
Show HN: Kill The Landline - sciurus
https://www.killthelandline.com/
======
avolcano
Interesting. I'm trying to get my parents to drop their Charter landline -
which, yes, is $40/mo, and yes, they both have cell phones - but they haven't
wanted to because it'd be difficult to get everyone to change the numbers.

I think the biggest aspect of this is the "redirect to two numbers" - my
parents would love that, since they would both be able to get the messages.

How does it handle voicemail, though? It can't send the voicemails to both
phones, presumedly.

And btw, I'm surprised by the negativity in the comments here. This is a
product targeting a segment of consumers who are not as technologically adept
and probably feel "trapped" with their landline - an instant out as convenient
and cheap as this is much more attractive than porting their landline number
to a new mobile line or trying to figure out how to get a landline to Google
Voice, which is a complicated and costly process (going by
[http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/google-voice-a-step-
by-...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/google-voice-a-step-by-step-
primer-on-ditching-your-land-line-while-keeping-your-number/10455))

~~~
mikeknoop
My parents are in this exact same position. They have never heard of Google
Voice but paying for an expensive landline.

I would immediately recommend a service like this.

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e1ven
Interesting branding, good domain, strong message. Unfortunately, I can't say
I like the product at all ;)

Google will let you port your landline (indirectly) to Google voice, and
forward all you calls for free.

Alternatively, I could port my landline to a second line on my Cell plan, and
get a dumb-phone, for the same $10/month I'd pay you.

I like the basic message, and the domain, and that you're trying to brand as a
"mission", but I think the underlying product is flawed.

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nanijoe
$10 a month just to forward calls from an old number? Why would I not just
port that number to Google Voice, then forward my GV calls to my cell phone,
all for a grand total of FREE?

~~~
masonhensley
I dont think you can port a existing land line to google voice like you can
with a mobile #. I could be wrong.

Google Voice FAQ-
[http://support.google.com/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...](http://support.google.com/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1065667)

~~~
larrys
"I dont think you can port a existing land line to google voice like you can
with a mobile #."

Correct.

However you can (I did) do this:

1) Move the landline to your cell phone provider (assumes you have a family
plan, if you don't convert to one for the time necessary to do the other
steps).

2) Once the number is at the cell phone provider you can transfer it to google
voice (and get rid of the family plan if you didn't have one). Took a few
weeks.

3) You can buy an <http://obihai.com/> device if you want to be able to hook
up a traditional POTS phone to get the calls. Or you can just make and receive
calls at the google voice website.

Note: I did this with the cell phone provider being AT&T. I would assume it
will work with other cell providers but it does with AT&T.

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joshmlewis
Everyone that's saying Google Voice: You can't port landlines easily to GV. It
was my first thought too but did some research and turns out they don't
support it directly.

Now: To pull this off you need to make it super simple and intuitive. I want
to come to your site with inviting colors, a clean layout, and a very clear
call to action and easy signup. This should be so easy and inviting that I
will want to do it again after I'm done. This is where good design comes into
play. If you make it hard, the copy hard to understand, a pricing plan that is
confusing and not straightforward, then it will scare people off. Your biggest
chance of success is a UI that is so easy to use it's mindless and "just
works."

~~~
sciurus
Thanks Josh, we're not designers but we're seeking out help. We've already
redesigned the landing page, and we'll be putting lots of careful thought and
testing into the rest of the site.

------
sciurus
Hi, this is Brian, one of the Kill The Landline developers. We're working on
this right now at Startup Weekend in Columbia, Missouri and really welcome all
the feedback you can provide on our idea! We have a blog at
<http://blog.killthelandline.com/> with a short survey you can fill out as
well as more details about the origin of the idea.

~~~
dsr_
"Contact us at [Email Protected]" does not inspire confidence.

Your pricing is too high for people who know what they're doing and probably
too low for people who don't and really want it, so it's probably OK.

~~~
philip1209
Sorry, Cloudflare prevents email scraping. It's contact@KillTheLandline.com

------
orrenkt
A few notes:

-I wouldn't worry about the GV question, but I would worry about understanding your target audience. If I were you I'd call up @mikeknoop's parents and show them the site to get feedback, since those are the kind of ppl who will use it. Ask them if any of their friends would use this too and talk to them.

-$10/month sounds like a lot and I wonder where you came up with it. I'd guess something closer to $20/year, but again, ask ppl who would want to use this.

-related to that, I don't understand what "$10 / month for the first 100 minutes, then $0.08 / minute after that" means. Are you gonna charge people by minute they talk for forwarding their calls? I wouldn't do that. If you want this to seem like a no-brainer, don't make people try to figure out how much they'll end up paying you. Just stick a nice pricetag on it and be done.

-your page has too many bullets, in too many fonts, colors and sizes. This is a really straightforward idea so make it simple for people - explain it in 3 lines at most, make them big, consistent and clear, and leave out the powerpoint bulletpoints.

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jim_h
The greatest strength of the landline is that fact that it will still be up
during a power outage. (Just make sure to use a corded phone, cordless uses
power.)

~~~
cincinnatus
Cell towers are on backup power in a power outage.

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techsupporter
The site looks good and the idea is useful to me. So useful that I wanted to
sign up, but I really can't stand clicking "Sign Up Now" and being told "oops,
we're not ready for you." If you're not ready, don't have a sign up button.

~~~
philip1209
We're at startup weekend - hoping to have an MVP tomorrow for pitch. Working
fervently right now!

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com2kid
When I first got a cell phone I ported my landline number over to it. It has
been with me through 2 carriers now, without issue.

My grandmother did the exact same thing, again without issue.

I am thinking that the market for people doing this is finite and limited, but
there is likely money to be made on making a clean experience (versus Google
Voice) serving the ever dwindling population of people who actually have land
lines.

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BruceIV
I was under the impression that Canadian telcos were worse than American ones,
but a landline here usually doesn't cost more than $25/mo ...

~~~
_delirium
Varies by area, but $40/mo sounds high for the US too. AT&T's basic landline
(w/o caller-ID and other add-ons) in Texas costs $21/mo.

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dylanhassinger
Not bad for a Startup Weekend project! Congrats to Philip and team. It'll be
neat to see if this can turn into something self-sustaining!

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bdunn
To those of you saying "But Google Voice does this!", realize that most people
outside of HN/the tech community don't know this.

~~~
subigo
Almost every single person I know uses GV. My 81 year old grandfather uses it.

~~~
jcampbell1
You keep reposting the same comment. GV has roughly 1% penetration, thus your
circle friends/family is statistically highly unusual. Given the technology
profile of your friends and family you should not trust your instincts for
estimating market demand.

~~~
subigo
Source? And what makes your circle of friends/family any more reliable than
mine?

~~~
jcampbell1
My circle of friends/family is also unreliable for gauging market demand.

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brador
I remember hearing a landline is useful in case of emergencies. Something
about emergency services are able to connect it to an address quickly. Also a
landline is less likely to get clogged and drop your call in case of mass
emergency.

Are these still the case? i don't know but i keep my landline active. It's
insurance I guess.

~~~
rhizome
One of the advantages of a landline in emergencies is that landline phones
don't require their own electricity or batteries to operate.

~~~
JeffJenkins
Interestingly, the Verizon FiOS landline that I got for free with my
TV/internet package has a battery backup because it does require electricity.
That is definitely true of traditional land lines, though.

~~~
rhizome
Yes, copper. :)

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philip1209
Co-founder here: We are an active team at Startup Weekend Columbia. We pitch
tomorrow afternoon here's more about our company:

<http://blog.killthelandline.com/post/32529411766/about-us>

We are using Tropo with Heroku for the MVP.

~~~
dsr_
Tropo is driving your costs up, compared to people with real servers running
SER and similar call routers.

~~~
sciurus
I work on the devops team for Voxeo Labs, the company behind Tropo, so I
resent the implication that we don't have real servers. :-)

More seriously, I'm familiar with the Tropo API and know that no matter what
direction this product goes, Tropo is a capable platform to build it on.

~~~
dsr_
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Tropo wasn't capable. I meant that at
scale, it's more expensive than building your own.

------
rhizome
Doesn't Google Voice allow this for free? Is the value in being able to
forward to two numbers?

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anigbrowl
Given the easy availability of alternatives, this feels extremely scammy.
$10/month plus 8 centers per minute after 100 minutes? What a fucking ripoff.
This project deserves to fail, it's nothing more than an attempt at
exploitation.

------
webwanderings
Landlines have long been killed. Unless you didn't notice, Magic Jack killed
'em. It is much cheaper and it just works. You have to be really crazy to be
paying $48 for the landlines.

~~~
xur17
For people that use the phone a lot, and need something that just works, this
isn't true. My parents use their home phone quite a bit, and the $25/month
they pay for it is worth it.

I'd set them up with voip to save money, but I have tried voip setups, and
even with qos I haven't been impressed with the audio quality when other
people are on the internet.

~~~
webwanderings
When you compare MJ's cost to typical AT&T cost for landlines, I think a
compromise is well worth it.

------
mrlase
Why would I use this when I could use Google Voice at a much cheaper price and
not even pay by the minute?

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sjg007
Why not port your landline to Google Voice and then forward for free?

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dewey
just two things i noticed: \- the blog background color is hard to look at \-
the "* Required" in your blog is red on orange background, not really easy to
read.

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smokey_the_bear
How is this better or different than Google Voice?

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robbiea
btw, killthelandline.com doesn't work. you have to put the www there. The blog
links to the non www version.

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zapt02
no

