AT&T no more Wireless Home Phone

[JJnLilly]

For a number of years now we have been using a version of AT&T's Wireless Home Phone (WHP)service. It enables us to take our home phone with us when we travelled and kept our same number. The deal was good, $20 a month for unlimited talk. D/W preferred to use the Panasonic handset over our IPhone when making calls from our stick house or on the road or in our winter place.

Well they did away with the service but being grandfathered we are okay for a while, until 3G goes away and our Microcell is trashed (in our stick house we get only one bar on the iPhone but WIFI calling works good). The WHP does recognize the Microcell so we get five bars.

Question is, could I remove the sim from the new WHP device they shipped me and put it into an older iPhone we no longer use. The older iPhone has bluetooth and the Panasonic is set to accept bluetooth so I could pair them. Then I could put the older iPhone on WIFI calling and not miss the Microcell.

[JJnLilly]

That's what we have, jodeb720, and we've paired with the one cell that used to be our "landline." Took me a little work to make it work as our Panasonics are old but we will see.

[ktmrfs]

If what you want is a cordless phone in your house, the solution is simple. Get the Panasonic DECT phone system, it can pair with two cell phones and will ring when a cell call comes in. That way you don't need to be running around the house to find your cell phone. And it will work w/o a landline. it becomes the "cordless phone" for your cell phones. You can link 2 cell phones to it, We have been using the system for over a decade. We have the base station and then 4 panasonic cordless phones scattered throughout the house.

[azdryheat]

I don't have a landline but they are useful in an emergency. I recall a call we were on where a guy's wife had a rifle in her mouth and all the husband could was to discretely call 911 without saying anything. We got the call as a check welfare and the landline gave us the address to respond to. Cellphone wouldn't have given us an address to respond to. We talked the wife out of the rifle and got her some help.

That's the problem with cellphones; first responders don't have an address to respond to.

[Cocky_Camper]

We still have an actual landline, but it doesn't get used much. Three reason, 1, for the business because it was the number before cellphone days. But the answering machine says to call the business cell phone. 2. 13 year olds call when they get off the bus, and they are to young for cellphones. 3, we have the multi phone cordless phone where only one has to be connected to the phone jack for it to work. Elderly family lives close by, and we want the phone to be heard if something is needed by them as we have 4 cordless phones around the house and don't want them to have to worry about what cell number to call hoping the phone is glued to someones side for them to hear it.

We were looking at transfer to verison home phone just to save the difference, but I am sort of concerned now about moving if it is potentially going to get dropped in the future.

[jodeb720]

FWIW, my Panasonic Land Line phone also will allow me to connect it via bluetooth to my mobile phone.

that way, when my mobile phone rings, all the phones in my house ring on the panasonic handsets - and I can answer, make calls and get caller ID on the Panasonic handset.

Granted, 99.99% of the time the phone is on my person, but once in a while it's connected to the charger and I need to leave it - but still receive calls.

One more thing, I can answer my Teams calls on my panasonic. the phone just forwards all the calls to the bluetooth panasonic handsets.

[JJnLilly]

Tried to swap the SIM but it was not recognized by my older iPhone. Looking at going in another direction. T-Mobile has a couple of good plans that would work for us.

[wa8yxm]

Can you put the SIM in an I-Phone... The answer is "perhaps"
Some I phones may be jailed and will only work with a specific carrier

Some take a different size SIM (There are at least 3 sizes that I know of)

Some it might just work.. Do not know.

[ralphnjoann]

We have a wireless Home Phone from Walmart. It uses Verizon as its carrier and so far, Verizon is not shutting down their service. Maybe that could be an alternative for some.

[Cristian123]

We also completely switched to mobile phones, though my wife's parents still have a home phone, and as far as I know, they use Cricket Wireless. AT&T has faster data speeds, more plan options, and better perks, whereas Cricket has more affordable pricing. Maybe it is still possible to switch. Here is a cricket wireless phone number if you are interested and want to find out the details.

[1492]

JJnLilly wrote:
The AT&T WHP is not a 'land-line' as it is not wire connected.

Ironically, I have this AT&T home phone router but never got to use it. AT&T cancelled the service to new customers shortly after I had acquired it. Bad timing?

Instead, I used a VoIP provider w/E911 for a home phone which only costs a few dollars a month. However, the initial configuration involved manual setup which was not straightforward. It came with a default phone number at the plan's price, but VoIP settings allowed to configure a custom caller ID. Outbound calls displayed my home phone number, and not the actual number. Received calls would forward to the VoIP default number.

[JimBollman]

We have had a Verizon Home Phone since they first came out. We have his and her cell phone and a home number this way. We also like having phones everywhere for the home number so currently have 9 phones scattered around. I assume at some point Verizon will drop support also unless they come out with a new version. I have looked into the Bluetooth paired phones a few times over the years and they seem to always have mixed reviews.

[JJnLilly]

The AT&T WHP is not a 'land-line' as it is not wire connected.

[1492]

If you have home internet service, you can connect it to a Polycom adapter for unlimited calls using Google Voice. I believe you can still port your existing phone number to Google Voice if you don't want to use their number.

You then just connect any cordless phone to the Polycom adapter using the standard phone jack for unlimited Free calls to U.S./Canada. Can also make/receive calls from your cell phone using the same home phone number.

[ferndaleflyer]

I still have one of those wooden phones that hang on the wall and you crank a handle to make a call. Hard to carry in the RV. So it just hangs there since we have had a cell phone for ever that works every where.
Have a 65 GTO in the garage that also sits since we drive the Smart car most of the time. Suppose we will have a Tesla one day---Progress, you are either ahead or behind. LOL!