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.