Pros & Cons of a Landline and a Cell Phone

Having a cell phone means you can be available to anyone who has your number at any time of day. This can be both a pro and a con depending on how you look at it. In emergency situations, cell phones are certainly handy, but if you have a chatty aunt who thinks nothing of calling you on your cell phone whenever she wants, it could be a liability. As far as landlines are concerned, you have to be home to answer your landline, unless you choose to forward it to your cell phone or a work phone.

Landline service providers offer unlimited local calling for one flat fee, although long distance calls are typically charged on a per minute basis. The monthly fee for local service only is inexpensive for landlines as well. Cell phone service, on the other hand, includes local and long distance calls, but many plans limit the total number of minutes you can use during weekdays. Service plans for cell phones are higher than landline plans and additional minutes for cell phone plans can really add to your bill if you exceed your minutes.

If you're concerned about identify theft, then you should realize that information given out over a cell phone is easier to hack than information transmitted over a landline. This is one of several reasons businesses still utilize landlines. Cell phones with Bluetooth enabled present an even easier outlet for skilled hackers, who access your smartphone and the data it contains through the Bluetooth connection.

There are many studies that link brain tumors and cancer to cell phone usage. While this has yet to be completely proven, cell phones could be a health risk because of the radiation they emit. Cordless phones also emit radiation, but the amount emitted is much lower than cell phones because they are located closer to their base than your cell phone is to the nearest cell phone tower. Both cordless and cellular phones fall within the acceptable radiation limits specified by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, but if you are concerned you may want to use your landline telephone as your primary phone and eschew the cell phone altogether or at least reserve it for emergency purposes.