Rare Today, Gone Tomorrow?

Home "landline" telephones
Surveys indicate that a growing number of households rely exclusively on cell phones.
Cordless phone

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There are 8 comments for this item.

Posted by GlenEllyn at 11:57 am (PDT) on Mon May 20, 2019   
@kluv42 - You know you've come home when the phone number is still the same after X years. wink
Posted by kluv42 at 9:34 pm (PDT) on Sun May 19, 2019   
I moved back home to be with Mom a few years ago. So now I still have the same home phone # we had when I was a baby. At least the phone is wireless and pushbutton...
Posted by LoyalTubist at 6:12 pm (PDT) on Sat July 16, 2016   
Back in the old days the most fun you could have with the phone was the party line. That was when you would have more telephones on a circuit than you had lines going out. When the lines were full you could listen in on calls. We finally got a private line in 1967. I think it cost maybe $3 extra each month.
Posted by freddo30 at 10:05 pm (PDT) on Sun April 10, 2016   
We have a "landline" but it is provided by the cable TV company and has been known to fail occasionally ; my own fault I suppose because I wanted to cut down on the number of individual providers I had to pay each month and I have a grudge against AT&T which I won't elaborate upon here. And I don't even own a cell phone much less those fancy ones they have now because nobody has the privilege of bugging me wherever, whenever. Far cry from the black metal monster that moved with us in 1961 from our apartment to a house ; the "phone company" had to disconnect and reconnect it, it was theirs and you rented it.
Posted by dtdavis2012 at 12:04 am (PDT) on Tue May 28, 2013   
I bought new Panasonic phones in January. The "base unit" is corded and there are three cordless units. I tried getting in touch with a friend about three miles away and was never able to reach him. His sister called from Brooklyn, NY and was upset because she thought that something might have happened to him. Anyway, it turns out that a storm had come through and torn down several power lines which knocked his phones out. The friend was okay, just without electricity. Next time you look into new phones, check out the ones that have a corded unit with them. (You'll be glad you did.)
Posted by GlenEllyn at 9:10 pm (PDT) on Fri August 31, 2012   
I'm not ready to give up my landline. Although I have cordless phones now, I still have one trimline phone plugged in downstairs just for use during power outages. And believe me, I'm glad I do because I've used it more than once during the 3 or 4 outages we've had over the past year. I have a cell-phone too, but with my luck, the battery would be run down when an outage occurred.
Posted by skizix at 8:30 pm (PST) on Fri January 21, 2011   
Once we switched to a corded phone connected to a broadband router (no longer using true phone lines), the whole corded phone argument vanished. Although, the cable router does have a battery in it -- I guess I should test this. If the power goes out, then perhaps a corded phone plugged into the battery backed up cable router (doing the phone service) will still work? Huh.
Posted by Duff at 12:46 am (PST) on Wed November 25, 2009   
For a single person, perhaps, I can imagine that. And perhaps there's less of a need to yell, "Honey, it's for you!" when calls come in on each individual's mobile.

But with a mobile, if you need to have another person in the household join the conversation, the speakerphone is about your only option (or maybe a 3-way call, I guess). And to have them pick up the call? You have to give them your mobile. And what do you do in a big house... carry your mobile with you everywhere?

I also don't understand the people whose only home phones are the cordless variety such as pictured here, or the new VOIP phones. In a power outage, you're stuck. (I understand that some have backup battery power that can last a few hours, but is that enough?) Corded phones generally continue to work when the power's out. That's a safety issue; I think everyone should have at least one corded phone.

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