Switching from Landlines to Mobile Phones

More & more people are doing away with landlines for mobile phones. The only down side I see is the ability to use 911 effectively. With landlines you are actually calling a house ("it's for you") but with cell phones you are calling a person & there is the cost savings, assuming you use both now.

spc wrote:The only down side I see is the ability to use 911 effectively.

I thought most new units come with GPS?

on my phone bill for the cell , they charge for 911. i have used it a couple of times with no problems. i have dialup , if i could get cable , i would get rid of the house phone. with the cell it's same amount every month , as long as you watch your minutes. with the house phone everywhere i call is long distance , minus a few townships. use to be long distance to call the phone co. till they got a 800 #. lol

Richard S. wrote:

spc wrote:The only down side I see is the ability to use 911 effectively.

I thought most new units come with GPS?

The rules for cell phone location is at the FCC's web site:

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/wi ... 1srvc.html

Basically it requires cell phone system operators to provide location information on 911 calls. The two main ways to do this is GPS and triangulation between cell phone towers. Neither method meets all the FCC design requirements and the time deadline has been extended several times. It's an almost impossible technical problem to solve say in a high rise building. Sure GPS will give you a street address, but what floor? In rural areas triangulation doesn't always work because the towers are too far apart and signals may only come from one tower.

Most carriers will not enable a non location equipped cell phone. I had such a phone and when I upgrade was told I could not have it re-registered. It makes a lot of give away cell phone to help the "you name it" useless. But all cell phones will work on E911, regardless of age or if it is connected to a specific wireless carrier.

Yanche wrote: It's an almost impossible technical problem to solve say in a high rise building. Sure GPS will give you a street address, but what floor?

Ahh true, didn't think about that.

Do the phone companies have price rate for only making 911 calls from a land-line?

spc wrote:Do the phone companies have price rate for only making 911 calls from a land-line?

AFAIK they are required to accept any 911 call whether you have service or not. e.g. if you wanted to purchase a cell phone just for 911 you only have to purchase the phone.

With my luck the battery would be dead.

BK

I can't wait for cell service to be available in my area.

Two new towers went up this fall but they are not activated yet.

Then again I need the land line to get my dsl.

I had 2 landlines here, one for the home and one for my business. I had the home number disconnected a few months ago, never used it anymore. On the business # I have DSL as well. We didn't have cell service here until about 7 years ago when a new tower was built nearby. The signal is not that great, but it does work (except in the cellar).

cArNaGe wrote:I can't wait for cell service to be available in my area.

Two new towers went up this fall but they are not activated yet.

Then again I need the land line to get my dsl.

My local land line telephone company is Verizon. I've got DSL on it. Like all phone companies the number of land lines in service is decreasing as more and more customers switch to cell service only. What surprised me is Verizon will allow you to keep your land line for DSL service only (i.e. no phone service). I should really do this because I've got two line lines and two cell numbers.

Richard S. wrote:

spc wrote:The only down side I see is the ability to use 911 effectively.

I thought most new units come with GPS?

I work for a police organization, and we get 911 calls on land line and cell phones all day long, whether it be a true emergency or some lost guy looking for directions or something. Triangulation from towers can sort of get you on the right path, and near a road or something at least, but that's about it. the GPS units are still sorta not quite as popular and the real bottleneck is that on *our* end, we're not funded well enough to get total access to the gps data.

Every once in a while though, you end up finding that injured guy in the woods, or whatever and it's all a godsend.

F.Y.I......E911 on a cell will work even if the phone isn't currently being used under a contract oblgaition.

Cyber36 wrote:F.Y.I......E911 on a cell will work even if the phone isn't currently being used under a contract oblgaition.

Is that also true for landlines?

spc wrote:Is that also true for landlines?

I don't thinks so because you wouldn''t have a dial tone. The 911 for cell phones came about if I remember correctly because someone had a cellphone and tried dialing 911 but the only carrier the person could get in the vicinity was not theirs and they wouldn't accept the call.