The 'Home Phone' has evolved. The once universal landline is now little more than one more choice for a phone used in a fixed location. There are now many variations of what we can use "at home," we review what works best and at what cost.

Why a "Home Phone"?
Unless you live in a one-room apartment, there are several advantages of maintaining multi-room access to phone service: safety, security and convenience top the list. Nearly every home in the US is wired for such service, but with multiple cordless phone sets even that isn't necessary.

For the simplest Home Phone, cell phones by themselves are woefully inconvenient because they're almost never at arm's length when a call comes in, assuming you can hear them ring (or vibrate) when you're in another room. And we're always in a different room when it rings, right? They also tend to run out of battery at the worst possible time, and they're notorious for dropping calls in the homestead, where signal strength can be low at best.

We want Home Phone service in the home. We want the convenience of having extensions in every room and the security of having a dial tone in case of emergency. But there's no reason to pay a large, or even any, monthly bill for it.

How do the Options Compare?

One of the most intriguing products is the Cell Phone Adapter for your Home Phone.  You can drop your cell phone into the adapter, or place it in a household 'hot spot' and you get all the advantages of an extension in every room and your cell phone never runs out of power.  Multi-line units allow multiple users to share the Home Phone "network," with lots of features to help each member of the family communicate by their favorite method...even Text.  You can make calls all day and the phone will still be fully charged when it's time to grab it and run.


The Wireless Home Phone is a simple conversion from the wired line to a box in the house that performs the same function at a much lower cost. The Wireless Home Phone Unit includes all your favorite Calling Features, including Free long distance.  Our only complaint with the Wireless Home Phone is the inferior audio quality when using Landline-quality phones as well as the slightly different dialing procedures.

Internet-Connected, or VoIP Phones have the potential of lowering the price to a bare-bones level, or even FREE, but there have been enough 'quirks' to make us hesitate switching the Home Phone to VoIP. Some Internet-based phone services have priced themselves out of contention for a low-priced phone service, but there are indeed some very inexpensive options. Another hurdle to overcome was the need for VoIP phones to be connected to a computer. That has been improved by connecting the new generation of VoIP adapters directly to your Internet router, which, in most homes, stays on all the time. There are also devices which now can be used for complicated communications requirements.


The wired, Landline Phone is the traditional connection from the home to the public phone network. It has become the most reliable and most expensive choice among Home Phone connections. If you're not really concerned about the cost of your Home Phone, the Landline makes an excellent option. The more features you add to it, the more expensive it can get. A "real" Landline can be supplied by your local phone company as well as most cable systems.  They are regulated and priced similarly.


There  are benefits of a "Home Phone Number."  This allows you to have a common access to the home from the outside that can be answered by any member of the family, or one that can be used for making calls when your cell phone is either out of juice, or out of reach.  Although the Home Phone may have become superfluous, it is still a useful communications channel if it can be acquired at a reasonable cost.  If you don't already have a Home Phone number you'd like to keep, consider one with programmable features such as Google Voice, that can be directed to where ever you'd like, such as work, cell or travel.