Landlines

[Airehead]

How many people do you estimate still have home phones?  

[Dirtyhip]

30%

[sheep_herder ★]

Don't have a clue, but we do and will for the foreseeable future.

[Longjohn ★]

I saw a phone company truck working on the phone line that goes past my house. I asked if they were taking down the line. They said they were repairing it. I asked them why? They told me Mr. Kem still has a land line. This guy was an old man when we moved out here 27 years ago.  I have no idea how old he is now. I haven’t seen him outside for at least five years. His house is the last one on our road with electric, the wires end there and the rest of the farms are Amish. The power company and phone company must hate our road.

[maddmaxx ★]

I am halfway.  It's not an aT&T line, it's internet, but there is a cable from the pole to my house.  The old AT&T cable is still there too because they were too lazy to take it down.  Now it just sags there.

[Allen ★]

I still have one. It was my childhood number. It’s bundled with my internet and only runs $30 a month. I keep it half for sentimental reasons and half because cell phone coverage is really poor out here. 
I did not have one when I lived in the farmhouse though, so I was cell phone only for more than 20 years. 

[Longjohn ★]

4 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

The old AT&T cable is still there too because they were too lazy to take it down.  Now it just sags there.

Take it on an organized charity ride, they always have sag support.

[Mr. Silly]

We're all cell phone service here.  My mom still has a landline.

[groupw]

A significant portion around here in their 50s or older still have a landline. Ratio goes up in rural areas where DSL is still often the most viable internet option. 

I would say below age 40, having a landline is an aberration. 

[Longjohn ★]

2 minutes ago, groupw said:

A significant portion around here in their 50s or older still have a landline. Ratio goes up in rural areas where DSL is still often the most viable internet option. 

I would say below age 40, having a landline is an aberration. 

I wish we could get DSL. 

[groupw]

8 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

I wish we could get DSL. 

Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for. I have a client who lives in a nice neighborhood on the edge of a VERY nice neighborhood. She still uses DSL because she doesn't want to pay the cable company for internet. She can only get 1.2 MBs DSL. I called CenturyLink. The tech checked everything and said that was the limit of a junction she was on. The tech was very embarassed there was not a better solution. 

[Longjohn ★]

17 minutes ago, groupw said:

Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for. I have a client who lives in a nice neighborhood on the edge of a VERY nice neighborhood. She still uses DSL because she doesn't want to pay the cable company for internet. She can only get 1.2 MBs DSL. I called CenturyLink. The tech checked everything and said that was the limit of a junction she was on. The tech was very embarassed there was not a better solution. 

That’s pretty much what I have with satellite that I pay $129.00 a month for. The funny thing is they sucker in some people that think they can get good internet by satellite. You have to read between the lines on their adds. They always compare their speed to dial up. The only outright lies they tell are the ones about their possible speeds. 

[Randomguy]

I would say 5% in the cities, maybe up to 40% in in the sticks or in areas where the power goes down regularly.  As long as there are people living in their houses for 30 years or more, there will be landlines.

[Allen ★]

Oh, I also have a candlestick phone. It’s the most frequently used phone in the house. The speaker larger than what’s in the cordless handsets, and the sound quality is that much better too. 
 

My doomer neighbor gets a kick out of it. Says it’s the only rotary phone he has ever used. 

[sheep_herder ★]

1 minute ago, Allen said:

Oh, I also have a candlestick phone. It’s the most frequently used phone in the house. The speaker larger than what’s in the cordless handsets, and the sound quality is that much better too. 
 

My doomer neighbor gets a kick out of it. Says it’s the only rotary phone he has ever used. 

We also have a rotary on the wall in the hall.

[maddmaxx ★]

7 minutes ago, sheep_herder said:

We also have a rotary on the wall in the hall.

When the AT&T line was still hooked up we kept a rotary princess phone in the closet to hook up during power outages.  You dial 222 and say "Phylis could you hook me up to Jim next door to the fire house".

[sheep_herder ★]

You must remember LJ, we don't have children and have no real need to keep up with the outside world. Our cell phones are turned off more than they are on.

[sheep_herder ★]

1 minute ago, maddmaxx said:

When the AT&T line was still hooked up we kept a rotary princess phone in the closet to hook up during power outages.  You dial 222 and say "Phylis could you hook me up to Jim next door to the fire house".

Our land line continues to work, even during power outages. Thus, I can check on the location and duration of the outage.

[petitepedal ★]

I still have my land line ...and my slow internet..DSL....I can upgrade to a internet based phone and increase my speed..so maybe I can watch TV via the net..but I have yet to do this.

[Guest]

We still have a landline. Cell service isn’t good in the house so it’s nice to have.

[Square Wheels]

Kinda a landline, it's a VOIP with Vonage.

[ChrisL]

I think you would see a declining percentage from the older folks to younger.  I’d guess less than 5% of people under 30 have a landline.   

For non business why call a place when you can call the person.  

[Bikeguy]

A landline was not installed to our new home.   WoBG and I have our cellphones.   Our cellphone serves isn't great, so I have both phones setup to use Wi-Fi calling in our home.

AT&T and Verizon have been working to eliminate landlines.  My guess, in 10 years (more or less) they will be abandoned. 

8 hours ago, groupw said:

Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for. I have a client who lives in a nice neighborhood on the edge of a VERY nice neighborhood. She still uses DSL because she doesn't want to pay the cable company for internet. She can only get 1.2 MBs DSL.

Our old home had DSL.  It was slow... only 1 Mbps at best.   It was painful waiting for some computer updates.  My Garmin Nuvi GPS, that updates about twice a year with 2+GB of maps.  That took many hours via DSL.  

Our new home uses the cable company.  In theory, 100 Mbps is our max speed.    Most of our network is wireless.  50 to 75 Mbps is typical for our computers and phones.

 

[Longjohn ★]

I am really surprised that that many people still have land lines. They must have better land line service than we had. My cell phone works 100 times better than our land line did.