We have to have a landline “to the house”....but we don’t have to have a telephone jack. And we won’t. The only place I ever use a landline is at my office. I have not had an actual home landline phone or phone number in around 18 years. Our builder actually still does them as a default (as do other builders here) but was saying they are likely changing that soon as almost everyone asks them to be removed or “forgets” to ask and is surprised to see the telephone jack later.

Still love having a landline.

IP phones will replace landlines of you still want a "house phone".

having retired from "ma bell" with 30 years, I will have a landline until they are total history. as pointed out in previous posts an old phone works in all kind of situations when a cell phone fails, including running out of battery. but in a state that has mountains there are still a lot of areas that don't have cell coverage. yes I have a cell phone but prefer talking on my home phone. I can hear and be heard without the complaints I get using my cell. problems we overlook for convenience.

If I were building a house I would put the wiring in for a landline. We just dropped our home land line and I did like how it was a good emergency backup.

We live in a rural area that experiences frequent planned and unplanned power outages, so we have a landline in our new build.

It's especially handy for phoning the power company to report the unplanned outages, which for some reason tend to happen when all the cell phones in the family are dead or dying lol.

No land line.

I'd suggest that anyone outside an urban area who wants to dispense with a landline at least consider investing in a hand-crank charger. Or a small generator.

Same as hemina

Also, as I dislike cells(lol) and dislike aswering phones in general(lol) it's much more pleasant to give landline number to various institutions, websites that demand it, etc-and then not to pick it up unless I hear a message and understand it's of importance and only then I pick up.

goodness gracious your landline no longer works without power. go try it some time.

we're dropping ours (along with cable) in august when our contract runs out. we're changing all of our utility accts and everything to our cell numbers. that takes some doing.

and buy one of those hand crank generators to charge a phone.... a nice boxy one with a flat base is easier to turn.

goodness gracious your landline no longer works without power. go try it some time.

Ours does. Always has. It's the way we notify the power company when the power is out lol.

goodness gracious your landline no longer works without power. go try it some time.

Only if you have a phone that requires power (ie. cordless). It's the phone that doesn't work, not the landline. Buy a cheap corded phone that only plugs into the phone jack and you're good. A landline doesn't require power from your home's electrical panel.

Unless you are talking about voIP phones when you mean a landline. voIP phones require your internet connection and hence your modem (which needs power to work). voIP phone lines can look and act like a traditional landline, but it isn't.

no, truly. i have a real corded phone plugged into a real phone jack. no power, no phone. the phone company doesnt run the little electric wire anymore. when they stole the copper and put in fiber, first they gave a battery back up.... then they took even that.

our vacation home still has the copper... but no power if the power is out.

maybe this is only MA and RI but i wouldnt run my life assuming the landline has power, or that it will stay that way in the future.

Landline is a "must have" in our rural area. The importance of a landline is illustrated in the movie "The Day After Tomorrow", no electricity or cell service but that old landline still works.

If you mean "home phone" , we are having one in our new build. It won't be a land line, per se, as it will be connected via cable, but for us it's helpful to have a phone that is for everyone in the house. We have 3 kids and amazingly they are not tethered to their cell phones 24-7. There have been lots of times when I want to call the house and the home phone is what we use. It's also helpful when we have our parents visiting us and I need to reach them when I am not home.

ninigret as an EX telephone employee I can tell you a phone will work in a power outage unless you are using a phone that requires power (like a cordless phone) or if that same outage took out the phone lines also (like a vehicle hitting a pole, flooding and other natural disasters). thats why you should have an old fashioned phone in the house even if you always use cordless . the phone company has huge generators to insure you have service if the power goes out in their offices. also if your "landline" service is supplied by your cable company or cell phone company it is NOT the same as the line supplied by the PHONE company and will not work in a power outage.

Yes, I will put in a landline. Just in case I can't work one of these beauties without it!!!

I especially like the black one, bottom row, second from left. <3

ninigret is talking about fiber optic service as opposed to the traditional copper landline. Googling it, it seems to always be grouped with voIP but I'm not sure if they are the same thing or if they just use the same cabling system.

Fiber optic phone lines don't supply the power like traditional copper lines do. They either use some kind of battery or just don't work when the power is out.

ok guys... thanks...but. i really have an actual old phone, that works when the power is on. it's just plugged in to a standard phone jack. really. not hand held, not answering machine, nothing like that. its a phone, on a jack. we kept it for this exact reason. and then when the power went out, and i went to call it in, it did not work. nope. no dial tone. doesnt work. worked when the power came back on.

time was, verizon had a back up battery (installed in the garage, where the line came in) but it only would last 4? hours. same when we moved here to this house, it was in the basement where the line came in. and then during a 'repair' they took the battery away too and don't offer them any more. can i buy another strange storage battery? maybe. the point is, if you think your phone works when the power is out, just check the next time. you might be surprised like we were.

yes greg, we have a FIOS landline. it isnt voip. its a landline. and since it doesnt work its useless. i suspect verizon actually wants us all to get rid of our landlines.

but we have hellishly good internet!

and i do have a gas stove, that lights when the power is out. so at least i can eat hot food while not calling out..... : )

Looking at this page (link below), it looks like it is voIP. They just aren't calling it voIP, they are calling it "Digital Phone". Basically trying to trick the consumer because probably everyone knows that voIP doesn't work in power outages, but who know's whether 'digital phone' does. :)

https://www.verizon.com/info/analog-vs-digital-phone/

Quote:

Digital phone is a simplified version of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)

thanks for this link. when asked is it the same, it says similar. i know it doesnt use any of our modems/etc, which voip would, for example. (right?)

"VoIP and digital phone service share many similarities, such as connecting callers via broadband internet connections, but they are not the same. VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is commonly used by businesses or enterprises, and can require the use of specific hardware or software to place and manage phone calls, call logs, and caller ID."

but verizon never was upfront about will my phone work when the power goes out, because at the initial install, they were offering batteries as part of the network, so the answer was, yes. perhaps over time they got pushback for luring people onto the rocks, so to speak, as the battery had such a short life. so the battery went away. i'd hope now when people ask 'will my phone still work when the power is out?' they say 'hell to the no' and not 'you'll have amazing internet'. they DID NOT tell me they were lifting my battery during a repair. it wasnt til later we saw the empty spot on the utilities board in the basement.

smh.

so, anyway. if you live in some place that has verizon FIOS. and you are building a house. and the house has a landline. and the house has FIOS. your phone won't work when the power is out unless you do your own storage battery out of your own pocket and without verizon apparently telling you you need it.

It seems like the 'digital phone' uses the same technology as VoIP, it's just that the equipment is housed externally (in Verison's infrastructure or wherever) as opposed to what people think of when they hear "VoIP" where it uses your internet connection and modem.

Quote;

So what’s the difference between analog and digital phones? Fios Digital Voice makes use of a digital phone modem connected to Verizon’s 100% fiber optic network, while analog relies on antiquated copper technology from telephone or cable companies.

Notice that it still uses a modem. Just not yours.

That page seems full of weasily marketing speech that is trying to distance it from VoIP, but without straight out lying.

I still have an old rotary dial phone that is HARD WIRED into the phone line from the phone company. It's a relic who's sound quality is better than cell phone any day.

I also have an old rotary dial phone next to my sump pump. Doesn`t need hydro to work, plus the sump pump has a sensor on it, and if the sump pump and back up sump pump fail, the sensor will

phone the number program into it, and advise water is at a high level.

Plus my hubby is very old fashioned and needs that ``handset` to hang on to.

A mere two days in even a small weather disaster will tell you all the benefits of a REALLY GOOD generator, a LAND LINE and hard wire phone, and nice GAS range.......when everyone else is miserable and whining. At one am with a heart attack, that land line....no electricity? Nice. Turn the ringer off, its only there for you.

Eat, talk, stay warm, or stay cool...........and be happy.

We are putting in wiring for a landline in our office and our basement suite. I don't expect either to be used.

We put in landlines; we like to be reachable and to be able to reach out during emergencies. The small power off your telephone line is almost always on, and enough to charge small electronics with a few small tricks.

Also, I work for a utility, and I like that I'd be reachable if they need someone to be on the 'get the help here NOW!' list. That isn't possible with cellphones.

Why is this not possible with cell phones?

My father worked for "Ma Bell" for 42 years - was a member of "The Pioneers" after he retired in 1966.

I have a plug-in Trimline phone. In fact, I have 3 of them in my house. I like having one next to my computer as I can talk on it and type at the same time. Same with the wall phone in the kitchen - long cord, can tuck it between my ear and my shoulder and keep on cooking. And I have one by the chair in my library where I sit if I intend to have a nice long visit with a friend. I used to have one next to my bed, but I've gone cordless there - would not have done so if I didn't have a whole-house generator. It just takes up less room.

As a "telephone brat", I grew up with a phone in every room in our house - my father knew how to hardwire them and could get old ones at no cost. At that time, most families had one phone in the entire house - usually on the hall table on the first floor. I even had one of the first "Princess" phones in my bedroom! The luxury!

Due to this, the idea of carrying a cell phone all over the house with me all the time, seems like it's going WAY backward. Why would I want to do this? Would it ever get charged? I like to keep my phone on a table, in the basement, right next to the door into the garage where I keep my car - no forgetting it, chargers is on a plug there, and I stick it in my handbag when I leave. This works for me! I do have multiple cordless phones throughout the house - use them when I go out in the yard or need to move to another room.

There is no way I would only have a cell phone in my house!

you can get a phone system that makes your cells work through all of your home's existing phones. thats what we have in our vacation home, it works well. sure, you dont know if you got a text but thats ok. it works for 2 lines, too, so you can tell whose cell is ringing.

Verizon is replacing the copper phone wire in our area. Verizon said that copper was too expensive to maintain. So, our “landline” is now fiber optic and we will need to run our “landline” off the battery pack when power goes off. We had no option. So as others said, in some areas of the US, there is no longer an option for a landline that works when power goes out.

In Philadelphia (which is fully wired by Verizon for FiOS), it's not possible to install an old fashioned landline. Verizon turned off all copper landline service in the city last year. If you want a home phone, it will have to run on your internet connection (Verizon or Comcast). I disconnected the old copper wire from the pole a few months ago.

Where have we seen this topic before?

I still so miss those ten calls a day soliciting votes, seeking deadbeats who had the number before, pitching me duct cleaning and polling me on which crooked pol I liked best!

I bought a device which has nearly stopped the telemarketing and allows me to block ones that get through. I like having landline phone service in an emergency, appreciate as anglophilia noted being able to have a convenient handset in multiple rooms without having to lug a phone around, nor to have to deal with charging them, and last but not least, when I'm on hold forever or enjoying a lengthy conversation, I need not worry about radiation and cancer. Or from cumulative effects from lots of shorter calls.

when I'm on hold forever or enjoying a lengthy conversation, I need not
worry about radiation and cancer. Or from cumulative effects from lots
of shorter calls.

Put it on speaker. Or, as I do 95% of business--message and email!

Oh, please. I put my mobile phone on speaker while waiting endlessly for an actual human to respond, but it's only so I can do other things while waiting. The cancer thing is one of those urban myths that just won't die, scientific evidence to the contrary.

I would not put a landline in your build because it will just be another "thing" that will catch the eye in your backsplash or on your wall. If you need a land line down the road, you can just put a wireless phone extension in your kitchen with the base in another room. If you are going to run some kind of wire, I would consider running a network cable in stead for the day that you may have a whole house control center. Then again, those may be wireless too at some point.

Flannel Guy DIY - Youtube

I don’t understand the “landline works during power outage” argument. So does a cell phone because that runs on a battery (for many hours) and the cell tower has a power backup just like the landline central office (the power over the landline cable isn’t magic).

And if I were in an area that is prone to days long outages, I’d focus on a generator instead to power things like refrigerator and my cell phone charger.

I'd be happy to dump the land line, but then we'd have no phone (or internet) service. Must be nice to have cell service at your house. Here in the leafy suburbs of Boston there's enough people wearing tinfoil hats to protect themselves from the electrical rays that cell towers are few and far between. Hasn't been a new one built in our area for many years.

Well...I recommend absolutely no landmines anywhere in or around the house...Really!

Well...I recommend absolutely no landmines anywhere in or around the house...Really!

You're no fun.

We keep our landline, and it's fees that are huge.... in the rural area, or our local provider will not give us fiberoptic DSL line for the computer :(. The other rationale was 'oh well, if the power goes out, at least our little flip cell phones won't be our only contact when they loose their charge.............well WRONG. With the cable/DSL line......one gets this 'box' in the garage that the wires come into the house in and than to the office in. For the first time in 3 decades we were out of power for 3 days after a storm. First time since the new fiberoptic cable/DSL service was in the home. After 24 hours our landline did not work !!! Really. It works thru the 'box' in the garage..which works on 'a battery', that maintains charge through.....an electrical outlet. So if this is your situation, go ahead ..install the landline during construction .........but give serious consideration to not using it unless your home will have a generator to keep that cable/DSL/landline phone in the loop of generated electricity. Also, if you are able to have that installed during new construction, you won't see the wires on the exterior of the house, have a hole drilled in your brick wall and see an external line inside your home walls either. They will be able to make it all a less visible eyesore, in the event you do want that landline for a couple of years as you move in.

Galore

Not when the "entire planet " is one in your area in an emergency...,and your juice doesn't last forever either. Been there . That's even when the phone is fully charged but every circuit is overloaded for cell

yes, but we are old (65)

Well...I recommend absolutely no landmines anywhere in or around the house...Really!

Galore - it's still an issue. Cell towers can come down, generators can run out of fuel. An ice storm 2 years ago had people locally out of power for 8-10 days, sometimes longer.

Jan, I would add to your list "a wood burning heating apparatus." But that speaks to my living in the Great White North. See aforementioned tale of the ice storm.

That said, I plan to have our new home at least WIRED for a generator. The furnace in our current home has no way to plug it into an outside source to run the blower during a power outage. So, even with a gas furnace, we'd be chilly!