It occurred to me just now that Dr Laurel and I have been without a home telephone for almost 3 years now. We just use two cell phones that move about the house in random ways.We thought about getting a landline, but we just didn't want to incur the cost. Its been OK: Limiting in some ways, but liberating in others. It's no fun when the mobile falls behind the couch when you know that it is turned off. It's also no good when Dr Laurel leaves her phone on silent all day!
But it is cheaper. We use Skype for long distance, and the cell for local calls. Plus, I don't know what it is about the psychology of mobile phones, but one can turn them off without feeling like you are betraying some basic law of humanity.
- Do you live unplugged?
- Could you or would you live without a Landline?
Pic on Flickr by Splityarn.
7 comments:
I don't have a land line in my house only cell phones.
I don't answer the phone while I'm driving, at work, in a restaurant (usually), or in places that either don't allow cell phones or want them turned off.
We don't have a landline and wait for it, I screen my mobile calls! *gasp*. I'll wait for you to recover... :) We too couldn't justify the cost of line rental which was costing us as much, if not more, than our monthly call charges. We have a fantastic plan with 3 Mobile which always leaves us underspending and also use Skype for long distance. It's even better than a landline as the folks can see us and the little one when we chat.
Kat and I live unplugged (we don't even have the internet) and (most of the time) it's great!!
We can retreat into technological silence when we need a break from the outside world simply by turning our phones off!
landlines are so 90's. i haven't had the landlines since...well, 90's!
and i skype-video-telecomputing with my 2.5 year old nephew. i don't need a land line for that!
SeaPea - always ahead of the technological pack!
Why not get a VoIP phone?
We have chosen to retain a very cheap Telstra landline. Some of the people we love and minister to can't afford to call a mobile phone. However, it only costs us $10 a month, and we can afford that.
Here's our nerdy bit: our outbound calls go out via a Linksys box to our VoIP provider, which saves us about $60/month. Because I've set it up from the ground up (I didn't buy a locked or branded box), we can actually use multiple VoIP companies, and have different kinds of calls (mobile, local, international etc.) dynamically ported to the cheapest provider for that call type, as you make the call.
Here's where it gets even better. My mobile phone has wireless, so when I call from home, it automatically uses our wireless network to call out through our VoIP box, not my mobile provider.
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