AT&T Trying To Scare You Into Keeping Your Landline [GigaOm]

via GigaOM by Stacey Higginbotham on 7/7/09

Keep your landline or your loved ones may die, seems to be the messaging tied to AT&T’s Home Base campaign released today. It comes on the heels of a Verizon ad aimed at getting non-Verizon landline customers to ditch their wires in exchange for wireless. The battle between wired and wireless is heating up.  The AT&T campaign, complete with a picture of an ambulance racing to the scene, highlights the reliability and certainty that comes from being able to dial 9-1-1 from a landline. Copper, it could save your life.

I can’t fault AT&T for its scare tactics, given that those fears are exactly why we chose to revert back to a landline in our own home after going completely wireless. My mother-in-law was just too concerned about watching our toddler without that copper connection, since she often has a less-than-fully-charged wireless phone. However, some of the other reasons, pulled directly from an AT&T PDF, offer pretty lame rationales (fax machines? finding a phone in the dark?), as well as a failed grasp of numbering. How many of the reasons below do y’all find legit — or merely worth the $20 per month to connect via a copper landline?

attpdf


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by Ben Pike