Still possible to get a cheap landline at home?

[Benzadmiral]

I'm working on a scene in my current story in which the leads arrive at a rundown house at about 10K feet in the Colorado Rockies, not far from Leadville. Earlier, at an abandoned mine, their cell phones did not work. So they make it to this house. A woman and her disabled brother live there, but they are out. My heroes try to call for help -- he's diabetic and needs his insulin, now -- but can't.

1) Is it still possible to get a simple, cheap landline phone for one's house? Or would a relatively remote location be unlikely to have that, so the homeowners have to go with cell phones only?

2) Is it plausible, if the answer to the landline question is "yes," that cell reception would be spotty or nonexistent?

I don't want my leads to have any phone connection to the outside world at this point -- that their cells don't work, or don't work properly, and that the homeowners have had their landline service shut off because of nonpayment. Any ideas?

 

[Quattro Pete]

You make that location remote enough, and you will have no landline and no cell service.

 

[Donald]

Typically if your an old geezer you can get a cheap landline under an elderly plan most phone companies have. Also when a phone gets disconnected many phone companies leave dial tone on, so you can call 911 or the phone company.

 

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: Donald
Typically if your an old geezer you can get a cheap landline under an elderly plan most phone companies have. Also when a phone gets disconnected many phone companies leave dial tone on, so you can call 911 or the phone company.


Yup, all this. Sometimes the dial tone sounds "funny" if you have no real service, but it exists, to prove the line works, and to call 911.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
Originally Posted By: Donald
Typically if your an old geezer you can get a cheap landline under an elderly plan most phone companies have. Also when a phone gets disconnected many phone companies leave dial tone on, so you can call 911 or the phone company.


Yup, all this. Sometimes the dial tone sounds "funny" if you have no real service, but it exists, to prove the line works, and to call 911.

Darnit! The trouble is that the sister who lives there drives a school bus for the district (the school bus is important for my plot), and would need to have a phone of some kind to get news about snow days and the like. I'm tellin' ya, it's just about impossible to isolate people from the communications net nowadays, ain't it?

 

[jimbrewer]

Make your protagonist a "held order" there are set line distances that the phone company is expected to accept at the standard installation rate. Sometimes the phone company will basically thumb its nose at the regulators and not make the extension. There was a huge problem with this with the Colorado phone company about 15 years ago.

PS there is the related problem of "slow dial tone". You pick up the phone and its as long ad 15 minutes to get a dial tone plenty of opportunity for suspense. It occurs at busy periods which in the phone business is early afternoon. School bus driver with her schedule would never notice it.

 

[eljefino]

School busses have 2-way radios, especially in the sticks. She could have another one on loan from the school dept set up in her cabin.

Imagining Shelly Duvall in "The Shining".

 

[TxHeat]

I think that many small communities and remote areas are serviced by very small, local phone companies often with antiquated equipment.

Sometimes you'll find that the only service available is a party line, 2, 3 or even 4 residences have to share a line. You pick up a receiver and instead of a dial tone you hear a conversation and you have to wait your turn.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Another option could be to get satellite broadband and try to do VOIP. Alas, that won't exactly be cheap (unless subsidized) and audio quality could be poor due to extensive latency. Better than nothing though, I guess.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted By: jimbrewer
Make your protagonist a "held order" there are set line distances that the phone company is expected to accept at the standard installation rate. Sometimes the phone company will basically thumb its nose at the regulators and not make the extension. There was a huge problem with this with the Colorado phone company about 15 years ago.

PS there is the related problem of "slow dial tone". You pick up the phone and its as long ad 15 minutes to get a dial tone plenty of opportunity for suspense. It occurs at busy periods which in the phone business is early afternoon. School bus driver with her schedule would never notice it.

Now that "slow dial tone" idea sounds good. The time in which the scene occurs is about 6:00 on a Friday afternoon in October; already dark, starting to snow. The driver has finished her route and put up the bus, and left with her brother.

What's the distance a basic 2-way radio in a bus like that could reach? We used to have ones in our Purolator Courier vans, and they worked all over the metro area, except when they didn't, or in bad weather.

The thing I'm shooting for is to have one of the leads drive the bus down to the clinic in Leadville, to get the other (the diabetic) to help as soon as possible. If they wait for help, esp. in bad weather, it'll be much riskier for the diabetic character.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted By: bornconfuzd
I think that many small communities and remote areas are serviced by very small, local phone companies often with antiquated equipment.

Sometimes you'll find that the only service available is a party line, 2, 3 or even 4 residences have to share a line. You pick up a receiver and instead of a dial tone you hear a conversation and you have to wait your turn.

That could be funny, in a horrifying way: My heroine picks up the phone and hears two people babbling, and when she says, "It's an emergency!", they think she's someone's bratty kid making prank phone calls -- and ignore her!

 

[OtisBlkR1]

I live deep in the woods, and depending on time of day and weather I don't always get cell service, for that reason alone for safety I keep a landline.. And its about $30.00 a month before taxes, surcharges, bla bla bla..

With that said, and if I may be so bold to suggest, the no cell service/dead battery thing is very played out in storytelling.

In many remote areas, CB & HAM radios are still used.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted By: OtisBlkR1
I live deep in the woods, and depending on time of day and weather I don't always get cell service, for that reason alone for safety I keep a landline.. And its about $30.00 a month before taxes, surcharges, bla bla bla..

With that said, and if I may be so bold to suggest, the no cell service thing is very played out in storytelling.

I know. When it was a new technology, and not as reliable as "real" phones, movies and stories used it a lot. Now it's extremely hard to manage in a plausible way. Almost every spot in the US has cell service at least part of the time.

 

[eljefino]

If you watch "The Rockford Files" it'd be a 1/2 hour show if they didn't always have to find a payphone to check in.

But then our hero made up the time backing out of parking spaces.

You could always have the bus have a radio, but the dispatcher clocks out when the last driver checks in at the end of his route.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
If you watch "The Rockford Files" it'd be a 1/2 hour show if they didn't always have to find a payphone to check in.

But then our hero made up the time backing out of parking spaces.

You could always have the bus have a radio, but the dispatcher clocks out when the last driver checks in at the end of his route.

Ha! So they climb into the bus, see the radio, key it . . . and SSSSSSSHHHH. No reply. Good. . . .

 

[JayhawkRoy]

Land line around Leadville can be had for about $15 per month, plus taxes, etc.

If it is important to your story line, Leadville also has the regional hospital (and ambulance service) for the area.

There are quite a few dead spots for cell phone and other radio communication in the area; I have experienced several of them.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Yes, the hospital I mention (which I've named the Hobart Clinic, in a fun in-joke for "Man from U.N.C.L.E." fans) is in Leadville. My creation is an imaginary town just south of Leadville on Highway 24, which I call Silverlake. Its three industries, we're told in an early chapter, are "tourism, heavy drinking, and hating Leadville." Cell phones work there; but the house in the scene I'm asking about is a good ways southwest of the town. So that's why I'm hoping I can plausibly say, "No cell service here, so you can't call for an ambulance."

 

[Benzadmiral]

For those who might be interested, my heroine's encounter with a party line (at age 24, she's never heard of such a thing):

****

A pushbutton phone hung on the wall next to a door that probably led out to the shed. I sprang across and grabbed the receiver. Then I blinked in surprise. Instead of a dial tone, I heard a woman’s voice. “. . . told her and told her how I want my nails done. ‘Not too garish,’ I always say. But she looks at me like she don’t understand any English.”

“Koreans,” said a second woman. She sounded as elderly as the first one. “I wish Mrs. Philbin would just hire Americans. It’d be –-”

I broke in. “Excuse me! This is an emergency, we need help! We’re on County Road Eighty-two, and –-”

“Who is this?” To my astonishment, the first woman sounded harsh and suspicious. “This is a private conversation, little girl. You’re interrupting us.”

Little girl?

Old Bat Number Two weighed in. “That’s that nasty little Hornford girl from up near Leadville. She’s always playing pranks, pretending she’s in danger or something. Her parents need to teach her a lesson.”

“I’m not –-”

“Don’t try to fool me!” Old Bat Number One snapped. “Now stop playing with the phone! –- What was I saying, Cele?”

“That stupid Korean nail girl.”

“Oh, right.”

I tried again. “Listen to me. My name isn’t Hornford. I’ve got a real --”

“You heard what I said,” Old Bat Number One snarled. “I’ll call your mother and tell her! So behave, you hear me? –- Nobody teaches the kids any manners these days, do they?”

“You got that right, hon."

I stared at the phone receiver, which was still emitting their chatter, as if it were mutating into a snake in my hand. “What the . . .”

“Party line.” Canaday was grimly amused. “A lot of remote areas still have them. When phone service first came in, the company didn’t run lines to each house, because it wouldn’t pay. Four or five customers all share the same line. You have to wait your turn.”

“[Censored for BITOG].” I slammed the receiver into its cradle. When I found out who those two were, I’d cheerfully drive right over their prize petunias. “What now?”

****

 

[TxHeat]

I like it! Now I want to read this story......book? When it's done!

Larry

 

[rjundi]

I am floored how far (cooper) phone lines go.

Remember most places there was no such thing as cell but land lines dotted the area and were likely once profitable reaching everywhere. Phones lines went to some homes before electricity went. The tech has not changed just the switching gear(slightly)