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Phone land line, time to give it up>?


gogoblender

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Only two years late -par for my course these days.

I have a land line and a mobile (cell phone in your language?). Mobile drives me up the wall and is never "on", probably not even charged up, don't know why I pay for it. In theory it is for emergencies, but my wife has never learnt how to use it, and it is rarely either in the car or charged up. We pay a small monthly sum for this thing. Telephone only - no gadgets. We had a Blackberry at one stage with all sorts of weird functions, but when I discovered how much it was costing, for zero use, it went in the bin.

The land-line, which was on a contract and only worked through the PC, was a pain in the butt too, only on when the PC was on. So this is now back to the old-fashioned separate socket on the wall and pay for the calls you a make - very few.

Oddly enough this costs more than an all inclusive package (the PC/tv never worked either and is now on a satelliter dish and costs nothing)

Wouldn't suit you hard working need-to-be-always-in-touch-with-the-world folks, but is oh-so-peaceful. Nice to be retired and "retreated".

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Call me paranoid... or is it because the next other house is nearly a mile away....

Handy (that is how we germans call cell phones), Festnetz (land line), CB-Funk (citizen band radio), Kurzwellensender, short wave radio, .... all at home.

Our house is partly build into the hill and it is not possible to receive with mobile phones in lower floors, thats why the teenagers are there ;)

Land line is cable running from tree to tree down to the village, could break at a storm, citizen band radio is mainly that my family can reach me when I am down in forest in the deep valley, short wave,call it hobby to play chess with people on the other side of the world, but it is also another emergency backup.

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LOL Our land line down south is like that. Branches fall on it, the farmers take it down for access and put it back up again, looped on posts that lean all over the place. But it works. Mobile has no reception at either house which is why it doesn't get used very often. And, perhaps like yours Chattius, the house down south is an old barn, access at both floor levels and with the lower floor half cut into the rock in a hill that was largely used for slate quarrying. Nice a cool downstairs in even the hottest summer.

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My "land line" is not what I would call a land line. The phone company here forced everyone to convert to digital phone, which seems to me to be VOIP. Last ice storm, my old phone was up for three days after the electricity went out. Not anymore since the phone requires power to run.

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We just futurized my mom. She called me saying wanted to save bills... the land line was costly and she was just beginning to use cell phones when this was happening. We got her an Apple, and let her use it for two years to become accustomed to using it for almost everything. At the end of two years, I imported her land line number over into her cell as the land line number was the one that most peeps knew.

We were able to drop expenses by about half price, and today at age 70 she's a proud and capable IMom

Even the bank manager a few weeks ago when we were down signing forms, when he asked her for her land line, she said she just has a cell to which he raised his eyebrows and proclaimed " You're a millennial"

:lol:

 

gogo

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LOL Our land line down south is like that. Branches fall on it, the farmers take it down for access and put it back up again, looped on posts that lean all over the place. But it works. Mobile has no reception at either house which is why it doesn't get used very often. And, perhaps like yours Chattius, the house down south is an old barn, access at both floor levels and with the lower floor half cut into the rock in a hill that was largely used for slate quarrying. Nice a cool downstairs in even the hottest summer.

 

Our main cellar is 4 metres below ground level and its bottom is rammed clay. It is ideal for storing vegs. Potatoes stay fresh for over a year. 300 years back the house was build with the people rooms half in the hill and the stalls between them and the outside. So the cows were giving some heat in a cold winter. In summer the cows were outside in the forest for shadow and the stalls had flaps opened to give a fresh airflow from hill throws the stalls to keep the living rooms cool.

Was quite a good design and saves a lot of power even nowadays.

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The phone company here forced everyone to convert to digital phone

Ah. Indeed yes. This no doubt explains why, everytime that I see the telephone people fiddling with their main box out in the village street, I have to go and buy a new phone - which is of course never as satisfactory as the old one.

As to the original theme of the thread it would only be possible for us to abandon the "land-line" if we could do without a phone. Celll phones which only work out in the village square are not a practicable option.

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