Cell-Ebrate
Today, Bossy’s Poverty Party Post takes on a subject that is near and dear to my heart… ditching the telephone landline.
Nearly a year ago, I won an iPhone from the Erie Community Blood Bank. Just prior to donating blood and entering their contest, my old Verizon cell phone was starting to crap out and Al and I began discussing the pros and cons to getting a good quality cell phone and kissing the landline good-bye. Neither one of us particularly likes to talk on the telephone (as a matter of fact, we usually flip a coin or play rock-paper-scissors to decide who has to call The Golden Wok to place the take-out order), so the phones, landline and cell, we both largely unused.
Once I got the iPhone, however, I was using it all the time. Not for talking on the phone, mind you, as I still hate that, but for e-mailing, texting, surfing the internet, my schedule/calendar, checking stock quotes, checking the weather (here in Erie and all around the country and world – yeah, mostly just because I can, but whatever). And, amazingly, Al, Mr. I-Don’t-Want-A-Cell-Phone-Ever, started using it, too.
Even though Al didn’t want a cell phone, and carried a pay-as-you-go Trac phone only at my insistence (and, really, what was the point since he always forgot to turn it on?), it was clear that we were wasting money by paying for duplication of services. And since the cell phones made more sense (portability, safety, features other than “just a phone,” no extra long distance charges), the landline was kicked to the curb. It just so happened that this decision was made just several months prior to Giftmas, which was the perfect opportunity to get Al his own iPhone.
We still rarely talk on the telephone and never even come close to using up all our allotted minutes every month (and I think we have the least amount we can get). We e-mail and text message one another more than we call. And we still play paper-rock-scissors to determine who has to call the order in to Barbato’s.
And, to cover the “con” arguments I saw on Bossy’s blog, if you have an alarm system in your home, you do NOT need to have a landline. All the companies Al and I talked to had options for cell-only residences.
Secondly, someone mentioned that if the power goes out for an extended period of time, there’s no way to charge your cell phone, unless you have access to a car. That’s not true. There are “hand chargers” that have a crank. While it might not be as convenient as just plugging the charger into the wall, it works. And, even with shipping, it’s under $20. What a deal!
The last argument against having just a cell phone was that it supposedly takes longer to get through to 9-1-1 with a cell phone than it does with a landline and a commenter said that it took dispatchers 20 minutes to answer her cell phone call to 9-1-1. I’m not sure what the deal is with that and I have no idea why it would take that much longer for a cell call to be answered than it would a landline call. I know it sometimes takes a few seconds longer for a cell call to connect, but I’ve never experienced any delay of more than a couple of seconds.
I know there are a lot of people out there who know a lot more about cell phones and cell phone technology than I do. And a lot of people that have been cell-only people for a lot longer than I have. So, I’m curious. Do any of you have any information about cell calls being handled any differently by 9-1-1 dispatchers or calls taking so much longer to go through?
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