Ditching your Landline Just Got Easier

QuePasaCalabaza writes "The FCC has approved a bill 5-0 that allows consumers to take their land line phone numbers and carry them over to thier wireless phones. USA Today has one of the first scoops on this ruling. The official news release [Word|PDF] is there."

No land line is great

[BoomerSooner]

Just as long as you don't need to use your phone during an emergency.

Hell, I cannot get reception during home football games much less after a tornado rips through the state.

Land line is also good for your home's alarm and tracking where a 911 call is made from.

I guess I'm just an alarmist, but when you need to call someone, a land line is significantly more reliable than a cable phone or cell phone.

Damn. Wish we had that over here...

[Space cowboy]

... in the UK. I've managed to keep my mobile number for a couple of years now, but they did it by requiring every mobile number to start 07... That makes it impossible to have your home number on the phone :-(

Simon

What about wireless to landline?

[jdh33]

What about wanting to go back to landline service?
I'm tired of my cell service and just want to put my wireless number on a landline. Or better yet, put my wireless number on a vonage line.

Just saw

[mental_telepathy]

a commerical for a new service from Cingular that would allow you to tie your cell phone to ring to your home phone when attached to a device they sell. And you don't use wireless minutes when answering at home. So, you could have the bext of both worlds.

Re:I have DSL

[Short Circuit]

Even if I had a plan that could put the big telcos out of business, I wouldn't. They own and operate too much of the Internet infrastructure. Wouldn't want to risk killing that, now, would we?

Remember when UUNet threatened to only pass traffic of paying customers? That would have cause a severe disruption in the...well...nevermind. But the point is, the same thing could happen if one of the big backbones were to kick the bucket.

Neat, but why?

[Muddie]

I have (luckily) gotten no telemarketing phone calls on my cell phone, but I was littered with them on my land line. Why would I want my cell number published? Why would I want to pay *extra* to not have it published, and why would I want to pay more in phone company "surcharges" for this "benefit"? [cellphonecarriers.com]

I ditched my land-line a long time ago, and never missed it. I appreciate the concept, but I think I'd take a pass on this opportunity.

I understand if you've had your phone number for years why this might be a nice option, but for me (who moves all too frequently, which assisted in my desire to ditch a land line alltogether), this just isn't a factor.

telemarketers

[fedork]

I never got any telemarketing calls on my cell phone, but I do get quite a few on my home phone (regardless of do-not-call thing). I am guessing I will start getting them on my cell if I switch the number and will have to waste minutes / be bothered all the time by the telemarketers? No, thanks. Caller ID helps, but only to a degree...

Bad idea

[afidel]

Now telemarketers can no longer screen out cellphone blocks so expect more telemarketing calls on your cellphone as they can correctly claim that they no longer have the ability to tell if a number is a cell number or not.

Re:I have DSL

[Saint Mitchell]

I couldn't agree more. However The Bell Bitches are every bit as evil.

Lets say I want to run VOIP to bypass SBC. I have to have Cable. What about DSL you say? If I want DSL I have to have a landline so I can't bypass them. It takes cable + VOIP to bypass the Bell Bitches as of now for any ADSL. This is a total L.O.S. I've called SBC and asked them why I can't get _just_ DSL. There answer was "WE need a copper pair to run the signal on". Ok, then run it like you would if I were going to have a phone. Poof, copper pair. "Uh...we can't do that". Why? "Let me speak with my supervisor". "It is not possible to have DSL without a phone line". No it's not I just went over this with you. "Sir, it is not possible, if you'd like I can take an order for Phone + DSL and have a technician dispatched within 5-14 business days." Sure there is DSL competion...sure there is. P.S. !@#$ you SBC

Re:or until

[Anonymous Coward]

An interesting thing about how my house was built: The phone line comes up from the underground lines in the middle of the basement. Some architect was very paranoid when he built this house. The previous owner even put a fake gray box outside with a dead line running a few meters out into the yard.

Re:Getting rid of land lines...

[visionsofmcskill]

Verizon lost the dial-tone on my DSL line a couple weeks back... but the DSL kept on working.

Pick up the phone... not working... cant make a call or anything as if the line was dead.

DSL experienced no problems at all

So i called them and apparently DSL works on two frequencies completly seperete from the dial-tone. And theyd had some problem in which the dial-tones operating frequency was cut off at theri network.

long story short.... is it possible for them to give you DSL without a phone-number.... yes. But it is beyond doubtfull that they will.

dedicated area code

[thung226]

NYC has a dedicated area code of 917 for cell phones... does this mean I can take the (very highly) coveted 212 number and go wireless with it?

Re:I have DSL

[ncc74656]

The difference is that cable companies usually have more Draconian TOS than phone companies and usually don't offer static IPs. Although I have no great love for SBC, their TOS specifically allow me to run servers. I've never seen a cable company that would do that.

Business service through Cox costs about the same as residential service, and about the only thing you can't do is run a warez server or a spamhaus on it. Port-25 traffic is blocked on dynamic IPs, but static IPs are only $10 per month.

With most of the calls to my home phone number being solicitations for credit-fixing schemes and satellite-TV systems (so much for the Do-Not-Call list), if I ever go cell-only I'm not entirely sure I'd want to keep my phone number.

Re:Damn. Wish we had that over here...

[Aardpig]

but they did it by requiring every mobile number to start 07...

This has its advantages, however. If any number can be a cellphone number, then telcos are reluctant to place the financial burden of calling a cellphone on the person making the call. Instead, you end up with the situation over here in the USA, where the person receiving the call has to pony up. Which leads to a ridiculous TCO for cellphones here. On moving from the UK to the USA, my cellphone bill (Cingular) went from approx. 20 pounds ($30) per month to $175 per month. Which is why I ditched my cellphone after the first month.

Re:5-0 ?

[nelsonal]

You might want to read their bios or their statements if you really think these people are even relatively technically savvy. The commissioners are generally economists, lawyers, and other anti-trust types. They are bright, but not particularly technically savvy.

Re:No land line is great

[poot_rootbeer]

I guess I'm just an alarmist, but when you need to call someone, a land line is significantly more reliable than a cable phone or cell phone.

Assuming you're in your home when this urgent need to call someone arises.

Here in the NYC metro area, the only time I've been unable to get a cell phone call through (this was 9/11), all the landline circuits were overloaded too. I eventually managed to catch a friend in the outer suburbs on AIM, and had him call my mother and let her know I was alright.

Re:Bad idea

[afidel]

It has nothing to do with incompetence. As it stands right now cell phone numbers are assigned in blocks, eg 555-123-XXXX and 555-125-XXXX could be cell blocks and 555-124-XXXX could be a land line exchange. All non-retarded telemarketers have a list of exchanges across the country which are designated as cell exchanges and scrub all those numbers from their call lists as one of the first steps. With this change those exchanges won't necessarily be all cell so they can no skip that step, as well you can have a cell phone that has a phone number in a non-formerly cell block so the telemarketers would have no way of knowing it was a cellphone. Since 95+% of people pay for incoming calls to their cell this is a problem.

Possible reason this was a 5 to 0 decision.

[frode]

I use Sprint PCS and for the last few months (as many of know) Sprint (and the other phone companies) have been charging a $1.10 portability fee. BTW when I called the customer service line and asked what the fee was for I was told it was a tax and told to call the "tax people".

Anyway, you are being charged this fee even if you don't plan on moving to another service. Now compare the number of people with land lines to the number of people with cell phones. Now imagine that your a Phone executive looking to bost the bottom line. Answer just charge the fee to everyone with a landline. Land line number poratability is nothing more than a landline surchage.

Yeah, but I think its unwiedly.

[Shivetya]

This would go from a software change at the local level to a software change required across nearly all industries.

Too many are trapped into the geographical thinking about area codes. Look at all the business systems that are setup based on area code. When the system was changed to permit digits other than 1 and 0 as the second portion of an area code there were many ramifications outside of the telephone industry.

Another concern, long distance interstate is separate from long distrance intrastate, or intra exchange.

What we really need is for the FTC to set down a new standard declaring that the area code is no longer geographically based. From that we can then end up with numbers unique to people and have true telco freedom.

Of course the side concern is that with one number anti-spam laws will need to be really strong and they will have to include stopping politicians and charities from calling too.