Land Line Phone

[tonyb]

Been through at least half a dozen cordless landline phones over the past couple of decades (if it needs more than a new battery, may as well consign it to the landfill).

My 1 and 1/2-year-old iPhone up and died on me a week ago today. After a trip to the AT&T store, and after a couple of hours or more fiddling with it here, with it plugged into the back of my iMac and me talking with an Apple service kid somewhere in Utah over the landline while we tried this and tried that (to no avail, of course), and after arm-wrestling over the phone with some other Apple people the following day (whom I finally persuaded to replace the thing at no cost to me, even though it was 190-some days out of warranty, seeing how it was their software update that crashed the damn thing), and after waiting 'til Tuesday for the new phone to arrive (the FedEx driver came by while I was out, so a trip to FedEx's local base of operations was in order, as I expected to be away for at least part of the following day as well), and after another visit to the AT&T store, to make certain the new unit was activated properly, I once again had a working iPhone. Oh, and I had to send the old one back.

My WE 302 is 67 years old. Works fine.

However, even the most strident of Luddites would have to acknowledge that smartphones have quite practical real-world applications, even if it seems they are mostly used for amusement. The mapping and GPS features have all but eliminated the need to trust other people's driving directions (which were often about as clear as mud).

Took one of our mutts to the emergency vet last night. Poor little guy was trembling and was having trouble walking. Really put a scare into me and his Mom. The place about half a mile from here, which I thought was the all-night emergency veterinary clinic (it used to be, I'm pretty sure) was dark. So I asked my iPhone where I might find a nearby vet doing business during the 10 p.m. hour. A matter of seconds later I had my answer. It was about a mile thataway. So I had the address, and the GPS would have steered me right to it, had I needed that.

Cool (and reliable) as that WE 302 might be, it can't do any of that. I'm keeping it, for sure, and I expect it'll keep on working fine, long after several successive iterations of smartphones have come and gone. But unless you got a new one to replace it with, you'll get my smartphone from my cold, dead hands.

EDIT: By the way, little Otis is fine. He vomited in the car, and the vet saw no good reason to hold him there overnight.

 

[vitanola]

Hmmphf!

I have a $10.00 cell phone for emergencies when we travel, and otherwise our big house is fitted with Western Electric 202's (3) a Western Electric 102, a Western Electric 151AL Desk Stand, a couple of those D08 Danish sets and three Western Electric 553 "hotel" wall telephones, all connected to a Panasonic KX-T616 switch. I've been using the 151AL and 102 for the last thrity years. No problems with any of these ancient telephones, nor with the twenty-five year old Panasonic switch.

When we move to our new, smaller home I'll cut down to just two sets, the 151AL in the library and a single 553 wall telephone in the kitchen, both of which will have ringer cut-out switches.

 

[LizzieMaine]

151AL on the desk, 102 in the living room, 302 upstairs, and a 553 out on the porch. I don't worry about communications while traveling because I rarely ever leave the 1-mile stretch between here and work, and I know my way back and forth between here and there pretty well by now. I have a spare 302 which I'm thinking of taking in to work and keeping in my desk drawer for all the times when the modern phones go down.

 

[tonyb]

And besides, you've always got the Internet. (Well, maybe not always, but certainly most of the time.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

Until the power goes out anyw

 

[tonyb]

that'll happ

 

[tonyb]

Speaking of same ...

Getting my landline through the cable turns out to be less reliable than entrusting it to what had been the Bell System.

The cable comes in from a power pole across the street. The pole is owned by the local (privately owned) gas and electric utility. So the cable company can't put their wires anywhere they may wish to on that pole. The upshot is that the cable had been hanging somewhat lower than I would prefer. (Indeed, one of the cable company's techs confided to me that the cable had once been moved down the pole a bit, at the insistence of the power company.) A couple-three times over the three-plus years we've lived here, tall trucks (tractor-trailer combinations) have taken out the cable. This has happened only when a significant snowfall has effectively elevated the road, and lowered (due to the weight of the snow) the cable going over the road. Twang!

On the most recent of these unfortunate occasions I had a fairly spirited discussion with a cable company field supervisor. He said my argument was with the trucking company. I begged to differ, of course. They ended up putting in a guide cable -- a taut line to which the "cable cable" is attached, leaving the entire works less likely to sag, and they attached it all to my house at the highest available point.

So far, so good.

 

[Deputydowg1]

My wife and I both have IPhones and love the way we can connect and share information with our kids and grand kids. But, we keep a land line for other reasons. A call on the land line to 911 gives the call center an address for the caller and allows immediate dispatch, that doesn't happen with the cell phone.

But, both the cell phone and the land line are probably complete wastes of money for me because my son once pointed out (when he was 16), "dad what the heck do you need a phone for, you don't have any friends." Kids, gotta lov'em right?

 

[olive bleu]

But, both the cell phone and the land line are probably complete wastes of money for me because my son once pointed out (when he was 16), "dad what the heck do you need a phone for, you don't have any friends." Kids, gotta lov'em right?

I got the same reaction from my 16 year old son, when i got an iphone. He was checking it out one night and handed it back to me, saying "I don't know why you think you needed this, you don't even have any games on it, or any cool music"

..and ditto the "No friends" bit.

 

[Wally_Hood]

We had a land line up until a couple weeks ago when we switched to the Fios bundle. We left out the land line and have the cable service and the internet into the house and everyone has a cell phone. These were all cost cutting moves: we eliminated the Directv bill of $98.00 or so and the land line charge.

The gradual disappearance of the land line will result in changes in application forms and so on: it will no longer ask for your home phone number, work phone number, and cell phone number.

 

[John in Covina]

DUE to the economy I don't have a landline but I do prefer having one. I find that the cell phone takes its time letting me know there were missed calls and voice mail. Also unless I have it on loud ring and in my shirt pocket I never realize the phone rang if I am driving. When I get to where ever I am going and check or home I find i missed important calls with a cell phone. Plus I hate being "On Call" 24/7. It's ok if someone scored tickets and want to invite you last minute but there is a sense that one is supposed to drop what ever one is doing to take a call, I resent that.

With a land line I can hear my messages and call back the next day, that is permissible but if you have a cell phone everything has to be immediate...

 

[LoveMyHats2]

I have a Magic Jack hooked up to my cable modem and then I have a 4 station cordless hooked to the Magic Jack. I have been running like this for over 4 years and I love it. Once I was certain I would like running this way, I prepaid for the service so now I won't have a phone bill until sometime in 2017. For $20 a year, it is very good.

I know a few people that love a magic jack.

This Sprint phone connection is like a cell phone in a box with antenna, you plug it into the electrical socket to keep the back up battery charged. It gets a really good signal. You can plug in any normal phone. You can unplug it from the wall and take it any place you want. No need for a phone line or computer line. Just the "gizmo" what ever it is called and a normal phone. The gizmo has a message recording system notice right on it, and of course if you have a caller ID phone it is going to show you who is calling. Hard to beat for the money. Sort of a cross between a actual land line and a cell phone.

 

[tonyb]

Hmmphf!

I have a $10.00 cell phone for emergencies when we travel, and otherwise our big house is fitted with Western Electric 202's (3) a Western Electric 102, a Western Electric 151AL Desk Stand, a couple of those D08 Danish sets and three Western Electric 553 "hotel" wall telephones, all connected to a Panasonic KX-T616 switch. I've been using the 151AL and 102 for the last thrity years. No problems with any of these ancient telephones, nor with the twenty-five year old Panasonic switch.

When we move to our new, smaller home I'll cut down to just two sets, the 151AL in the library and a single 553 wall telephone in the kitchen, both of which will have ringer cut-out switches.

You have ten operating landline phones in your house? Am I counting right? Just how big is this "big house"?

 

[Rathdown]

Land lines? Yup. I've got nine phones (ten if you count the one in the dining room which is unplugged), and with the sole exception of the push-button, clear plastic phone on my desk, and the "French" telephone in the dining room, they are all pre-war black Bakelite (?) units.

 

[Stanley Doble]

I always know where to find my home phone and the battery never goes dead and it never loses its signal. More than I can say for any cell phone I ever owned.

 

[vitanola]

You have ten operating landline phones in your house? Am I counting right? Just how big is this "big house"?

Well, I left off an Automatic Electric Model 21 desk Stand and an early 302 in odd bedrooms, and the Western Electric 211 Wall/Desk Hangers at my workbench in the cellar, for an actual total of thirteen telephones in the house and one Automatic Electric Type 50 "Monophone" in the garage, for a grand total of fourteen. These 'phones are behind a Panasonic KX-T 616 switch, which acts as an automatic PBX (Private Branch Exchange) and automatically converts dial pulse to tone.

The 616 was a "hybrid Key Telephone system" , a device which would allow the use of multi-button "office style" "Key Sets" or ordinary single line telephones. the unit was made between 1985 and 1996, and sold in immense quantities. It is simple, easy to program and reliable as all get-out, and sells for very little on the used market, as it had been largely replaced by more modern digital equipment. I have mine programmed as a PBX, it gives each telephone a local dial tone, which allows us to call from room to room, a great help in a brick house with dead walls. When the number "9"is dialed from any extension that extension is connected to our outside line (trunk, in telephone parlance).

I'm retired from the telephone business. My firm installed thousands of these systems back in their heyday, and so I enjoy using mine. In addition, the Better Half is a bit like Hyacinth Bucket, and feels that a raised voice calling from room to room is the height of degeneracy, so this system has saved me many a lecture.

The house had nineteen ramshackle rooms when we purchased it. It now has fourteen rooms and six baths. At around 5000 square feet, the house is too big for any private citizen, save perhaps "Octomom". At the time that we purchased the house I had sold my business and was a rather large holder of stock in one of the world leaders in the telecommunications industry. In June of 2002 that all changed.

When we finish the restoration of our new house, which is a much more reasonable 1400 square feet we will be parting with the big house, which would make a lovely Bed and Breakfast (each bedroom has an en suite bath). We will even finance!

 

[tonyb]

...

I'm retired from the telephone business. My firm installed thousands of these systems back in their heyday, and so I enjoy using mine. In addition, the Better Half is a bit like Hyacinth Bucket, and feels that a raised voice calling from room to room is the height of degeneracy, so this system has saved me many a lecture.

The house had nineteen ramshackle rooms when we purchased it. It now has fourteen rooms and six baths. At around 5000 square feet ...

Ah, It's all coming into focus now.

My dewy-eyed bride just hollers for me. I tend to ignore her summonses until they reach a certain persistence, and decibel level. I figure that if she really requires my attention, she can just call me on my cell phone.

By the way, all those perfectly functional antique phones would indeed add to the charm of a bed and breakfast. Seeing how charm is typically among the attributes of such lodgings, and is somewhat expected by the patrons, they certainly couldn't hurt.

 

[Gingerella72]

DUE to the economy I don't have a landline but I do prefer having one. I find that the cell phone takes its time letting me know there were missed calls and voice mail. Also unless I have it on loud ring and in my shirt pocket I never realize the phone rang if I am driving. When I get to where ever I am going and check or home I find i missed important calls with a cell phone. Plus I hate being "On Call" 24/7. It's ok if someone scored tickets and want to invite you last minute but there is a sense that one is supposed to drop what ever one is doing to take a call, I resent that.

With a land line I can hear my messages and call back the next day, that is permissible but if you have a cell phone everything has to be immediate...

Why does it have to be immediate? Why not just treat it the same way you would a land line? No one is forcing you to answer it right away. I screen my calls on my land line caller ID and if I don't want to talk to them or don't recognize the number, I ignore it. Why can't it be the same way with a cell?

For those of you who say land lines are expensive, can you throw out some figures to back it up? And what you pay for a cell plan? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around cells being cheaper than a land line, when my land line is $32.00 a month with all the bells and whistles, and the cell plans I've looked at in my area are over $50.00 a month for the cheapest ones.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I pay $28 a month for my plain old ex-Bell System land line with no bells or whistles, and maybe six bucks a month extra for long distance, which I only use to order supplies for work from home. I have no idea what cell phone plans cost, but the way I hear people complaining about them, I doubt they're less than that.

The only extra I pay for is an unlisted number. That way nobody calls me who I don't want calling me.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

I can't stand land lines, because of the endless junk calls from call centres flogging crap; and junk calls from fax machines; and junk calls from utility companies that I stopped using, trying to tempt me back; junk fishing calls "I'm calling about your recent accident …" fish fish fish; junk calls from charities with whose practices I don't necessarily agree. And this is on a "no-call" list! These scum hide behind the "we're just trying to do our job/drum up business" line.

I've never had a junk call on my cell phone. It costs me about £5 every 2 months, as I only use it for text messaging (one of the greatest advances of the late C20th, IMO). If I don't want to take calls, I just turn it off. Give me a cell phone any day, with a qwerty keyboard. Were it not for internet requiring a land line (I don't have satellite or cable, or any kind of TV since they forced us onto digital for which my TV is not configured), I don't think I would have a land line, tbh.

I don't ascribe to the modern obsession with "connectivity" so I never feel lost without methods of contact. I'd certainly never use the London Underground if I worried about being out of contact for a couple hours.:eusa_doh: