I have decided to completely do away with the landline in the home office. I use my iPhone for 95% of all outgoing and incoming calls; so why spend the money on a business line into the office? There is no real good reason.
And it would appear most Americans feel the same way. Recently in Wired
According to Pew, the cell phone is the technological tool its users would have most difficulty giving up, followed by the Internet and television. Landline phones ranked fourth in the latest survey, just above e-mail.
I would put email ahead of a landline and ahead of television.
Not only do I use my iPhone for phone usage. I just recently setup a Skypein number. It works great. And, it is a heck of a lot cheaper than the $100.00 plus per month I am spending on a dedicated business landline for the home office. I also get my Internet through DSL. So that will be the only “landline” coming into the home office.
Lets keep the conversation going. What are you all using for your phone service in your home offices?
Cell Phone here and I even have wireless internet so no landlines at all and I love it! My clients can get a hold of me easily and I don’t have the huge phone bill.
No more landlines. I am primarily using Skype In and Out. Also my cell. Saving bundles. The only problem I have is that I appear over the telephone in Court. They all put in their orders that you have to use a landline. One, claims to even impose a sanction if you appear by cell. I use the Skype but really I do not see the difference. S-h-h-h-h. Keep it quiet.
My husband and I both work at home (different companies) but we have always had a house landline, a business landline and a fax landline.
In the past year we have shut off the household and the fax lines.
We both receive calls & faxes on the biz line we share; he returns calls on that line and I return my calls using Skype.
We both use cell phones for personal calls and texting. Neither of us want to call clients on our cell phones as that gets us back to where we started in the days before we had dedicated biz line. Then all calls for work came on our house line and that was just too much blending of work and home life.
I am glad we have shut off two of our three landlines, but it doesn’t look like the third one will be going away anytime soon.
One caveat for those abandoning landlines, cell phones (and sometimes VOIP connections) never sound anywhere near as clean as good ol’ trusty landline.
For those of us slightly older people who grew up on landlines, we’re accustomed to a clean, full-duplex (both parties can speak at the same time) phone connection - and cell phones are a pale comparison to the “real” deal. So if the customers you deal with are beyond the Gen X age threshold, they may tend to become aggravated when trying to talk with you on a less-than-clear cell connection.
And when you’re calling from a cell to a cell, this problem can be exacerbated. I run into this when calling my brother’s Skype phone from my cell. The audio quality is sometimes so poor that it’s like using old CB radios. It certainly isn’t full-duplex communication.
Cell phones are certainly convenient, but there IS a difference.