Dumping the landline
Interesting read. I’m shocked to find out that 1 in 8 households have dropped their landline completely to live in a mobile-only world. I decided to do this about 5 years ago when I moved into a new apartment . . . after boldly claiming that such a phenomenon would NEVER happen only two years previous.
Well, I kinda decided to.
I had a landline turned on, primarily because Dish Network was requiring one before they would install my satellite television. I had considered not getting one at all, but was worried that something would backfire horribly if I didn’t have one. I mean my god, what if I lost my cell phone. Would I have to mail someone a letter to see if they wanted to hang out on Friday? I mean honestly . . I haven’t had UHH stamp in my house since I’ve lived there.
So, because of Dish Network, I had one turned on, but only attached it to a fax machine. And not one of the old school fax machines with a ‘roll’ of paper and a receiver, just a new fandangled 18-in-1 copier, faxer, printer, humidifier, fire extinguisher and unicorn repellant [at the time I was in a heavily traveled unicorny part of town]. No receiver at all . . this one was waaayy too fancy to actually talk on.
I was amazed to find out that in the two years I lived in that apartment, I used it to fax something TWICE. I never had the need for a home phone. In fact, the only noticeable change was a quite abrupt drop off in telemarketing calls.
When I moved into my house 3 years ago, I never had a phone turned on. It hasn’t come up once. Not bad considering two years ago I left my phone in Puerto Vallarta never to be returned [shocker]. I was without a phone for 4 whole days while I waited for my new one to be shipped to me.
In the words of Chris Farley . . . . it . . . . . was . . . . . . awwwesome. You should try it sometime. It’s very liberating to have no means of immediate contact with anyone. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to handle it, but it was surprisingly relaxing.