Sep 21
Young and Trendy
Yep, that’s me. According to the New York Times
Still have a landline? You’re showing your age. The young, hip, cool people have cellphones only, and that is bad news for traditional phone providers. In a survey of Internet users, JupiterResearch found that 12 percent “do not subscribe to fixed voice service, and nearly two-thirds of them are ages 18 to 34.”
We disconnected our landline about 4 years ago, when we realized that the only time we ever used it was to answer telemarketing calls. What seems out of place is that our children still have landlines. I think it has something to do with satellite TV service or something.
If BellSouth or AT&T or whoever it is providing this area with landline phone service would provide DSL, we’d get a landline again, but last I checked (about 2 years ago) the answer was still “never”.
September 23rd, 2008 at 5:29 am
Everyone calls my cell, work, friends… annoys the hell out of me really they all have my home # yet they choose to waste my minutes.
I have to keep my land line since I call my dad in the UK 3, 4 times a week. My cell bill would be huge otherwise, not to mention my dads bill.
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I still have a land line because I find the quality of cell connections inferior. But then I’m a network engineer and am sensitive to this. Also, note that cell connections are half-duplex and land lines are full duplex. When you are on a land line and you both talk at once you can both hear each other. When you are on a cell phone and you both talk at once, only one of you gets through to the other. So you both stop talking – then you both start – then you both stop – and it gets stupid.
BTW, I’m going to hit the supermarket tonight and see if they have both kinds of cornmeal that I need for that cornmeal recipe you posted over by Grim.
September 23rd, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Lynne, my sis lives in Scotland so I understand that, but she gets very cheap overseas rates so she calls us. We IM a lot too. She works from home on her computer and I’m on the computer most of the time too… and why, yes I working… Yeah, that’s the ticket!
That setup might not work so well for your dad. It sure wouldn’t with mine.
Ron, I am fully aware of the quality problem and it bugs me sometimes, but we’re not on the phone that much for it matter that much. Also the quality of the phone lines in this neighborhood are atrocious. I was never able to use a fax machine from home. Our only misgiving was 911, but though we are retired, we’re not that bad off. Yet.
Let me know how the cornbread turns out. You could make it using only one kind of cornmeal, but combining them makes the texture really nice. If it turns out good, I’ll post it here
September 25th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Still have two landlines (and four mobile phones) in this house. One of the landlines carries the DSL. And since my DSL provider does not have a cap on bandwidth capacity or a restriction on what I can do with the bandwidth (servers, etc.), it stays. During the hurricane and for a week after, cell phone service was spotty and the DSL service faltered. I used the second line to use good old fashioned dial up service and we could stay in touch with others on the old style phones to let them know we were still alive. My advance planning to have at least one “old” phone that did not need to be plugged in was rather smart…
September 25th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Still have a landline here. It makes it easier to talk when I’m at home, since I don’t have to worry about cell phone strength signals or the battery going down.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Is that a hint Bryan? Okay, I got it
Jeff, I’m glad you had the setup you did when Ike came to visit. He wasn’t a very nice guest was he?
September 25th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I have a land line! Satellite TV and DSL require it so we just keep paying for it despite the fact that only bill collectors and telemarketers call that number… Boo!
September 25th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
See, the thing is all you people who have a landline are obviously MUCH younger (not to mention trendier) than I am. I think the NYTimes messed up again. I’m not young and trendy; I’m old and crotchety and… surely some other things too. But that’s not important right now.