landline

Ever wish you lived in the '20s so you could go to parties at Jay Gatsby's house and call your friends up on rotary phones to tell them how much fun you had doing the Charleston? We're still working on a time machine to get you to Gatsby's mansion, but Pyle Audio can help with the antique phone.

The company's out with a new line of retro-style home telephones that also serve as smartphone docks.

The four classically designed phones, handcrafted from real wood and adorned with brushed copper parts, have buttons for answering landline and smartphone calls and easily switching between the two. They also have standard phone features like last-number redial, flash function, and ringer high/low selection. … Read more

Sprint's Phone Connect device will now find its way to more people anxious to get rid of their landlines.

Known as Sprint Phone Connect, the "plug and play" device operates via Sprint's 3G network. Users can simply plug their home or office phones into the device, and calls are then carried over the network instead of the traditional landline.

Sprint already sells the product directly. But now the company is offering it to its MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators), wireless providers that buy network services from the major carriers and then sell them to customers. This … Read more

This is an update of a deal I posted last year.

I haven't used a landline for as long as I can remember. It's probably been five or six years since I switched to voice-over-IP service, and although there have been bumps along the way (anyone remember SunRocket?), I can't complain about the thousands (!) of dollars I've saved.

If you're ready to do likewise, I highly recommend the Ooma Telo. This sexy black box plugs into your router and provides unlimited local- and long-distance calling.

It normally sells for $199.99, but for a limited … Read more

Year after year, study after study, teens are proving to be texting at an increasing rate. In a new survey by the Pew Internet Research Center, U.S. teenagers are talking on landlines and cell phone less, using more smartphones, and are averaging 60 texts a day--up from 50 in 2009.

"Teens are fervent communicators," senior research specialist at Pew Amanda Lenhart writes in the study. "Straddling childhood and adulthood, they communicate frequently with a variety of important people in their lives: friends and peers, parents, teachers, coaches, bosses, and a myriad of other adults and institutions.&… Read more

It's been years since I cut the cord on my landline phone, and although there have been bumps along the way (anyone remember SunRocket?), I can't complain about the thousands--yes, probably a couple thousand, by my math--of dollars I've saved.

If you're ready to do likewise, I highly recommend the Ooma Telo. This sexy black box plugs into your router and provides unlimited local- and long-distance calling.

It normally sells for $199.99, but today only, and while supplies last, Woot has the refurbished Ooma Telo home phone system for $139.99, plus $5 for shipping.… Read more

Skype just got so easy your great-grandmother could use it without having to know anything about a sound card or any other input/output doohickeys that are more convoluted than President Harding and his confounding Teapot Dome scandal! (Look it up, millennials...)

Actually, there is one doohickey, but once it's all hooked up it looks an awful lot like a regular old cordless phone--with VoIP hidden inside. (No need to tell great-grandma about that last part, it will only confuse her--apologies to all technologically astute great-grandmothers out there, BTW.) It's the Freetalk ConnectMe home phone adapter for Skype, which connects to any regular old home phone.

You'll need to connect your PC to set things up the first time, but after that, Skype says you'll just need to make sure your broadband connection and phone are hooked into the adapter. If you keep your landline, you'll want to hook that in too, because the adapter allows you to switch back and forth between Skype and a regular phone line.… Read more

Verizon Communications said it couldn't agree to a new contract with its workers, resulting in the first strike at the telecommunications giant in 11 years.

The strike began at 12:01 a.m. ET today as union leaders representing 45,000 workers in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states decided to call a strike. A majority of the workers are field technicians or work in call centers represented by the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Verizon Wireless customers are unaffected by the work stoppage.

The strike is a result of a tough position Verizon … Read more

iOS device owners can now make international calls and pay for them through iTunes courtesy of a new app from Vonage.

Released yesterday, the free Time to Call app is geared toward people who need to make quick calls around the world. The app lets iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch owners make voice over Internet Protocol calls of up to 15 minutes to any one of more than 190 different countries.

And instead of dealing with Vonage or another carrier for billing, users pay for their calls via their iTunes accounts. So the service is accessible to any Apple iOS device owner, including non-Vonage customers.

The cost? Calls to 100 countries run $1.99 or less, while calls to 90 additional countries are billed at anywhere from $2.99 to $9.99, all for up to 15 minutes. You can find out how much a specific call will cost by choosing the country you want to phone at Vonage's Time to Call Web page.

Calls can be made over either Wi-Fi or 3G networks in the U.S. and Canada, while phoning a landline or mobile phone costs the same amount.

For a "limited time," your first international call is free, and any unused minutes can be applied toward additional calls.… Read more

Fifty-one percent of 25- to 29-year-olds live in households that have kicked the landline habit, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That is the first time that wireless-only households have surpassed landline households among any age group, according to the CDC's report released yesterday. The report, which surveyed 17,619 households over the six months that ended in June, also showed a 2 point rise of cell-phone-only households among late-twentysomethings compared with the previous six months.

Looking at other age groups, around 40 percent of people 18 to 24 and 30 to … Read more