Betty by Gary Delainey and Gerry Rasmussen for October 19, 2020

I turned the ringer off on mine, and only use it to find my cell phone.

I still get weather warnings, Covid-19 tests, and now outside fire ban.

If I’m making the call, I’ll use the land line since it’s clearer and easier to use if I have to enter numbers.

Proud dinosaur. Landline only, no cell. Most calls I let go to voicemail, and most just hang up because they’re looking for $$ now.

My in-laws still use landline so we keep it. But even the nuisance calls have stopped coming through them, they now hassle us through mobile phone.

My wife has a cell phone, I let mine go years ago

Land line came bundled with something, does come in handy when she’s out and needs to call me

I have a great way to deal with telemarketers and nuisance survey calls.

Two words. Are you ready?

Air Horn.

They havent called back since ;-D

I had a landline up to 2012, because the cell reception at that house wasn’t. Made the phone company put in a new line in 2009, all 3200 feet of it.

Seniors, don’t forget that you can get reduced rates for phone service, but you have to ask for it. My full service plan is only $50/month, including tax and unlimited data outside the US.

We got our landline taken out early this year due to the half dozen spam calls daily

Most landlines by now are way more than $10 a month.. though not mine.

Mine is a $10 a month add-on from my ISP… with unlimited long distance.

I talk on it way more than would be comfortable holding my flat smartphone…

and the battery lasts far longer, and it sounds better, so even though my income is limited, it seems silly to give it up.

OTOH smart phones and cell plans can be had cheaper than ever….

NOT those top of the line $900 phones you read about… but serviceable enough… in the $45 to $125 range, depending on features…

I’ve needed to buy two since my first one in 2010…that one got way outdated, the 2nd one broke down, this third one is on a different system.

It was $165, but I had to grab it to get a great deal on a service plan during a brief sale.

Well worth it… and it’s four years old now.

Virtually nobody pays for individual calls any more… that ended years ago.

You get a certain amount of air time, or unlimited… either way, it doesn’t matter who calls, unless you tend to use up your minutes.

You can give everybody your number… just tell them it’s only for brief calls. I did that for years.

But it’s great to have a phone when your car breaks down or even if you’re just running late, or your friend hasn’t shown up on time.

If you only want a couple of hours, total, of talk, a few texts, and not much data every month, sure, you can go with a $99 a year pre-paid plan .. .

buy a card for a little extra talk time only if you need it.

Some plans triple the minutes it says on the card when you buy it.

But if you can grab a deal when you see it…

I have Sprint Unlimited, which is occasionally on sale for $25 a month.. w/completely unlimited talk, text and data.

To me, it’s not just about CALLS when I’m out.

It’s a COMPUTER…. I google store hours, read comics, entertain myself during waits… and feel safer, knowing I’m not alone.

This is why we dumped the land line. Paying $75 a month to not answer salesmen don’t make sense

This is why I leave the ringer off and the answering machine on. :)

Haven’t had a land line in many years – and clearly the auto dialers are finding my cell. The tech changes, but the problems stay the same.

Some people don’t need the superior sound quality of a land line, but if it’s otherwise affordable for you there are ways to stop or reduce the annoyance calls. NOMOROBO is one, and it’s free, but there are others. Here’s one guide:

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-block-unwanted-calls#landlineblock

Land Line for me. I can block up to 50, but they keep calling so I just don’t answer if I don’t recognize the caller ID. We do have flip phones in case of emergency, when we go out for car gas or something like that we make sure to take our flips with us. We get scam calls on our flip phones also, we just don’t answer unless we recognize the caller.

Try some of these and solve all your problems : https://tinyurl.com/yye2bqqo