I’m thinking about ditching DSL and getting Cable Internet, thus allowing us to ditch our landline. The cost of cable internet is equivalent to my DSL right now, or so I recently realized when I saw that our ISP (speedfactory) has starting charging an extra $10/mo because we have computers networked to our router, allowing all to access the internet instead of just one.
The only downside I can think of is updating all those hundreds of official documents out there in the universe that have our home phone number on it.
Anyone else know of a snag?
wait wait wait. they are charging you 10 bucks a month because you have a router and multiple computers hooked to that? what the hell is that?
Well, my point exactly.
I’m not even sure how they know.
Gunkies. Gunkies is what they are.
hmmmmmm dropping them might be a good idea
Loss of telephonic communication in case of a large scale power outage? My sister lived in Chasn for Hurricane Hugo, and was without electricity for two weeks, but never lost phone service.
I’ve been thinking about that. The scenario would be:
1- loss of power in surrounding area
2- loss of mobilephone service
In that scenario, what would we need? If we needed to make an emergency call, or a call to tell family in other states we’re fine, we could probably borrow a neighbor’s phone, or perhaps a payphone (do they still have those?).
In the end, I think it’s a manageable situation.
We use digital phone and are quite happy with it. It’s not landline quality, but I’d say it’s at 85-90%. We use Vonage and were able to transfer our phone number. It was super easy.
What does Vonage cost you/month?
$25
I only have one snag to offer – customer service, and I still say do it.
I’ve heard about comcast and their questionable customer service, and it does give me pause.
But saving $55/month is a pretty big incentive to put up with the grumpy people.
911 service is still spotty for cell phones. If you call from your home phone, they know where you are and are alerting your local police and fire departments before you even speak.
Somewhere in the back of my head, I thought I heard that there was some law that you have to be able to dial 911 on a landline, even if you don’t have phone service. I wonder how I find out if that’s true or not.