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I am a widower and intend on staying single. To make life easier, I have decided to get rid of my landline. Will not be doing it tomorrow as I have phone, internet, TV package I am committed to for a few more months.
My cell phone is a TracFone and while it has been good for my usage, their plans are not aimed at heavy usage so I will have to shop for a new cell phone provider. A friend uses Virgin Mobile and for about $30 a month gets unlimited phone, unlimited text, unlimited data but the data slows after so much usage. Data is not a big issue with me so I am leaning toward Virgin Mobile. Any other suggestions?
Now if somebody could just tell me how to block ads on my smart phone I would be DELIGHTED!! I'm quite angry at USCellular for letting this happen. But I doubt they care.
You’ll need to be more specific. When do you see the ads? What are you doing when you see the ads?
If you are watching YouTube videos, you’ll see ads, unless you subscribe to YouTube Red, then you won’t see ads when watching YouTube videos. YouTube Red is great! Well worth the money. Of course, the best way to get YouTube Red is to subscribe to Google Play Music, then they include YouTube Red for no extra charge. Then you get both services for the same cost as YouTube Red alone.
If it’s searching the web, you might be able to reduce the ads with ad blockers. Many apps eliminate the adds if you opt for the premium add free version of the app, if they offer an add free version. If it’s an app I use frequently that has the pay option, I opt in for the add free version. It’s unfortunate that all apps don’t offer the ad free versions.
If you’re watching TV, you can record everything you watch, then watch it delayed, so you have enough buffer to skip the commercials. We almost never watch live TV. We’ve been skipping commercials for at least a decade.
when I moved into my new rental I did not get a landline. There is one carrier that works in the area (cell) and I got a TracFone with that carrier. About $7 a month. I also do not have a TV or cable.
when I moved into my new rental I did not get a landline. There is one carrier that works in the area (cell) and I got a TracFone with that carrier. About $7 a month. I also do not have a TV or cable.
You’re a very low usage person. We used to have a cheap flip cellphones. We paid $100 per year for 1,000 minutes of time for each two cellphones once a year. If we didn’t renew our minutes before the year was over, our balance minutes would expire, and the balance minutes were lost, which happened, and was very annoying. Those cellphones didn’t have the Internet. My wife got tired of the cheap flip cellphone, and switched to an iPhone, which made the old flip cellphone look like a piece of junk. Carrying around the Internet was very convenient. Later, I switched to an iPhone. We also switched from over the air TV to cable TV.
We thought we were saving a lot of money every month, or every year, but we weren’t. Since I was able to carry the Internet with me, and had access to the financial shows on cable TV, I made better stock trades, making more money with our investments. Only a few trades made more than enough money to pay for the cellphone and cable TV services for years, plus pay for new iPhones that cost over $1,000 each. So, sometimes when you think you’re saving money, you’re really not saving money, if you gave up the opportunity to make even more money. We should have switched to iPhones and cable TV years before we switched.
The landline is very convenient when you forget your cellphone in another area in the house. If you have a large enough house, you can’t hear the cellphone ringing all over the house. Sometimes we use the landline to find where we left our cellphones when they get lost in the house. We could use one cellphone to call the other cellphone, but if we lose our cellphone in the house, and the other person is gone somewhere, that makes it tougher to find the cellphone. We have “Tile”, which could be used to find the cellphone, but using the landline is easier.
They also make devices were you plug in your cellphone to your landline handsets. That’s another option too. However, that might not work with a cheap flip cellphone.
With the Obihai and Google Voice, after the initial small investment, your landline is free every month. I’m not sure why you’d want to sacrifice the convenience of a landline when it’s so cheap to get free monthly landline service. However, you do need broadband Internet for the Obihai and Google Voice to work. Some of my sisters don’t have the Internet where they live, so maybe you’re like them, living with no Internet at home. I could never live like that! To us, having high speed Internet at home is essential, just like electricity, water, sewer, heat, and central AC. To have all those things, we just had to educate ourselves to be able to have high income jobs, so we can easily afford those things, while we’re working, and when we retire. That’s called investing in yourself.
Oh, I have internet - couldn't live without it. I rarely get to my cell phone in time to answer it (it only rings 4 times before going to voice mail, and I can't figure out how to change that). But then I can see who called, I have a "Mr. Number" app that tells me if it is spam and I can block it. If it is important, they will leave a voice mail. The phone is there for MY convenience, not anyone else's.
Google fiber came to our apartment complex and installed their system and offered 'free internet' for seven years (one can purchase faster speed, but the freebie works great).
Since I was paying the local cable provider for phone/tv/internet and was now able to receive free internet I decided to cancel the 'bundle' package.
Already had a cell phone, so went out and bought an indoor tv antenna for $15 (and get excellent reception). Called the cable company and cancelled.
I am a widower and intend on staying single. To make life easier, I have decided to get rid of my landline. Will not be doing it tomorrow as I have phone, internet, TV package I am committed to for a few more months.
My cell phone is a TracFone and while it has been good for my usage, their plans are not aimed at heavy usage so I will have to shop for a new cell phone provider. A friend uses Virgin Mobile and for about $30 a month gets unlimited phone, unlimited text, unlimited data but the data slows after so much usage. Data is not a big issue with me so I am leaning toward Virgin Mobile. Any other suggestions?
Did some checking. Spectrum (formerly Time Warner) is offering TV, Internet, and home phone line for about $100 per month. Doing just TV and Internet alone comes within $1.00 (yes, one dollar) of doing all 3 so I might just keep my land line and my present cell phone when I switch to Spectrum.
Oh, I have internet - couldn't live without it. I rarely get to my cell phone in time to answer it (it only rings 4 times before going to voice mail, and I can't figure out how to change that). But then I can see who called, I have a "Mr. Number" app that tells me if it is spam and I can block it. If it is important, they will leave a voice mail. The phone is there for MY convenience, not anyone else's.
We've had broadband Internet for probably about 30 years. We used to have dial up before that. I doubt if anyone still uses dial up Internet. That's like living in a cave! We used to have 16 meg Internet, and we switched to 100 meg Internet, which is much faster. About 10 years ago, a brother in law still had dial up Internet. It would take 30 minutes to bring up only about 4 web sites because it was so slow, while surfing the web. It was so slow that I would just walk away from it and never use it anymore when visiting his house, since it was just too frustrating! At that time, I just had the cheap flip cellphone with no portable Internet.
You'd have to carry around the cellphone with you constantly, maybe with a holster case with a belt clip. If you had the Obihai and Google Voice solution, you could fix that problem and have free landline service after buying the hardware for less than $100. Or, you could get the hardware to use your landline telephone set, connect it to with Bluetooth, and use all the landline telephone sets without having the landline service. So, you don't have to put up with missing calls. I'd never put up with that constant and repeated annoyance!
Here's a video that talks about connecting your cellphone to your landline telephone sets. His hardware is 4 years old. Today's hardware is much better.
Still have the landline phone here, but it's VOIP and really cheap. Mostly hanging on to the phone number that "everybody has."
There's lots of cool tech out there to manage this, but frankly, we don't use the phone much so it's hard to make it a priority. My cell phone can tap into the home VOIP connection (cell is actually an extension of the home phone in the VOIP world, but still has all the cell capabilities -- VOIP is just an app). You can route stuff -- if a call comes from my elderly Dad's phone number, it will ring the house line for 20 seconds and then route to my cell phone. Routine spammers get routed to a SIT error message that says the number has been disconnected.
Problem is, this is more like a hobby. I spend more time on the tech part of avoiding BS phone calls than I ever spent on the phone.
-old school nerd....
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But I doubt they care. 
