Pulled the plug on the land line

[Grayeagle]

The 911 call to local fire dept or police is why we still have land line.
I've had to dial it twice in the last coupla years, each time, they asked about nature of the emergency and stated help was on the way,
..they had our address.

If Cell phones get to the point where they can match that .. I'm in.
Until then .. voicemail screens my calls, I rarely answer the phone as I am always busy doin somethin it seems.

-GE aka Frank

[Rich46yo]

The thing I am not certain of is does your cell # display at the 911 site and does your address. I just don't know.

No, it does not. What pops up on the 911 system is the tower the call bounces off of.

But for the record having an address come up on the system, with a landline, doesn't get Police/Fire there any quicker. The call taker still has to enter all the info into the system in order to send it to the dispatcher. Maybe other systems are different in that the call taker and dispatcher are the same person. Ours are to busy for that. The only way I could see it helping is if your incapacitated and your landline call is interrupted.

[Hajo]

Having been through a few tornados I have been glad I kept the landline.  Electricity was out.  Cell phone service out.  Cable TV out.

My land line phone worked.

[Shuffler]

Having been through a few tornados I have been glad I kept the landline.  Electricity was out.  Cell phone service out.  Cable TV out.

My land line phone worked.

Lucky since most phone lines are strung on the same poles as the electricity.

[WilldCrd]

The price of land line service will cary from state to state.  In Texas, it is cheaper to have basic cell phone service than a land line.

We have been trying to get rid of our land line for years, but it is required to have if you want DSL service.  What a racket. 

We can get FIOS and dump the land line, but I refuse to support any service which forces PPPoE to be used.  One day I'll probably have to switch to it, or drop Internet service altogether, as Verizon is making noises about either a substantial cost hike for DSL or dropping it from FIOS enabled neighborhoods.

If we just drop Internet service and kill the land line, we could save $100/month.

Skuzzy, we switched to DHCP. we haven't used PPPoe for awhile. I was 99% sure before posting this so I called one of my buddies in the IT dept. he confirmed it. Sooo email me your info so I can get a sell one more credit!!!
With our new bundle discounts AND the choice of either a free netbook or camcorder now is a great time to take the plunge !!!
ofcourse any info you give me will be kept in the strictest confidence per company regulations 

[Mickey1992]

No, it does not. What pops up on the 911 system is the tower the call bounces off of.

Not true in most populated areas.

"The system can pinpoint a caller on a map, placing the call to the closest address. "

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/07/11/911update.ART_ART_07-11-09_B3_3BEEMQ0.html?sid=101

[MORAY37]

Been thinking about it for years. After I upgraded to u-verse it turns out I don't need a phone line with my DSL. In fact the whole connection type changed. So I dropped the land line after having one for 36 years. Never answer that phone anyway. All people who call want money (donations). In fact I renamed it the beggars line.

Considering that's the last vestige of communication that remains when a hurricane makes landfall here, I'll always have one.  The last three hurricanes I've been in it went like this:
No cell phone (every time)..... no electricity (every time)..... no water (twice)..... no landline phone (only happened once). It's amazing to plug in a cheap ten dollar phone, and have it work over all the expensive cell phones in the house.  IMO that should be in every hurricane prep box for every house that has that eventuality to contend with.  Those low voltage lines always seem to be resistant to high winds!

[sluggish]

My experience has been that when the power goes out, the phones quit with them.  Two weeks ago someone cut a very important fiber optic cable which took out all the landlines for the better part of a day.  While cell phones were also greatly affected, I was able to keep in contact with my wife via text messages.  You should have seen all the idiots running around  "OMG!! 911 isn't working!!"  Yeah...  what the hell did people do up until twenty years ago...  Get a grip.

[Getback]

Considering that's the last vestige of communication that remains when a hurricane makes landfall here, I'll always have one.  The last three hurricanes I've been in it went like this:
No cell phone (every time)..... no electricity (every time)..... no water (twice)..... no landline phone (only happened once). It's amazing to plug in a cheap ten dollar phone, and have it work over all the expensive cell phones in the house.  IMO that should be in every hurricane prep box for every house that has that eventuality to contend with.  Those low voltage lines always seem to be resistant to high winds!

Makes sense to me. However, that's the risk I'm willing to take.