Land Lines - A Thing of the Past

Has anyone taken steps to do away with land lines at your sites or in your corporate office?

I don't think businesses are ready to give up their landlines just yet. Confrence calls are still too big a part of what a lot of us do, and it's hard to screen calls in to your manager when someone has a direct line to them.

Residents, however, are a different story. Out in the Seattle area, I know from talking to some other vendors that it's almost impossible to get a new resident to sign up for phone service unless you bundle it with something else. They just don't want it at all. I guess Lisa Trosien is right... the real amenity is 5 bars of signal

Curious - why would a manager want to screen his/her calls?

We're about to embark on a new phone system for our properties that runs through a VOIP hub. Basically, the phones will operate like they have in the past, but we'll have so many more options for tracking calls, etc. We'll also be able to reduce our phone bills substantially.

Good topic Mike. What are you guys doing?

We Do not have land lines in our office, except for the fax machine.

I don't think they will go away very quickly. I like the idea of giving mobile phones to leasing staff, especially for follow-up reasons.

The VOiP systems are really cool, but I don't think companies that use them will do so to their full advantage (JC Hart excluded from that group).

Be watchful of tricky contracts that are out there for VOIP systems. Make sure you read the fine print well. Other than that the technology has greatly improved and does save alot of money.