I maintained a landline phone for decades, until this year.

[MineralMan]

I had to fly to California, and tried to call my wife on our landline phone, since she always answered that. I got a "disconnected" message. So, I called her cell phone and she said, "Yeah, the landline isn't working."

When I returned, I called Century Link to report the outage. The Customer Service person said, "There is a minimum service fee of $100 for a technician to visit your home to find and repair the problem. An hourly fee applies if the repair takes more than one hour."

In response, I said, "OK, then please cancel my service." That changed her tune immediately. "Well, sir, I can arrange for a free repair service call if you will extend your contract with us for two years."

I said, "No thanks. Please disconnect and cancel my telephone service."

She said, "We can also add internet service to your account for only $19.95 per month for the first three months."

I said, "No, thank you. Please disconnect and cancel my telephone service."

She began to offer me something else, so I said, "May I speak to your supervisor, please."

Another person came on the line and said, "How can I assist you today?"

"Yes. Please disconnect and cancel my telephone service."

She said, "We can offer you several options for your service."

I said, "What do I have to do to get you to cancel my service and account immediately, please?"

She said, "Well, I can do that for you, but I'm required to give you information on other options."

I said, "I don't care what you think you are required to do. I require that you disconnect and cancel my telephone service, which no longer works anyhow, immediately. Do I need to escalate this call to your supervisor, or will you do what I requested?"

She canceled the account at that point.

[Beakybird]

1. I held out, and now a lady comes to walk my dog for free every day.

[MineralMan]

2. ROFLMAO!

[secondwind]

4. Lol 😂

[MontanaMama]

3. Century Link lost my business when they began requiring contracts.

Nope. Not doing that. I had the same phone number since I was 18 years old until I’m dropped the land line when I was 53 years old. I was kinda sad about letting it go but all we got was telemarketers calling and it was ridiculous.

[MineralMan]

6. I used the number as my primary business phone.

It rang constantly with telemarketing calls, which I screened using caller ID. After cancelling the number, I simply changed my email signature line to my cell number and notified the people who contact me for business of the change in an email. I also gave my parents and relatives the cell phone number and told them I had shut down the landline.

Did I miss any calls? I don't think so. If I did, who cares?

[bhcodem]

5. Century Link's new policy on cancellation...

You cannot cancel mid-billing period and get a pro-rated credit. If you replace any of their services you still have to pay up until the next cycle starts. Also, I had my cell service with Verizon bundled through Century Link and could not get the billing moved back to Verizon until the end of a billing cycle , so was unable to update (Don't judge me.) from flip phone plan to a smart phone plan this spring. Was delayed in activating newly acquired phone for almost a month because Verizon had their hands tied.

[MineralMan]

9. My Verizon cell phone service was not a bundle.

When I cancelled the landline, I also replaced my old flip phone with an Android smart phone. Verizon was very nice about it. Between my wife and I, we have five cell phone and other devices, each with its own number. We're on some sort of unlimited data family plan and my new android phone was free. I had been using the old Samsung flip phone for over 10 years, and never gave out that number to anyone except family.

I use Verizon's robocall blocking feature. Any call that comes from a number not in my contact list goes straight to voicemail without ringing the phone, and most telemarketing calls are just dumped automatically.

Now, I'm a cell-phone-only guy. My wife reviews mobile device software for a major publication, so that's why she has all those phones and other devices. it's a straight write-off on her Schedule C as a business expense.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. I still have my landline with Century Link.

I very much like having both a landline and a cell phone for a bunch of reasons. Number one is that I can hear better on the landline. One of the pathetic things about modern cell phones is that we STILL can find ourselves going, "Can you hear me now?" as if this were the very earliest days of telephones.

I will say, that if I went through something similar and kept on getting the good offers they were making you, I'd have taken them up on the offers, made a note on a calendar, and contacted them about a month before all of the goodies were to expire, then cancel. Or let them make a sweet deal again.

[moonscape]

37. I also cling to my landline because of sound quality. The

problem is that we are, literally, a dying breed. Just last week one of my last remaining hold-out landline friends (she's closing in on 80) said she had dumped her landline. Now with her too I get to say "could you move a bit, I can't hear you well ..."

I now have but a handful of friends with landlines, and I'm closing in on old!

[not_the_one]

41. I agree, the sound of a land line is certainly superior.

I don't get why so many people are willing to accept inferior sound and dropped calls. Can you hear me now?

Maybe it is because my cell phone is only turned on when I need to use it, and turned off as soon as I am finished. I do NOT walk around with it in my hand. My life does not revolve around it, I don't have people constantly calling or texting with useless stuff. I don't want to see what you had for lunch.

My stress level seems to be manageable. I wonder if there is a connection?

You'll get my land line when you rip it out of my cold, dead wall. (homage to Moses)

[Goodheart]

8. It's been 12 years for me.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. Still Have Our Landline

But, it's literally free, because it's VOIP and they're my broadband provider.
Since it costs nothing extra, no reason to drop it.
If I did, my internet price wouldn't fall. Even if it's baked in, we'd pay the same either way.

[dumbcat]

11. I dropped my Century Link landline many years ago.

I really wanted to keep it as a backup to my cellphones, as it wasn't that expensive. But twice, a couple of months apart, my landline died when it was raining hard. The line would just go dead, no dial-tone and a lot of noise. I called Century Link service and they said they would send someone out to look at it. In 6 days! The guy shows up six days later, it's dry, the line is working fine, and he says "No problem." I explained that it only happened when it was raining hard and I suspected a fault somewhere in a splice box on the lines. He said there was nothing he could do about that. Goodbye.

It happened again a couple months later. Same scenario. By the time the tech showed up it was dry and working again. Tech says nothing he can do.

I called CenturyLink back and told them to cancel my service. "OK." No resistance, no offers, no nothing, just "OK". I was surprised.

I haven't missed it.

[Srkdqltr]

12. We still have our landline with ATT because our cell phone service is spotty in our house

We live near Canada my phone roams. Land line is good when the power is out also Although that doesn't happen much.

[roamer65]

13. I went to cell phone only in 2005.

My dad has a landline and now it seems odd to me. Like a relic of the 1970’s.

Only 1 small stint a couple of years back of Comcast phone that made my package cheaper. I killed it when the package expired.

[Hortensis]

14. Lol, read this to my DH, who deals with AT&T for us and enjoyed

your experience far more than any of his own the-sames.

He's asked to cancel our unneeded landline with every rate increase or money issue with any of our services for the last several years, but so far it's always resulted in new offers and being effectively paid to keep it. They seem to have accepted that retired people on fixed incomes mean it when they say they can't afford the increases the Starbucks-on-the-way-to-work crowd can. Wonder why...

Btw, to put in a nice word, our cell connection here in FL is poor and they had nothing we felt we could afford to improve it, which would mean going a very different route and we were resigned to that. Saying we would eventually be cancelling our account because of the connectivity issues didn't generate any special solutions. But when I happened to mention, rather apologetically , that for medical reasons I had to be able to make and receive calls, a free iPhone two grades up with much better capability was immediately offered. Magic words, but saying them executed a decent and responsible policy we were grateful for.

[csziggy]

15. The only reason I keep my landline is for emergency service

I get it anyway with my CenturyLink DSL service - the only way to get broadband internet in my rural location. But I would keep it. After hurricanes, cell service tends to go out - plus I get lousy cell service on most of my farm and a cell signal is non-existent inside my house.

The only way I can get or make calls if the cell tower down the street goes out is through my landline. I can now make calls with the cell via WiFi but if the power is out I can't do that, though my whole house generator is supposed to be hooked up next week so that may change.

I would happily drop CenturyLink if I could internet any other way. They pulled a bait & switch on me last year. I have had CenturyLink service for ages and for at least ten years I used their PrismTV, which was effectively their cable over DSL. They were advertising 40Mbs internet for a good price so I called to cancel PrismTV and to upgrade my internet. Their agent lied to me, told me I could get PrismTV with the upgraded internet, so I agreed. It turns out that even with 40 MBS, PrismTV reserves 30MBS for their service and available internet bandwidth is very restricted.

When I called back to complain about the slow internet, they claimed I had agreed to a two year contract - which I had NOT. After a lengthy hold time - during which they apparently reviewed the recording of my previous call - they agreed to not charge me the $250 contract fee, to drop PrismTV, and to provide 40Mbs, though not at the advertised rate I had originally called about.

They were rude and almost called me a liar until their reviewed their recordings. If I had any other choice, I would change rather than keep doing business with CenturyLink.

I'm glad you got out of it!

[PTWB]

16. I haven't had a landline for years.

I don’t see why people still maintain residential landline service outside of home based businesses, and even then a cell phone is better.

[MineralMan]

18. Yes. Well, my business is home-based and I had a headset phone

connected to my landline at my desk. It was very convenient, since I often take notes on my keyboard during calls.

Now, when I'm at my desk, I have a headset with a boom mic plugged into my cell phone, which works the same way. The phone is in a a charging stand next to my monitor when I'm working. No big deal.

I liked having a cell phone with a number nobody knew. Since only my wife and family had the number, I could simply not answer it unless their name showed up on the screen.

I miss that, but Verizon's blocking app does an excellent job of blocking robocalls and telemarketers now. Only numbers that are in my contact list ring through now. Unknown numbers go straight to voicemail, as well. Perfect.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

48. Given how often I have to ask someone to move a little

so I can hear them, that does not strike me as a cell phone is better.

Plus, if something happens to the cell towers, the cell phone only people will be SOL. I believe there are places where people are sabotaging cell phone towers because they're convinced the towers are somehow responsible for Covid-19.

I'll just say that I anticipate keeping both indefinitely.

[Gothmog]

17. I still have a land line phone

I am working from home right now and I like my land line My kids tease me for having a land line

[MineralMan]

19. Yeah, I liked mine, too, until it quit working.

Now, I'm all smartphoned-up, and I like that pretty well, too. It's tethered to our car as well, whenever I'm driving, so i can use voice commands to do just about anything with Android Auto. "Hey Google! Give me directions to [address]." "Hey, Google! Read me my text messages." Wonderful.

[Gothmog]

21. My house has a radiant barrier for energy conservation

I get poor cell phone coverage unless I am near a window.

[MineralMan]

22. No such problems with my mid-1950s house.

It doesn't even have insulation in its walls, I discovered when I put in a dog door to the back yard in my kitchen wall. I get excellent cell service, even in my basement. Of course, there's also a cell tower about a block away on the top of our water tower, so that could explain it.

[Archae]

20. My landline is through Charter...

I do have a cell phone too, I keep it for when I go out, and if the power goes out.
(Power goes out, the cable modem cuts out.)

Charter doesn't require contracts, and I hate those.

[MineralMan]

23. Your Charter phone is not a landline.

It's VOIP, and is dependent on your cable service. As you note, when the power is out, your phone doesn't work. A landline is hard-wired to real telephone lines. There is a significant difference in reliability during power outages. Still, if a branch falls on your phone line, you still will lose phone service.

[highplainsdem]

24. Kept my landline until a few years ago. Finally gave it up when I had to admit I was getting almost

nothing but robocalls on the landline. And keeping it to call my cell phone in case I'd misplaced it seemed ridiculous.

[H2O Man]

25. I have one.

I've never had or used a cell phone. Never had or used a credit card. And I still have my grandfather's cross-cut (two person) saw.

[hunter]

52. I finally broke down and got a cell phone at the insistence of my wife.

It was almost a repeat of an argument we'd had decades before when we married, back when I never carried any identification with me.

I pay $100 a year for my flip phone. I can add voice and data to it as needed, but I never do.

Like you I don't have any credit cards. I have quite a few things that belonged to my grandparents and great grandparents including tools.

[Lars39]

26. I use Net Talk Duo

I used the same phone number as my last landline. Pay once a year. This year it was $51.93. I have free voicemail and if I pay more I can block more than 1(?) phone number. If Net Talk deems a number "Scam Likely" it'll say it in the email.
No complaints after about 3-4 years.

[hunter]

27. When I cancelled Comcast they kept the account open for a year with a thirty two cent balance...

... and constantly harassed me with phone offers to reconnect.

At one point I threatened to cut their cable off at my property line and winch it out of the ground. The customer service rep I was talking to was so afraid of losing a customer he marked us down as "moved."

Sure enough Comcast sales people were knocking on our door a few weeks later with "special offers" for new residents.

Comcast/Xfinity is by far our biggest source of junk mail.

I think even less of Comcast now then I did then. The devil can take their cable, internet, and television and drag it all into hell.

AT&T owns the line that brings the internet into our house but they are not our internet service provider. When I first got this line it was still Pacific Bell and they didn't offer residential high speed internet at all.

There are a few cities in the U.S.A. that don't take any shit from the telecommunications giants. There's a city near us where every resident gets free basic internet service. All their high school students have Chromebooks as well. When the covid virus struck the transition to remote learning, for high school students at least, was easier than it was in our city.

In our city all the high school students who don't have their own computers do get chromebooks, but there's no universal internet, so the school district set up mobile internet hotspots, and wifi equipped buses in various parking lots.

Basic internet ought to be a public service just like highways, roads, sidewalks, police, parks, etc..

[I_UndergroundPanther]

55. I agree the net should be free

[customerserviceguy]

28. Good story!

Just this last week, I wanted to cancel my service with Sprint (now T-Mobile) because I despise T-Mobile, left them three and a half years ago for Sprint, which had a better network, better deal, etc.

As I get my bill in email, and just look at the total amount to make sure it's in line with what I usually pay, I don't have one sitting around to look up my account number. Plus, I needed a PIN, and didn't have that. So, I got Sprint on a chat window, and once I asked for both things, they scrambled harder than a cat trying to bury a turd on a marble floor.

Them: "We have $55 a month service for people 55 and older..."

Me: "Thanks for noticing and pointing out that I'm an old person, just get me the information I asked for."

[Trumpocalypse]

29. Had the same experience with Verizon

about 7 years ago. Canceled my service and haven’t missed it.

[bucolic_frolic]

30. Yeah, that's the way it is.

[cp]

32. Live rural, keeping my landline

Have my parents rotary phone, so if everything craps out, can still make an emergency call.

[MineralMan]

34. I had a collection of old landline phones,

all connected to my landline, which no longer works. My favorite was a 1930s candlestick dial phone. We also had an old oak farm phone on the wall. You could answer it if the phone rang, but it was hella hard to dial.

I'm going to put them all on ebay, I think.

[Obvious85]

33. Keep your home number

by exporting it to a VOIP service, I use MagicJack and it only costs $35 a year, and it works great. It's a tiny device the size of a credit card that I plug into my router and connect my home phone to that.

[MineralMan]

35. I don't think I'll bother. Since I've shifted my business number to

my cell number and notified everyone, the only calls that would come in would be telemarketers.

[Fla Dem]

36. I have a landline and plan to keep it for the foreseeable future.

The reception and clarity of calls is much better than cell calls. Yes, I get a lot of robocalls which I ignore. I have an answering machine and will only answer if the caller is identified. If it's something important they can leave a message.

Like today, a doctor's office called me but it was not identified as a doctor's office, just the city and phone#. So I didn't answer. They left a message reminding me of an appointment this week. Otherwise the phone rings 4 times and disconnects. Anyone I want to hear from is on my caller ID list so I know to answer those calls.

I don't give my cell number out except where necessary; family, friends etc. Businesses and doctors/dentists get my home number.

[Warpy]

38. That first lady was a liar. The fee is only if the problem is inside the house

and that makes sense, I'm sure they've had a lot of calls because somebody disconnected the phone for a little peace and quiet and forgot to tell anyone else.

Outside the house, it's their problem and the service call is free.

I know because I had to call multiple times when I moved in here because the connector box on the back of the house was old and fried every time it rained. After the fourth or fifth call, they finally replaced it.

[MineralMan]

39. Yes, she was. However, I was tired of the robocalls, anyhow, and

Century Link charges you extra to use their call blocking services. My landline had really become irrelevant to me, so I dumped it, after it went down once again. The last few times it went down, it was squirrels chewing on the wires at the junction box on the utility pole behind my house.

It just was no longer worth maintaining, frankly. I suspect that Century Link will be gone before very much longer. Their DSL service is slow and spotty, too.

[SeattleVet]

45. CenturyLink is the worst...

when they rolled out their new super-duper fast Internet a few years ago they were going door-to-door to get people to sign up. Each time they came (ignoring the big "NO SOLICITING" sign right next to the doorbell) I told them to get the hell off my property, do not come back, and that I'd only consider going back to CenturyLink after I see a whole year without seeing complaints about their service and billing. At the time a friend was going through a billing dispute with them, and getting no satisfaction at all.

The third time they showed up I stopped them partway up the front steps and just told them to turn around and leave before I called the police, since I had already told them twice to stay away and quit bothering us.

The last time they came through the neighborhood they stopped in front of the house and consulted a clipboard, then went on to bug another neighbor.

[left-of-center2012]

40. Back in the day ...

I don't know about now, but AOL used to be near impossible to get rid of.

I even read one account of a man whose adult son had died and the father called to cancel the son's account.
He was 'required' to listen to about 20 minutes of upgrade offers before AOL finally agreed to cancel the dead son's account.

[yonder]

46. Yep. About 20 years ago?

We had an AOL account once too, damn near impossible to get rid of.

Inversely proportionate to how easy it was to get those CD installation disks that seemed to arrive in the mail far too frequently and which mostly wound up in the trash.

[progree]

49. Uh oh. My primary Primary email is [e-mail] ( [e-mail] also works the exact same )

since the early 1980s. Compuserve was absorbed by AOL like maybe 20 years ago, so I actually have an AOL account.

(xyz isn't my real email address, just using as an example to show the format).

It is said that people with @aol.com email addresses have difficulty getting hired because every one knows they are over a certain advanced age. AARP always advising to not use an @aol.com email address in their job-search advice columns. I wonder what they think of @compuserve.com accounts

Another alias that works: [e-mail] (I changed the digits for privacy, but that's the format). That was the kind of email addresses we first got back in the day, before they technologically evolved to the point where they gave us the option of having our "name" be something other than a bunch of numbers. Wouldn't that look great on a job application!

[tiptonic]

42. Sore spot

You hit a sore spot with me. I'm trying to deal with Dish right now. We just sold our place, Dish doesn't want to cancel our service even though, we don't own the place anymore. They keep trying to add fees, every time i talk to them. They act like we shouldn't have sold the place, without their permission. Don't ever sign with Dish. No matter how cheap they say it is. This is what u get, when u live in a country, run by the big Corps. I forgot to mention, they want me to climb on the roof (after I asked them not to put it on the roof, they did anyway), to disconnect the dish. Otherwise they want to charge me a $300 penalty. I'm in my 70s with cancer (in remission). So thats not going to happen. Sorry to vent on here.

[SeattleVet]

43. We cut the cord years ago, and switched to the Ooma VOIP system.

We were able to port our number, so that hasn't changed over the past 30+ years.

We pay something like $14/month, which is essentially the taxes and fees, plus we added a $10 'Premium' service that added the No-Mo-Robo and other scam call blocking and a few other features. We can have it ring to a cellphone when we're out, or even grab the main unit and take it with us on vacations. As long as we have Internet access we have a phone.

We've had the system for probably 10 years now, and it's been great!

[ooky]

56. I use the standard Ooma service to back up my cell phone.

Its about 4-5 bucks a month and works great. Had mine about 10 years too. Seems like a good company. I like that they don't ever try raising my rates.

[AllaN01Bear]

44. keeping land line . with rotary phone for when the local utility (pg and e)

cuts power during high wind events . the state of califronia had ordered cellphone companies to install solar back up and the pitch and whine was terrible . so, i keep my traditional phone for that reason and i can call 911 when the towers are down. also my dsl isnt standalone and any that are rent lines from at and t.

[DFW]

47. Our land line still works fine in Germany, so we keep it.

We do get a few robocalls and telemarketers a week, but very few. Most of them are from call centers in India or the Philippines, so I do not make the mistake of saying I only understand English. Though trained to work in German, most of them understand English just as well. However, they usually do NOT understand Catalan, Swedish or Russian, so I am usually rid of them in short order.

I even got a telemarketer on my US cell phone while I was here in the USA a couple of weeks ago. I can only assume they just ry every number in sequence until they get someone. Not knowing the number, I answered in French. I have to admit, they were pretty persistent, continuing with their spiel as if I had said "please continue" in perfect Oxford English. I just acted as if I were an impatient vacationer from Bordeaux, who got fed up with their refusal to speak French to me, and hung up.

Unfortunately, candidates share phone numbers of contributors, so while I'm in the States, I get constant calls for contributions from Democratic candidates for dog catcher in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho on up. I usually ignore them, although I took one from Jon Ossoff in Georgia a couple of days ago, since I really like him, and hadn't contributed to him before.

My EU cell phone is programmed with every number I could possibly be interested in hearing from, so if I get a call without called ID on it, I just ignore it. If it turns out it was Barack Obama and he REALLY wants to talk to me, I assume he'll leave a number on voice mail. Actually, one time I did get a call from Howard Dean who missed his intended party by one on his speed dial, and called me instead by accident. I said, Hello, and he came on saying, "hi, it's Howard, and are we still on for London this weekend?" As I had no plans to be anywhere near London that weekend, I reminded him whose number he had called, and was he REALLY expecting to see me in London? He laughed when he realized his mistake. We talked for 20 minutes anyhow, and I said he was welcome to pop over to Germany if he had any spare time (he didn't--not that time, anyway).

But I realize the frustration of dealing with companies offering lousy service. One time, when my elder daughter was in the USA for her first semester of school "abroad (from her German point of view)." I got her a VISA card at my bank, and ordered that the payments be deducted automatically from my account. The bank rep assured me this was no problem, and she had her card in a few days. However, a couple of months later, she started getting threatening letters from the bank for non-payment, demanding interest and late charges. I had to call up the bank from Germany, and ask why. They said they had no record of the automatic deduction request, and said they could arrange it as soon as I paid the late charges and the interest. I repeated that I owed them nothing, as this was their error. They insisted that I pay up. I requested a supervisor, and got one. She said she would drop the interest, and I only had to pay the late charges. I gave her a few Social Security numbers, told her to check the balances of the accounts associated with those numbers, and then made her the following offer: They drop all charges, and institute the automatic payment deduction I had set up in the beginning--OR the balances of the accounts I had just given her would leave to another bank within 24 hours. All interest charges and late fees were dropped.

Mineral Man is right--you DO have to insist. But do it anyway. eventually, you will get someone on the line who has an interest in listening.

[safeinOhio]

50. I'm keeping my land line so

I can find my cell phone when I can’t find it in the house. I’m old.

[womanofthehills]

51. Finding my cell is also the only reason I keep my landline

I never answer it - I have a message on it to call me on my cell. I ‘m thinking of dropping it soon.

[Towlie]

53. My gated community requires a land line to be able to call the gate and authorize visitors.

So I lied and gave them my cell phone number, which is the only phone I have. That was many years ago and I haven't had any problems from them. If there's a way to detect whether you're calling a land line or cell phone they don't seem to know about it, or they don't care.