The Home Phone Is Back!
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Among the many prophecies that techies take for granted, none seem more certain than the death of the home phone. Just look at that sorry thing, if you even still have one: Your landline remains fixed in a single spot; it can't text, take pictures, access the Web, or play games; and it's plagued by telemarketers and robocalls. Since most people find it impossible to navigate modern life without a cell phone – and because it's expensive and somewhat redundant to have both a landline and a cell plan – it's no surprise that people are ditching their home phones in droves. In 2003, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, fewer than 5 percent of American adults got by with only a cell phone. By 2009, that number was nearly 23 percent – and the agency found that the rate at which people are abandoning landlines is increasing.
I suspect,
though, that many people who cancel their landlines experience pangs
of regret. The cell phone, after all, has its own problems. There's
a good chance it doesn't work very well in your home or office.
Even when it doesn't drop calls or take 30 seconds to connect, the
quality of voice calls can range from "guy stuck in a car wash"
to "guy stuck in a car wash with the windows rolled down and
the radio blaring." In these moments, it's hard not to miss
the trusty old home phone.
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That explains why I haven't joined the ranks of the landline-less. Instead, I pay the phone company about $20 a month to get a very basic plan, and then I use the home phone in conjunction with various Internet services to make very cheap calls. The service I use most often is Google Voice, which does several amazing things. It gives me a single number that rings all my phones, it transcribes my voicemail, and it lets me respond to text messages in my e-mail. Best of all, it lets me make calls through my home phone over Google's servers, which is cheaper than dialing directly. There's no charge to sign up for Google Voice, and it lets me call anyone in the United States and Canada for free; international calls are very cheap. (I also often use Skype on my iPhone, which, in my house, sounds much better than my iPhone.)
August 28, 2010
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