Dropping the land line

Ned Bulken

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Lakeport NY and/or the nearest hotel
The LOML and I are considering dropping the land line and going with just cell phones for the family. I've got my work phone, which I use in the car of course (almost never leaves the car in fact), but she and our middle son Adam are both 'busy' enough that cell phones are becoming a necessity.

I'm a little leery of doing this only because cell coverage at the house is spotty. I might sign up for VOIP as well, either vonage or a similar system. Power here is pretty good, so I'm not too concerned about storms etc... and a UPS would take care of that issue on the house front.

I'm sure some of you techno-woodworkers have done this, any tips/thoughts/advice? TIA
 
I know a guy that installed one of these........

41MkM6j7xaL._SS500_.jpg

at his house, says it works REAL well.

Wireless Extenders Dual Band signal extender by "Wireless Extenders". This model covers both frequency ranges of cell phones, the 800 and 1900 mhz bands.

ASIN: B000J2XZ1K on Amazon

Cheers!
 
Speaking as someone involved with this sort of thing, remember that cellular communications are a 'convenience' category service. I have sketchy coverage at my home as well but primarily use my cell phone. I have a bottom of the barrel land line with no bells and whistles. This along with UPS and cellular backup serve my alarm system.

The reason I'm boring you with this is there is a second benefit to my land line. If I have an accident and can just barely work the phone, dialing 911 from my land line pinpoints my location. E911 is no where near deployed so calling from your cell phone is not like they make it out on TV; they don't know where you are. This may or may not be a reason to keep a basic dial out-only type land line around.

P.s. At work we keep some POTS lines here and there as 'power-fail' lines. You old fashioned home phone is powered by DC from the phone company. Lights out? Phone still works.
 
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Looks like a great idea. I (quickly) read the reviews. Reports were somewhat spotty and confusing. We, also, are considering dropping the land line for 100% cell. I'll have to re-read the reviews carefully and look at competing products also. That gadget is kinda expensive. If it works, recovery on the cost would take a year for us. I wish the big box metal stores would install repeaters. I'm sure it would be good for business if they did.
 
I'm with Glenn. We use the cell phoines for pretty much everything, but still have a very basic landline as backup. In addition to 911 identification, we like to have a second system to fall back on in the event of an earthquake. After the Northridge quake in 1994, I had no power, but my phone didn't miss a beat.
 
Glenn, makes a VERY valid point! If/when you ever have any sort of emergency...they have your location pin pointed, right away. Think about it... it's really not worth the "economy" of going without a land line. As well... although perhaps a slim chance...you won't be trying that emerg. call, with a dead battery.
 
Hey Ned,
I'm with the "keep the land line" gang. In addition to all they have said, if you are in an emergency like a big fire, chemical spill, earthquake, etc. that affects a lot of people, the cell bandwidth fills up in no time at all. The landlines can handle the increased traffic much better.

I was working in Washington DC when the terrorist hijacked plane hit the Pentagon. My cell was pretty much useless all day.
 
Ned

one of my favorite expressions is, let's not be penny wise and pound foolish

I'd vote to keep a pared down land line too.

When we returned to no power in Florida after the big hurricanes, the land line phones still worked -- go figure!

Look at Skype for long distance

Jay
 
And this is exactly why I wanted to ask the experts. I'll be looking into just a local line keeping the house number. Then, with the cell #s, we'll be able to keep in touch with the family on the cheap. Too bad my eldest son has his own plan, on a different carrier. Won't be worth it to have him switch over. At least he can have us as one of his favorites and not get charged minutes when he talks with us.
 
I tried to drop my landline a few months ago. In the house we do not get cell reception, but I get a full five bars on the roof. I live on a big hill so from the roof I can see for miles and miles, but for some reason here in the house the cell signal is non-existent. The obvious answer is to get an antenna and get a signal that way.

So anyway we started the process, but found we could not get rid of our landline and still keep our DSL. Now there is no way we are going back to dial-up, so our only other option was satellite Internet. That however proved to be way to expensive. It would have taken us 3 years to recoup the cost even if we did drop the landline.

I would like to drop it, but until something better comes along we'll still have the landline plugged in.
 
When we returned to no power in Florida after the big hurricanes, the land line phones still worked -- go figure!
Jay
On plain old telephone service (POTS), power for the phone is supplied over the telephone line itself - 48 volts DC. In fact, that's how the telephone company detects that you've picked up the phone - you connect the circuit and current flows through the one wire, through the phone, and back through the other wire. There's not much power in that "local loop" (as the telephone people call it), but there's enough to power a simple phone. When a call comes in, a much higher AC voltage is applied to the loop, which rings your phone. In the early days of telephones, that AC signal drove an electromagnet which in turn drove a clapper on a bell. Modern day phones use a much less power hungry system to power a speaker which emits an electronic sound.

The telephone company has big racks of batteries to supply this DC power, and also to power all the electronic equipment in the central office (CO) - almost all electronic equipment that is to be installed in a CO has to run on negative 48V DC. For most COs the batteries will last quite a few hours but they all have diesel generators to provide power through long periods of power outs. If you are ever interested, contact your phone company and ask for a tour of your local CO. It's easiest to get a tour if you're part of some local community group - they generally won't do a tour for one person (unless you know someone who works in the CO). Since 9/11 they've tightened up on tours - used to be very easy to get in.

That's why your phone works when everything else that requires power is gone.

But you have to do your part. If you have cordless phones, you have to provide power to the base station so that the phone still works. Better yet, buy one cheap corded phone and put it in a room that you don't use much. When the power fails and your cordless phones no longer work, your cheap corded phone will still provide you service.

More than you ever wanted to know about your telephone system!

Mike

PS - a lot of telephone service is provided through digital loop carriers (DLCs) now and not directly from a CO. If you'd like to know about DLCs and how they work, I'll be happy to really bore you. Ask me about optical networks some time when you can't get to sleep and I guarantee I'll cure you.
 
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