Like many, TMEW and I each have a cell phone via Verizon Wireless. Up until a little while ago, our landline was serviced by Verizon as well until it was purchased by Fairpoint Communications (as with most all other landlines in VT, NH, and ME).
Service? Typical on the landline until it rains and then NOTHING – it becomes UNUSABLE. With underground cabling, Fairpoint is probably NOT going to fix it anytime soon which is rather sad as I always said I’d keep the landline for emergencies (after all, there is a real reason for all those batteries in the Central Office – lights may go out in a power outage but the phones won’t). But if the line goes unusable, why pay the money.
The only other reason for not chucking it has been that cell reception has been REAL poor in the house. BUT, there’s hope! From Ars Technica:
Verizon Wireless will start offering in-home cellular base stations, known as femtocells, on January 25. Femtocells use licensed frequencies and a subscriber’s own backhaul to extend a cellular network indoors, and avoid requiring new handsets.
As we reported just a few days ago, AT&T is querying its customers about a future femtocell launch that it has been testing with its employees, and Sprint already offers the Airave extender.
Femtocells allow a carrier to fill in areas that are hard or impossible to cover with conventional base stations, such as interior rooms of a house, or homes and businesses that have the best signal propagation in directions away from where cellular towers are located. (I had Verizon service a few years in an office that was practically a bunker on its south side into a hill, and I confirmed with Verizon that facing north, there wasn’t a tower for some distance.)
Gizmodo has obtained a product manual and launch plans ahead of time, and first reported on the development.
The question will be purchase price, monthly charge, and if unlimited minutes are there if traffic is routed through the ‘Net connection…..if everything works out, I’ll transfer my home number to the cell number and get the rig -> ditching the cost of the landline.
