I finally ditched my landline phone, which I wasn’t using at all. Basically, I was paying extra bills for the thing I didn’t use. Since I was too lazy to register for “Do Not Call,” I was plagued with solicitation calls. So, I just stopped picking up the phone, then those solicitors left messages, making my answering machine a junk box. It was a good move for me to save some money and to get rid of annoyance. I first thought about going cell only but decided to go VOIP. Overall, I am quite happy not to have a landline phone. I should’ve done it sooner. If you are thinking of doing the same, here are some things for you to consider.

Usage Pattern/Activity Pattern of the household

• How big is your family? Does your family have a chatty person who’s on the phone a lot?
• Does your cell phone plan’s minutes enough for your family? Do you go over the cell phone minutes from time to time?
• Do you and your family spend a lot of time at home or you/your family are on the go most of the time?
• How often and how long do you and your family make domestic long distance calls?
• How about international calls?

Home Security System

• Do you have a monitored home security system?
• Does your security company offer a cell-phone-based monitoring?

Cell Phone Signal
Is the cell phone signal strong enough at your home? This is important if you are thinking of going cell only.

Emergency Call (911)
The emergency dispatchers can see the address if the call is made from a landline but they cannot get the exact location from a cell phone call.

Fax
If you need a fax machine at home, you may want to keep the landline. I did a research on this and found out that cell phones do not work with a fax machine. There are alternatives to phone-line based faxing. Now you can fax by email or use a cell phone to take a picture of the document you want to fax. Either way, it’s cumbersome.

I considered all of the above. Since I don’t have a family member who talks a lot/ and for a long time, I decided to ditch the landline.