We were like many families as we still had a landline, but almost exclusively used our mobiles. We wanted to cut the cord and save money, but there were still a few hold outs that called us on our home number.
We decided to cut our home phone service but with a safety net of not giving up our old number completely. There are services that allow you to move your home number to an Internet phone service. We went with Fongo as it seemed the right combination of free and decent user reviews. They will set you up for a one time $25 fee, and voice mail, caller ID and calling to major centres in Canada is free. Calling elsewhere and long distance is very reasonable, and there are other features at low cost if wanted. I set up our account on my smartphone, and set my account to ring simultaneously on my wife’s smartphone as well. Boom – ‘home phone’ no matter where we are. People use it to save money on mobile phone minutes as well. (Note that it will use your mobile data when you”re not on Wi-Fi though.)
What about quality you may ask. Call quality is about as good as you’d expect from an Internet phone service. Its not crystal clear, but very acceptable for free! Also sometimes the calls don’t ring out as long and the caller ID isn’t perfect, but again acceptable in my books. I’ve been using it for a couple months and besides being free, I really like the features and flexibility of the Internet phone service. We don’t get or make many calls on that number, but its still there for us. If you’re thinking of cutting your landline home phone, it might just be the step you want.