Abandoning Land Lines For Cell Phones–A Lesson From Ike

September 21, 2008 / 1:01 pm • By Dr. Melissa Clouthier

Many people give up land lines in favor of cell phones. I have friends who have done just that. They’re in their twenties, though. And even though they’ve settled down with a house and a kid, they still have no land line. Well. I haven’t spoken with them about their decision since the hurricane, but Ike confirmed one thing for me: it’s good to have a land line.

Cell towers, I found out, lose power too. When that happens communications come to a screeching halt. For a couple days, the only communication came via a land line. To me, it’s just a good security back-up and important in emergencies.

Our next door neighbors got stuck because they only have digital cord-less phones. Guess what happened when the power was gone? My husband laughs at me, but I keep two boring old phones around that require no batteries for just this purpose–one for upstairs and one for downstairs. And every time we’ve lost power, we’ve used them. In this case, we could let our neighbors borrow a phone.

Conclusion: Yes to land lines. Yes to old phones. It’s just good back up.

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  • http://queer-conservative.blogspot.com KevinQC

    Sorta like keeping matches and candles around… old but effective.

  • Paul Gordon

    My phone (land line) has NEVER gone out even during storms that almost guarantee loss of power and cable.

    I’m pretty sure that not ALL phone lines are under ground.
    Is it that enough of them ARE to account for this robustness?

  • Andrew C

    That’s why I have a $5 corded landline in my bedroom. It’s good backup. Also, landlines report your address to 911 while cel phones don’t. If you have an intruder, you can dial 911 and without having to say anything, you’ll have police on the way (of course it’d be quicker if you told them what was happening and confirmed your address but you should be getting the shotgun first). Of course that all goes out the window if the intruder cuts the landline, but that’s why you have a cel phone.

  • http://www.cordlessphonez.com Phones

    It’s about time. With new cell phones coming out everyday i think people will soon forget about house phones.

  • Trish

    I also keep one of those boring old phones around. When my power went out earlier this year, my son was using the cordless phone, and was cut off in the middle of his call. I unplugged it and plugged in the old phone, and was able to call the power company to report the outage. My son was also able to call his friend back.

    It’s good advice to keep a land line and a corded phone, just in case, but I wonder how many people will take it?