole Family. Currently my wife and I have Cells, so it would mean adding the kids. If I dump the house phone, I would be able to pay for the USB broadband service instead of surfing at 28.8, and save about $30 overall on the cell/house/internet bills. I have a demo USB Broadband set up at home, and man, it is nice to be out of the stone age again.
  Hurdle is getting over the mental hump of losing the land lines and of giving my 11/14 year old girls cell phones. We are the type that do not believe in phones/TV/Computers in their rooms. We like to see them once in awhile instead of them hiding in their rooms.
   Anyways, just feeling chatty today...  :sblah:

  Jeff

[GreyMichFX4]

My wife and I are int the same boat you are in. We have 3meg cable internet and we only have the landl line for a main contact number and thats it. We normally use the cells for calling because we have free nights and weekends and my phone a company phone so we dont pay the bill on it. I would say dump the land line and go cellular.


P.S. as a hockey player I love this smiley  :check:

[Les22]

Im in the same boat. Land line and two cells= lots of money and more ways for telemarketers to reach you- I still get calls from some special nonprofit organizations on my home phone asking for donations (they no call list doesnt apply to them) :pitty:

[leedriver]

I had to do the opposite here... I've used nothing but my cell phone since I was 16, and I'm 26 now. The wife and I got by with nothing but our cells for years, but when I got Brink's security I had to call Time warner and add a land-line. I really wish I didn't have it, but I didn't have much choice with the alarm....

Back to the OP though, getting the girls phones is probably a good thing, just so long as its regulated.... You can end up with a super-bill quick with calling and especially texting these days.....

[GreyMichFX4]

To answer your questions about getting your girls the phones I would really watch them like a hawk. I know what we spend a month for the company for 25 phones and no texting and its quite expensive. I would go into each cell provider and compare deals on a package plan because thats what we do just to make sure we are getting the best bang for our buck.

[attworth]

I'm ready to dump my cell for a house phone. It's a real convenience, but that also includes convenience for the boss man to call me on my way to-from work, weekends if he's knows I may come in, etc. Not to mention everybody and their grandma being able to call me on a whim. It's become more of a liability commodity than a way to communicate in an emergency or other situation involving a lack of land line. Not to mention the 150$/mo cell bill hurts a bit.

[BigRed150]

 The plan I'm looking at from my current provider comes with unlimited text. The really cool thing is that we can restrict text and calls in or out to specific #'s by user. We can see that it might be a benifit to be able to clamp down on their calls if they are not performing their responsabilities.  :thumbsiup:

[Chris@GlimmerGlass]

cable/internet/phone for 155/mo. Every time I go over my cell plan minutes, I'm eating raman noodles all month  :rant:

[Rollingrock]

We are thinking of doing that when we get Fios..however, rather than dumping our phone, we may port the number to Vonage instead.

[LsuSuperCrew]

I only have a cell phone, no land line. Most of my friends made the switch a few years ago to cell only also. The only one's that kept their land line was one's that had to have it for their security system. One thing to consider is how well your cell reception is in your house, I know in mine their is one area where there is no signal for whatever reason.

[hwm3]

If you don't need the house phone, dump it.

And make sure whatever cell plan you get for your kids that you can restrict their usage. My 12 y/o daughter has a cell, and it comes in handy.

[Boss_429]

Depending on where you live, (like where I live) cell phones are not always 100% reliable. If I need to make an important call, and make sure that it gets through, and that I can hear the person on the other end, and they can hear me... I use a land line if possible.

A cell phone is a nice (expensive) toy, and comes in handy at times. However, I would never get rid of our land line. With my luck, if I did, the first time something really important came up, I would have "no bars", or the battery would need charging.  :rant:

 

[Rockpick]

Depending on where you live, (like where I live) cell phones are not always 100% reliable. If I need to make an important call, and make sure that it gets through, and that I can hear the person on the other end, and they can hear me... I use a land line if possible.

A cell phone is a nice (expensive) toy, and comes in handy at times. However, I would never get rid of our land line. With my luck, if I did, the first time something really important came up, I would have "no bars", or the battery would need charging.  :rant:

 

That is a critically important reason that we took in to account when my wife and I went down this VERY path with our budget.

Like Boss, reception is scattered at and near my house.  One day it's killer and you can't loose a call if you want to; on others, it's such that you can't make anything happen with your cell and it's simply a paper weight.

That said, we were concerned that, in the event where a phone was critially important, we may fail at achieving whatever we were hoping to achieve (ie: call the police or the fire department or ambulence).  As such, we elected to hang on the land line and knock it down to as basic as basic can be (with caller ID) so that we still had the accessibility.

Also, to add to that, we did add a security system to the house and that required the land line as well...

For some, I'm sure that this isn't a concern but, for others, it's a HUGE concern.  I can't imagine depending on a cell phone where I was looking at houses in NW Washington State... whew.  Carrier pigeon may be the most reliable methodology there.  LOL!

[Les22]

you make a good point- while manufacturers of the phones are going crazy adding features and toys- one major oversight is that there are still many places in which our cells dont get service or loose reception.

Im still wrestling with the Samsung Juke I bought last winter- it seemed like a good idea- mp3 and phone in one...

But after using it for awhile, the screen is too small to read, too small to view txt or pic messages...Im absolutely stuck for the next year and a half unless I pay full retail price from Verizon to buy a different phone- and that price is around $499 :rant:

[Val3ntin0]

you make a good point- while manufacturers of the phones are going crazy adding features and toys- one major oversight is that there are still many places in which our cells dont get service or loose reception.

Im still wrestling with the Samsung Juke I bought last winter- it seemed like a good idea- mp3 and phone in one...

But after using it for awhile, the screen is too small to read, too small to view txt or pic messages...Im absolutely stuck for the next year and a half unless I pay full retail price from Verizon to buy a different phone- and that price is around $499 :rant:

I know this isn't very helpful but Verizon doesn't require you to do the full 24 months before you can get a new phone with a 2 year contract price. It's actually 20 months as I just switched to Verizon not too long ago. That's of course assuming you're wanting to stick with the Verizon carrier.