Why I no longer have a land line

No more land line for me

I live in a hollow. West Virginians know what this is. It’s not a valley, it’s a naturally hollowed out spot on the side of a hill or mountain. There are lots of them in WV. The one I live in is a mobile phone dead zone. Doesn’t matter what carrier — none of them seem to be able to get a signal into my hollow. So, I always thought I had to have a land line. Well, no more. Here’s why.

Recently Verizon sold all their land line service to Frontier. The transfer promise was that nothing would change, just the company providing the service. Well, as soon as the transfer was made, my landline no longer worked. Couldn’t call out and no one could call in for almost 3 weeks. (I made great use of Google Phone during this time. It works great!)

After numerous phone calls to both companies, I finally got a dial tone. “Great!” I thought, “Back to normal.” But I was wrong. I could call out, but…

Over the next month people would call me on my iPhone while I was at work (where I have 3G service) to tell me that when they called the land line at my house they got a message saying my phone was disconnected. What the….??? To make it short, after many more phone calls to Frontier, someone finally figured it out. They had changed my phone number, but neglected to let me know that they had!!!

That was it. I had enough. But what about the dead zone?

Here’s the solution: the AT&T 3G MicroCellâ„¢. This thing is miraculous. I get enough bars for the phone to work within about a 60 foot radius of the device. Once I knew this worked it was “Good-bye Frontier!” And good riddance.

So, if you ever had my land line number, erase if from your list. And don’t consult the phone book. It’s wrong. It’s mobile for me from now on.