For a brief moment, I considered whether or not to keep the landline for emergency (911) reasons. Ma Bell is currently running all sorts of scary commercials about the perils of life without Ma Bell - namely, power goes out, cell towers are all down, house catches on fire, and you can't call 911. (They don't point out that the opposite could occur: a tree could knock down the above-ground phone line behind our house, while the buried electricity and cable are still intact.)

So I got to thinking: how many minutes per year am I without power, cable, or traditional phone service in this house? To the best of my knowledge, it's near-zero across the boards, and I've been here since 2002. So the doomsday scenario is statistically very, very tiny. I'd have to lose service (remote possibility) and have an emergency at exactly the same time (really, really, really remote possibility).

So, statistically speaking, spending the money on a landline for just this purpose is irresponsibly unsafe: the money should be spend on fire extinguishers, smoke/CO detectors, or whatever else out there is deemed to be a good home-safety investment.

(Off-topic warning... ) It's sort of like the thought that buying a separate airline seat for your infant is the "safe" thing to do. Wrong - it's the worst thing you can possibly do. You should spend those dollars on a better carseat, better childproofing things at home, etc. That decision is, statistically, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of times better.