The Benefits of Keeping Your Land Line
Monday, 05. 18. 2009 – Category: T2 Communications
Today many people are ditching their home phones and relying solely on their cell phones for all incoming and outgoing calls. The cell phone has become the do-all gadget, rendering the land line obsolete because of the huge advancements for talking, browsing the internet, emailing, and listening to music. Although many home phones are rarely used, cable providers include them in their bundles and encourage us to purchase a land line with our packages to save a few dollars. In our on the go world, we may not see the value in having a home phone except to have a number to give out to merchants that we probably won’t answer. Other than catching messages from sales calls, there are still some uses that we can benefit from by keeping our land line around.
In The Case of Emergencies At Home
Many cell phones have GPS capabilities, but there are still some that don’t. When you call 911 from your cell phone and do not have GPS, the call center can only locate you based on the nearest cell tower. Your coordinates will not be exact. When you call from your home phone, your location and address are readily available to the operator for assistance and emergency dispatch. Of course, this is only a benefit if your emergency happens at home; but your home phone can also be a way to tell emergency calls from friends and family apart from others who call you on your cell phone. If you give your home phone number out only to those who would reach you in the case of an emergency, parents, kids, close friends, etc, and tell them that the number is for emergencies only, then when you get a call on this line, you will know it’s a call that you will need to answer. It’s also beneficial to have a land line when you have young kids at home. Not all babysitters have cell phones to use.
The Cell Phone Battery Is Dead Again
We all have those days when we forgot to put our cell phone on the charger the night before. Unfortunately, it seems to occur when we need to use our phone to make numerous calls the next day. Luckily, our land line can fill in for these tough times and spare us the inconvenience of either waiting for our battery to recharge or talking on our cell phone and hearing that looming beep because our battery is about to die. The home phone can also be a great save when you know you may be making a long phone call or calling a company that may place you on hold for a while because most land lines come with free, unlimited, local calls, and not all of our wireless plans include “anytime” or “roll-over” minutes.
There Isn’t a Tower in Your Neighborhood Yet
Depending on where you live, you may not have great reception. This may also depend on your carrier. It’s nice to have a land line to use for ourselves and our visitors when our cell phone cannot be used at home. Today it is common place for everyone to have a cell phone on their person at all times, so many consider it unacceptable for someone to not be able to make a call or be reached. To avoid having to pace your living room floor saying “Can you hear me now?” have a land line to use instead. If you’re called on your cell phone and cannot get good reception, you can call the person back from your home phone.
So if cable bundle packages offer a land line, and some for $10 or less, to save you a few dollars, why not take advantage? The peace of mind knowing you have a phone for “just in case” may be worth the money. If you’re worried about telemarketers, register your phone number on the National Do Not Call Registry. This lasts for five years, and telemarketers cannot contact you unless you’ve recently made a purchase or an inquiry directly to or from their company or website. You may not use your land line much, but you’ll be thankful it’s there for when you do need it.
Katie Petre works for T² Communications, a CornerWorld company.
Tags: article, cell phone, Katie Petre, phone, technology