Do You Have A Landline?

From the moment I started my food storage I have always heard that I need a landline and a phone that can hook into the wall, not a cordless phone, in my supplies.  Up until a month ago when I moved we have always had a landline.  My husband decided in our new home that we are going to use our cell phones and a special phone jack that uses our wireless internet for our home phone, instead of a traditional landline.  I am totally against this and everything I said didn't convince him otherwise. So here I am, no landline and feeling nervous daily that we don't have one.  But I have also always heard that you can call 911 from any phone jack without having a landline service, so I thought we would be OK if we just had a cord phone in our home for emergencies.

So with this information in my head, and totally thinking it is correct information, I have been on the lookout for a cord phone.  While shopping at a toy store recently I found this absolutely hideous phone on clearance for $3.48.  Yes it was ugly, but it had a cord and I knew I needed it in my preparedness supplies.  I was excited that it was so inexpensive and like I have mentioned before, if you keep a running list of items that you are hunting for in the back of your mind, you may come across them at the strangest times.  I took my ugly phone home (can you tell I can't stand Sponge Bob) and couldn't wait to feel the security of having a land-line phone in my home.

But guess what....I plugged into my phone jack and there wasn't a dial tone.....nothing!!!  After googling landline info, I found you have to have some kind of phone service hooked up to your home to even get a dial tone.  I can't even dial 911 on this phone when it is hooked up to my phone jack.  Yeah....lesson learned here.  Do research first before purchasing.  This wasn't a huge purchase and I will need this phone, but after researching further I realized I will need to talk to our phone company.  

Landlines are a good idea to have in an emergency and everyone should have a landline in their home.  It makes it much easier when dialing 911 for them to find your home.  Cell phones will not work in an emergency and having a back up phone is a smart idea.  In some areas the phone company may offer a phone line where you can only call 911 and not receive calls, but you need to check with your carrier.  I have further investigation to do on this subject, but I thought I would share with what I have learned just in case you had the same information that I had about using a landline.