Anybody still have a landline at home ?

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Rx God
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I can it is necessary at a business location, only reason I can see to have one in a residential setting is perhaps for a fax machine, those are even old technology.

I haven't had a landline in about 15 years, even 80 + year old people have cellphones....they may not know much about how to use them but can at least make/receive calls .

Those crooked cable TV companies like Concast always want to bundle that in there, like it is worth something, screw them I'll use a TV antenna and my phone for internet access.

You can get unlimited talk/ text and a token 1 gig of data for as cheap as $15/ month, a landline is like having an electric typewriter... people were giving them away 25 years ago.

Phones and phone service are the best examples of something that has gotten so much better and cheaper over the years.

Back around 1983 or so a coast to coast call was very expensive, go back a couple of decades and people shared phones with party lines and poor Oliver Wendell Douglas had to climb a pole to answer his phone back in Fishhead's town !
 

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I still have one - -probably used it ten times in the last ten years
 

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The wife won't let us get rid of ours ... her mother and salespeople are the only calls we get on it ...
 

Rx God
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I remember the days as a kid ( born in 1963, 55 now ) say began using the house phone to call friends to do things about 1974 ( age 11ish ) the phones were rotary dial of course, but my ultra- cool parents put this extra long cord on the receiver ( phone was mounted on wall on kitchen ). Cord was probably theoretically 75' long, one of those coily stretchy things.... Not to long before that turned Into a clump of knotted up wire where you were lucky to get it six feet from the wall and sit down


They picked some real winner products, bought new not only a Pinto and Vega, but a K- car as well !

Back then people didn't even own their phones, they rented them from the phone company !
 

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Then why have it, get bundled ?

That's the last time I had one. Because it was bundled.

Was a pain in the ass. Only calls I got on that line were solicitors. Even though we registered it on the do not call list.

Unplugged the line after a couple of months and never plugged it back in. Never even knew the phone number "by heart".
 

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Back then people didn't even own their phones, they rented them from the phone company !

That was a little before my time. I'm a decade behind you being born in 1975.

Interesting though. Similar to people not really owning their cable boxes or dishes these days.
 

Rx God
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Ma Bell really had people screwed in those days. You had one choice for telephone service, similar to today
.. one electric company option, but it has to be that way, some options with supply and delivery BS, but a lot of scam companies there as well, I fell victim to one of those and my electric bill on a one room 460 SF "condo" went from like $40 month to $25,then zoomed to $500, I refused to pay after selling the place, now have to get electric service under a pseudonym.
 

Conservatives, Patriots & Huskies return to glory
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I have one, we never answer it either.
 

Rx God
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That was a little before my time. I'm a decade behind you being born in 1975.

Interesting though. Similar to people not really owning their cable boxes or dishes these days.

Well you're old enough to remember the era before cellphones for sure. By the mid 80's cordless phones with buttons we're ubiquitous.circa 1996 my widowed mother was beginning to lose touch with reality as Alzheimer's set in, leading up to that she thought her cordless phone would work as a cellphone, sorry Mom, maybe as far as the mailbox !

Being that far out of understanding something is scary ,and I fear that there are concepts that put me in a not too dissimilar area.
 

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Well you're old enough to remember the era before cellphones for sure. By the mid 80's cordless phones with buttons we're ubiquitous.circa 1996 my widowed mother was beginning to lose touch with reality as Alzheimer's set in, leading up to that she thought her cordless phone would work as a cellphone, sorry Mom, maybe as far as the mailbox !

Being that far out of understanding something is scary ,and I fear that there are concepts that put me in a not too dissimilar area.

I certainly remember the era. I didn’t pay the bills though so maybe my parents “rented” the 2 rotary phones from the company. Not sure.

We had one in the kitchen and one in my parents bedroom. The one in the kitchen had a long ass line. I could reach it all the way to my bedroom to have some privacy.
 

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I remember the days as a kid ( born in 1963, 55 now ) say began using the house phone to call friends to do things about 1974 ( age 11ish ) the phones were rotary dial of course, but my ultra- cool parents put this extra long cord on the receiver ( phone was mounted on wall on kitchen ). Cord was probably theoretically 75' long, one of those coily stretchy things.... Not to long before that turned Into a clump of knotted up wire where you were lucky to get it six feet from the wall and sit down


They picked some real winner products, bought new not only a Pinto and Vega, but a K- car as well !

Back then people didn't even own their phones, they rented them from the phone company !


HaHa....Same here...To this day my Mom still pays that rental fee...I tell her constantly to stop and she says "what if my wiring or whatever fails" and I tell her call them and say either my phone works or come and take it...She will not listen...I think it is 10.00 per month...Phone also mounted in kitchen....120.00 per year for 40 years...HaHa...
 

Rx God
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HaHa....Same here...To this day my Mom still pays that rental fee...I tell her constantly to stop and she says "what if my wiring or whatever fails" and I tell her call them and say either my phone works or come and take it...She will not listen...I think it is 10.00 per month...Phone also mounted in kitchen....120.00 per year for 40 years...HaHa...

That is sad on so many levels, it is like mind bottling frustrating to deal with trying to protect beloved elders from getting ripped off and rental fees on phone equipment should have been gone 40 years ago !

You need to take power of attorney over at least financial matters and probably the whole enchilada , including health matters . I've been there and done that with my own mother !
 

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That is sad on so many levels, it is like mind bottling frustrating to deal with trying to protect beloved elders from getting ripped off and rental fees on phone equipment should have been gone 40 years ago !

You need to take power of attorney over at least financial matters and probably the whole enchilada , including health matters . I've been there and done that with my own mother !


I try and she will have no part of it...She leaves for Germany every May for 6 weeks and for 15 years or so I have asked her for permission to completely remodel the house while she is gone on my dime and she refuses...But I think I have a good chance this year as I will tell her I am selling my place and need somewhere to live while she is away...My hope is she comes home to a totally different house...I will find out soon...
 

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HaHa....Same here...To this day my Mom still pays that rental fee...

Is this real? People still pay a rental fee for a land line phone?

WTF? She has to be one of the last in America.

This if fucking awesome. :):)
 

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Is this real? People still pay a rental fee for a land line phone?

WTF? She has to be one of the last in America.

This if fucking awesome. :):)

"Still, every month millions of broadband customers are charged for line rental even if they do not use a home phone. This copper line provides connection to both the internet and the telephone network. Even fibre optic broadband typically comes down it for the last leg of its journey to your home (although Virgin, BT and other providers do offer completely fibre optic cabling to a small number of customers). The same charge amount usually applies whether a customer uses the line for telephone calls or broadband, or both."

And to top it off...She doesn't even have internet...It is hard to tell your mother she is stupid....
 

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