RSSAT&T: Without a landline phone, you could die
By Tim Conneally | Published July 8, 2009, 12:05 PM
AT&T and an associated group of telecommunications companies under the name "National Emergency Number Association" (NENA) released the results of a June survey which concludes that Americans need to have an emergency communications plan based around a landline connection.
"A big part of this is knowing about the options available for dialing 911," NENA Chief Executive Officer, Brian Fontes said in a statement. "The more choices you have to reach 911 in an emergency, the better, and a corded landline phone should be one of those options. It provides the security of a home phone line connection to 911 so that in most cases first responders know your home address."
Landline abandonment is a trend that just keeps growing, and AT&T's fixed line subsidiaries are employing tried and true fear-based marketing to stanch the persistent customer loss.
The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics released a survey for the first half of 2008 which showed that 17.5% of American homes were wireless only, and that among homes with both wireless and wireline phones a further 13.3% did all or almost all of their calling on their wireless phone. By the second half of the year, the number of wireless-only homes had jumped 2.7 percentage points, the largest 6-month increase in the six years NHIS has been doing the surveys.
AT&T therefore says a home base connection is simply a security essential, citing such crises as -- taken verbatim from the company's report -- "that time you discovered you were allergic to peanuts," or losing your cell phone.
While it is true that unlike mobile phones, a landline can work with no electrical power, and that emergency preparedness is always wise, there's an equal number of situations where a landline will not come in handy:
1. You live alone.
2. Your home is engulfed in flames and you're forced outside.
3. An escaped murderer is hiding in your attic (see 2.)
4. There is a telecommunications workers' strike.
5. An emergency happens when no one is home.
These are all situations where the redundant connection (mobile) becomes the fallback option. But the problem is that maintaining a legacy connection is costly, and when customers are receiving comparable service from their wireless or cable VoIP providers, they're really being presented with no incentive to keep paying.
"there's an equal number of situations where a landline will not come in handy:
1. You live alone."
what? isn't that when it would most come in handy? when you're alone and need help and can't get to your cell phone for whatever reason?
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|Here's my problem with keeping landline service....
BASIC DOMESTIC service by ATT is advertised at $13. I'm fine paying $13 a month for EMERGENCY service, especially here in FL where Cell phones are about 20% reliable after a 'big' hurricane, due to flooded networks (no pun intended).
That $13 dollars turns into $35, and that's no exaggeration....and I have roughly $22 or so of taxes that I don't understand...even after reading them many times.
So I opt for my VoIP service where I currently pay $7, and use it to call internationally at very very cheap rates, and my cell phone which is with Tmobile and fully unlimited (customer loyalty).
In the end, if ATT wants to keep customers they need to compete with voip plans in that unlimited to usa bills should TOTAL at around $30 - there's nothing stopping them but greed.
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|maybe if they made the land lines telephone service,
at&t might regain more customers.
but dollar for dollar, cell phones, free nationwide calling, friends and family, gps, texting, etc...
it is unclear how land line telephone is believed to be superior.
at best, it might be better than a cell phone when power lines are down. but since power lines use telephone polls, telephone land lines would also be down as well.
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|Reasons to ditch your land line..!!
1. to get rid of the telemarketers (that don't respect the do not call list), incl., scams, charities, political, and opinion.?? polls (which I don't trust to give any information to now with ID theft problems, etc.)
2. elimination of paying taxes incl.:
- federal universal service fee
- federal subscriber line charge
- federal excise tax
- state and local taxes
- emergency 911 service
- inside wire protection fee
o - these taxes and fees total to about $19/mo compared to $22/mo for the actual phone charge
3. your cell phone is always where you are (if you choose to carry it with you all of the time)
4. you can turn your cell phone off at night or when you need the privacy
5. most cell phone plans have long distance included, so no messing with a long distance carrier or ...
6. several comments below add to the above list....
7. elimination of unreasonable connection fees if you move occasionally
8. I'm sure that there are other good or even better reasons...
anyway....!
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|That's just retarded. What you do is you keep all your old cell phones, possibly spend $5 on a new battery from eBay, and put one in every major room of the house, constantly charged/plugged to the wall.
Monthly cost: zero.
You can dial 911 from cell phones that aren't currently activated with any cell provider. Just change the battery once every two years or so if it doesn't hold a charge for longer than 30 mins...
I bet you can also call 911 and ask them to update the default address they have on file for that dead cell # ESN... Or I'm sure if you call some local gov agency you can force them to make that update -- then confirm it was updated by dialing 911 yourself and telling them you're testing your system and to read you what address they have for you.
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|If you have Comcast VOIP or a similar VOIP service through a cable provider you are almost entirely in the same boat as anyone who has an AT&T landline service. All Comcast EMTAs provide E911 service which provides 911 with all of your info the moment you dial them, regardless if you can get a word out. All ARRIS and Webstar EMTA modems have at least a 5 hour battery backup on them in case of power outage. This backup will ensure your phone and internet service remains intact when your 'house' loses power.. If your node loses power then you are screwed since it won't matter if your phone has power without a node to communicate with.. All cable providers have generators they can use to supply power to a node in the case of a major power outage and most respectable cable providers restore power to an outage in under 90min. If you do lose power for a few days but you have a generator, your phone and internet services will work like normal as long as that node's power has been restored and the modem is getting power from your generator. If you have any kind of UPS system that your modem is plugged into, your service will last even longer due to that as well.
I'll take my chances and save a bundle of a cash with any VOIP service over AT&T. Oh yeah, and to the guy concerned about keeping AT&T for his fax line, you might want to check with your cable provider to see if they offer a POTS line. Some have added this service specifically for fax lines at half the cost of AT&T.
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|I've lived in TX, IL, and IN
Nowhere have I had good/quality cell service.
"Huh? What? If you can hear me I'll call back."
I'll pay the $20 to have a landline.
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|Well we had a jackass cut 1000 feet of fiber this week and it took down Verizon's full network connecting Ventura to LA for over 8 hours.. Cell phones worked..
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|Could have went the exact opposite direction with that one, and also could have happened in reverse where the cell didn't work depending on your service area and cell service.
Nothing is 100%
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|Sorry, but land lines don't work without power. They work without your house having power.
Hurricane Charley left us without land lines until BellSouth/The new AT&T hooked up a generator to their box.
Now, if they want to drive home the fact the internet-based phones' 911 service will not work correctly, that's a fact and it doesn't require a power outage. Government standards? MIA.
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|That is incorrect. Thats why AT&T said a CORDED land line. Older phones never used the power from the house, your phone line as a very very tiny bit of power running through it... enough to get a tone and dial on most corded phones even if the power is out. You wont get caller ID, light up buttons, etc... If you use Cordless well then your F*CKED.. hehehe
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|You misunderstood him...
The power generated through the lines was *also* out....until AT&T hooked up a generator. ;)
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|That would mean the phone lines are down in which no phone would work. Phone lines generate there own power outside the normal grid. Meaning, if your power goes out - the phone lines normally still have that little bit of power to work a corded phone.
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|there is only "one" reason why i still pay for a land line:
FAXING!
but that is the telephone role of land lines.
the other role they provide is dsl service, where cable is not provided.
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|Power outage?
Your landline and phone may vary.
Since I put my landline base station on a UPS
I can make calls with the power out. Before, I
could not, and had to plug in a rotary phone.
Cellphone? I understand that most cell towers
have either battery or genny b'up.
911 on a cell? You'll almost certainly get 911,
probably the correct 911, and they likely do
know that phone's home address, but my cell's
GPS takes 15 seconds to "Error..." to get its
position within 15 to 300 feet. Again, phones
vary.
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|doesn't At&T know that almost all cellphones that are out now have GPS to track you down which is better than a landlines because the people calling 911 are too delirious to remember what address or street they are on when they call
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|I know here in the County I live in... they are able to Triangulate (?) with GPS coordinates and tell exactly where you are calling from. Of course, this only works with updated towers and your phone must have GPS turned on. I believe this is how it works anyway.
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|You do realise that landline phones can be traced exactly to where it is, unlike mobiles where it can only be traced depending on what tower it's connected to and it's proximity to other towers? What's GPS in phones got to do with other people tracing you? Here's a hint: they can't.
"I know here in the County I live in... they are able to Triangulate (?) with GPS coordinates and tell exactly where you are calling from. Of course, this only works with updated towers and your phone must have GPS turned on. I believe this is how it works anyway."
No that's not how it works. It's triangulated against the tower you're connected to and the other towers in the area nearby. The more dense the tower network in an area, the more accurate it is. As you can guess, if you're out in the open like countryside, it's only accurate to a few hundred metres. It has nothing to do with GPS.
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|Maybe if they really cared, they would sell a basic landline plan for $1-$5/month for emergency services.
Oh and the whole thing about a power outage....hmmm...I think my cell phone still works when the power's out...it's called a BATTERY...lol.
Also, you can call 911 on ANY cellphone, regardless if its on a plan or not, also even if it's someone else's phone that is locked, you can still call 911.
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|"Maybe if they really cared, they would sell a basic landline plan for $1-$5/month for emergency services. "
LOL. So true....
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|During most of the power outages here, the cell network goes down as well. The towers appear to be on the local grid.
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|It is certainly annoying that we can't make calls when the power is out. That is infrequent enough that I'm not to concerned about 911 calls; it is just inconvenient.
We still have a land line running to the house, and I think we can call 911 on it, even though we dropped our service.
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|Heh..
Car charger, spare battery, USB charging off of a charged laptop, more than one phone...
Problem solved.
Landlines are pretty much irrelevant in most cases now. Most homes have more than one cell (we have 4 now) and most phones can hold a charge for days now.
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|There are also those disposable cell phones you can put away in your emergency supplies as well.
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