Kevin's Watch

Last week, my old neighbor called. He asked me to keep an eye out for the delivery of a dumpster at his parents house next door to me and to let him know when I saw it was delivered. The next morning, I was outside with the dog at 7am when I heard the dumpster being delivered. So after I get got back I thought it was too early to call so I sent a text. I got a message back that I was texting a land line. I was mildly shocked to find that someone still had one in their home. I got rid of mine 7 or 8 years ago. Does anyone here still have a land line?

Nope. It's been several years for us, also. Usually only businesses still have them.

Yes and no.
Several years ago we ported it to google voice so there's no physical phone in the house anymore.
My wife gets a text if some calls the home number and if they leave a message she gets that in text form too.
At the time it made sense to keep that number but now it seldom gets dialed.

It's actually the only number I have memorized. lol

And it's free, as of now anyway.

We do. We have four rechargeable phones hooked up to the landline throughout the house. Neither Dam-sel nor I keep our mobiles within reach 24/7; Dam-sel while she's watching TV nor me while cooking or baking, unless I'm following an online recipe I haven't printed out. If an emergency should happen, the landline is more reliable for clarity should 911 need to be called, plus I have heard landlines are easier to triangulate a location if no one can speak during a 911 call.

I believe SD and Dam-sel prefer using the landline for calls with their last living parent. Again, for issues of clarity and stable connection, I believe.

I will say our mobile reception has improved since we changed companies in the past few years. But I, personally, am more comfortable with still having a land line for reliable reception.

The last couple of years that I had a land line I used it as a junk call filter. Now if I don’t recognize the number I just don’t answer.

Have not had a land line in well over a decade.

We have a landline in our house, but that will end when we sell our house and move out. I'm not even sure there's a real landline option in the area we're moving to.

That said, my spouse doesn't accept texts on his personal mobile phone, only on his work phone. He has an archaic flip phone that he's still using for his personal phone.

I haven't had a landline phone since the year 2004.

Never got one when I moved here ten years ago. A lot of internet providers in the UK still require a landline, though, so it's left me trapped in an expensive Virgin Media contract for my internet because there is no capacity for new landline connections at the local exchange.

We ditched ours 6 or 7 years ago. Also managed to convince my 80 something year old mum to ditch it too - she’s strictly mobile now

We've had the landline in our house for decades, just never discontinued it. It's only good for making local calls out but will take any incoming call. And it's good to have it in case of hurricanes, when cell towers often become unavailable for one reason or another.

But, as I said, in our new home even if we got a landline it's not an old fashioned land line. It's the same type of cable used for the internet.

We only quit using a landline and got a cell phone in 2020.

We had thought about switching from a landline to a cell before then, as the monthly fee for the landline was unreasonable, but I/we always got "stuck" when trying to make all the decisions about REALLY switching to a cell.

But then in like April 2020, our landline stopped working, and I got really "stuck" trying to figure out how / if I could get AT&T to fix it.
(Ahh, how I used "do I get stuck?" to guide me!)

Menolly wrote:But I, personally, am more comfortable with still having a land line for reliable reception.

I have thought about this a bit... I was exasperated that cell phones have such high variance in how good of reception they have... and yet this tech has just semi-universally replaced landlines. The strongest emotion it got out of me was an angry "Did we (humans in the aggregate / America / whoever) REALLY decide to accept an inferior technology... entirely because of convenience?"

I just think to myself, "We can't hear the other person and know what they're saying reliably, but at least we can be reached anywhere. What a great trade-off! And oh, if you're really bothered by the fact that we can't hear clearly on a voice call, you can just pivot to using only texting."

I realize I sound very grumpy. One time this past summer, my sister and I were having a sort of intense conversation... and trying to fix (something that could be at least partly framed as) a communications problem between the two of us... and at one point, I explained that talking on a cell RAISES my anxiety. Also, texting raises my anxiety.

I realized I was quickly able to give her a ranked list of what my most-preferred to least-favorite communications methods were. Discord was at at the top; texting was at the bottom. Go figure.

We only have cell phones. And I have a VoIP app on my PC and laptop for work. Since we started our latest round of rolling blackouts here in August though I haven't had a signal, since the cell towers have their battery backups stolen, or they're not maintained or whatever and I always had bad reception anyway, so if a local tower goes down, I literally have nothing.

Thankfully I don't phone people much and don't like them to phone me. But having to run outside and up the stairs to the top floor to get an OTP or something is really annoying.

--A

Avatar wrote:Thankfully I don't phone people much and don't like them to phone me. But having to run outside and up the stairs to the top floor to get an OTP or something is really annoying.

Oh, yuck!!
Thanks for providing that image so I know someone has it worse than I do.

I hate when texted-to-a-cell-number OTP's are required!! All the more reason for hating them now.

Yeah, it's a pain. Thinking of getting a SIM from a different service provider to see if that helps. Signal boosters are surprisingly expensive. (Although my boss will probably spring for one out of frustration, haha.)

--A

Avatar wrote: Since we started our latest round of rolling blackouts here in August though I haven't had a signal, since the cell towers have their battery backups stolen
--A

Damn!

Avatar wrote:We only have cell phones. And I have a VoIP app on my PC and laptop for work. Since we started our latest round of rolling blackouts here in August though I haven't had a signal, since the cell towers have their battery backups stolen, or they're not maintained or whatever and I always had bad reception anyway, so if a local tower goes down, I literally have nothing.

Thankfully I don't phone people much and don't like them to phone me. But having to run outside and up the stairs to the top floor to get an OTP or something is really annoying.

--A

I would certainly feel that way, as well.

High Lord Tolkien wrote:

Avatar wrote: Since we started our latest round of rolling blackouts here in August though I haven't had a signal, since the cell towers have their battery backups stolen

Damn!

Africa's not for sissies man. During the power outages, gangs of guys dig up the power cables, (because they're safe from being electrocuted then), cut them up, and burn off the insulation so they can sell the copper to (unscrupulous) scrap metal dealers.

Causes days of outages while they make repairs...last time it happened in my area I had no power for 66 hours.

Too many desperate people.

--A

I recently watched a video of police busting into a house claiming a phone call from a landline had been placed from there. all of the 20 somethings had to assure the gestapo that none of them had ever had a landline of their own in their lives.