Cell Phones: The Only Phone You Need

A growing number of Americans use their cell phones as their only phones, and the use of cell phones instead of land lines is even more common in Europe and Asia. How should you decide if cell phones could handle all your telecommunication needs?

One reason many people used to keep their home phones was their phone number. Today the law allows you to "port" those numbers, even to cell phones. Many people have also found that the "free nights and weekends" offered by most cell phones allows them to scale back their home phone payments. However, to compete with cell phones, the landlines companies have begun offering competitive prices that include unlimited calling.

Using cell phones for all your phone calls can be more expensive than using land lines for all your phone calls. But since most people today use cell phones, upgrading your package of services from the cell phones company could still be cheaper than maintaining both cell phones and land lines.

There are some reasons why you might not want to let cell phones be your only phones. If you use dial-up Internet access, it's a lot more difficult and expensive to use cell phones than landlines for that purpose. If you're used to having a phone in every room, you might not want to just have one cell phone unless you are used to carrying it with you at all times. Also, if you do a lot of talking, cell phones need to "sleep" once in a while to recharge their batteries. If your cell phone goes dead while you're talking, it will take a while before you can finish the conversation.