A neighbor of mine is "temporarily" (12-18 months) house-sitting a house that is undergoing renovation on the other side of town. Since the owner of that house needs to complete these renovations before house can be sold or rented (prior renters trashed the house during a ten year occupancy), he didn't want the house to look empty or abandoned. He offered my neighbor a free place to live for 18 months, and my neighbor was able to rent his own home for nearly twice his mortgage payment.
He has a cell phone, needs internet, and did not want to establish a landline, particularly in a home where he will spend only 18 months max. He was able to get DSL service via ATT for about $26, slowest speed they offer (like 1.5 or 3 mbs down), no land line service, and he's not required to have a land line account with them. I think they are finally getting the idea that some folks want internet via DSL but not a land line.
On a side note, you may have read about Southern California's blackout last week, affecting about five million people served by San Diego Gas and Electric. This area runs from southern Orange County to all of San Diego and Imperial Counties, up to the AZ border. I have kept my land line because of Cox's bundle discount. If you have any form of internet and tv service from them, they take $8 off your phone bill, so a line that might cost $24 elsewhere is $16/month.
Many people just keep the land line for only $16/month. In my case, it helps me get by with only 450 day mins/month on my mobile phone (note to readers outside North America: we pay minutes to call AND to receive), since I can make local calls from the land line and not use up mobile minutes. Also, I have a home fax (HP all in one printer) that uses the same line.
However, during the blackout, I noticed that the land line went out of service, so I am guessing that Cox's phone lines depend on outside electricity connections and do not work in a failure as ATT's do (at my office, we have a stand alone fax line that can be outfitted with a standard phone in an emergency and that line works off telephone company power). So it challenges the conventional belief that you should have one land line in the event of an emergency. Apparently, while my land line has other benefits (lets me use a fax, helps me make free local and toll-free calls to conserve mobile minutes), it apparently does not operate in a power failure.
