Family Safety Tips

National Access Long Distance presents Family Safety Tips!

Have a Plan

• Make sure your family has a plan for every type of emergency.
• Create mapped out scenarios and routes for each room of the house.
• Pick a meeting area for once the house is evacuated.
• Provide each family member with their own plan.

Build a Kit

• Create different kits for all different emergencies.  
• Research which emergencies are most common in your region and what would be needed for these.
• For hints and tips, visit www.redcross.org.

Suggestions to Include:

• Water
• Food
• Flashlight
• Candle
• Batteries
• First Aid Kit
• Tool Kit
• Hygiene Items
• Cell Phone and Chargers
• Radio
• Contact Information for Family Members
• Blankets, Pillows
• Map
• Cash

Stay Informed

• Make sure you are aware of weather during different seasons.
• Create a community or neighborhood weather watch so everyone is aware of emergencies.
• Download an app that alerts you of an emergency in your area.

Invest in a Landline

• Corded landlines work without power.
• When cell phone towers are jammed during emergencies, landlines are still able to make and take phone calls.
• Landlines give exact locations to the 911 dispatcher to increase accuracy and response time.

Who's the Boss At Home?

Businesses have entire staff divisions dedicated to watching the bottom line and company spending. At home the only person watching the budget is you. Phone service is a simple way to make a responsible decision in saving money.

                There are nearly endless options when it comes to how phone services can be used in the home setting. A driving factor for consumers in this tough economy is cost. While cell phones may seem to cover all of your needs, upon closer inspection a cell phone hardly provides the best option for the home telephone. Most calls from the home are local and rates for local landline calling are unparalleled, particularly when compared to cell phone rates. Cell phone service providers are notorious for charging users for any number of reasons like peak hours, international rates and roaming charges. Opening your phone bill each month should not be a nerve racking, painful experience. Landline services can be obtained for one flat fee each and every month which makes paying that monthly bill a routine experience.

                Another reason that landlines are far superior to cell phones in the home setting is the accessibility that they provide. The family usually has one telephone number with a landline and there is the capability to have a phone receiver in as many rooms as you would like.  The convenience of finding a receiver and answering the call is simple with a landline.  When the cell phone rings at home, everyone’s first thought is it my phone ringing, where is it?  That is if you hear the cell phone at all, especially with all the special ringtones and vibrate options that come standard with them these days.

                At the end of the day every home has different needs, but having a phone is a universal need in the home. A landline provides a low cost, convenient, reliable option that can best serve every home when set up appropriately. You can be the boss when it comes to how you spend your own hard earned money at home!

The Insurance Line

            No one chooses to be a victim of a natural disaster or other emergency situation. We can, however, plan to minimize our exposure. We try to prepare with backup plans and emergency safety kits.  We purchase insurance for our house, belongings and cars.  Houses are built with rooms for different natural disasters.  But we can’t prepare for everything.

A part of the preparation that can be forgotten is ensuring our landlines remain intact. The landline provides an insurance line.  When people are cutting off their landline service and purchasing insurance on every electronic device, they are forgetting that the landline is an insurance protection plan for their lives.

            Landlines are generally more effective than cellphones in emergencies. They are familiar to older household members and their use can be taught to younger children with ease. Landlines do not go down when the power goes out. Not all cellphone providers have E911 that directs your calls to a local response center; your call for help may be sent to a regional center for routing, costing precious moments.

            In May, 2013, the central region of Oklahoma experienced severe thunderstorms, flooding, and several devastating tornadoes. Large swaths of land were ruined by nature’s raw power. Directly affected cellphone towers were incapacitated and the sudden influx of calls for help jammed the remaining ones.  That and local emergency responders and the civilian leadership scrambled to find landlines to coordinate their efforts. Human lives hung in the balance.

            This is but one set of incidents of many. Citizens in the large cities and smaller remote areas of the country are already well aware of the importance of maintain a landline in case of an emergency. Despite increasing acceptance of wireless as the primary telephone, many people not living immediately in the very large metropolitan area maintain a landline as their lifeline.

            If disaster struck, would you be prepared?

            Keep your landline as your insurance plan and contact National Access Long Distance to save money on your long distance services.  

Why the Landline is Underrated

Many people are thinking about abandoning their landline and switching over exclusively to their cell phone. It appears that the cell phone is more beneficial, convenient and cost effective.  Sometimes technology may seem better, but actually it can complicate life and cell phones are a good example of that.

For instance, when was the last time you washed your landline phone? Or, have you ever left your landline in the car and forgot it, so that you missed a day's worth of important calls? Of course not, because that can never happen! You always know where that landline phone is!  Sure, cell phones are a convenience you can take anywhere, but if that is all you have for communicating and you lose it, you can find yourself in needlessly stressful circumstances.

Don’t worry about counting minutes with your landline either!  Once you get home, put the cell phone down and rely on the landline to save some money.

Nevertheless, another problem that you run into with a cell phone is your privacy.  The ease with which cell phone signals can be intercepted is extremely alarming.   

Last, but not least, is when the power goes out.  Can you trust that they will come back on in a timely manner?  We know that lately the power has been going out for an indefinite amount of time with the natural disasters that have hit.  If you have a generator you are set up for success, however if not, you need to be ready!  The landline does not rely on a power source and can work regardless of how jammed the cell phone towers are.

Save money with a landline and save even more with National Access Long Distance.     

The Address of Your Emergency

No one is ever in a great position to deal with the dreaded and horrid inconveniences of an emergency. These sudden unforeseen crises (usually involving danger) require immediate action. During a time of emergency you would not want to trust to an unreliable source of help.  Cell phone or VOIP services are unreliable and not the phone you want to be using when there is any sort of emergency.

When an emergency occurs, you are full of panic, possibly unable to answer the questions the dispatcher is asking.  The question regarding your location comes up, do you know where you are?  What house are you at?  If it’s your own, you can probably provide it with little thought.  However, what if you are at your sibling’s or your child is the one on the phone because you are hurt.  A landline provides the address to the dispatcher, no need for the questions, they send help.

If you call 911 with a cell phone they find your location by using the cell towers and GPS services.  This can be inaccurate and timely, during a time when every second counts. If you live in an apartment complex, this impairs the accuracy even more with location of an area and not which floor.  While the emergency button on your cell phone is great, it only speeds up the process so much.

The emergency 911 services were created to save our lives and get us help; this process was made around the landline.  Cell phones came along much later and they are still refining this process.  Don’t let your emergency be part of the learning process; keep your loved ones safe with a landline.

Now when you are out on the road, the only option you have is the cell phone and in that situation it is a great to have that technology to assist you. But from the house or the office, why entrust your life or welfare to the parameters of technology for the sake of a so-called convenience?

Landlines are also easier to operate in the event of an emergency, especially for kids and senior citizens. Sure cost can be the biggest issue, but really can you put a price on your well-being? Besides, there are ways to help decrease current landline costs. To save money on the long distance portion of your landline phone, contact National Access Long Distance.

Family Communication Needs

An important feature offered by landlines is the security of communication available to your family 24/7.  The power can be out or the cell phone misplaced, and you can still rely on the permanent landline. 

Every family can benefit from the availability, convenience and functions a landline phone offers the household.  It’s a fact that elderly residents mostly prefer owning a landline phone over a cell phone for the convenience.  Have you ever considered that they might be on to something? 

With the added threats in society, the landline provides an added safety factor to your household.  With a landline you can keep track of your children’s phone usage, who they are calling and how long they are talking.  You can make sure you also have a phone in case your cell phone is lost or stolen throughout the day.  A weight is lifted off your shoulders when you call your house phone and hear your child’s voice on the other line confirming that they are at home. 

Our family’s communications needs are important and their security is even more crucial to your peace of mind.  Maintaining a landline phone for your home will give you a great communication experience.  Don’t worry about a dropped call, poor signal strength or concern yourself with the battery life.  The landline phone is a time-tested piece of equipment that has proven itself over and over again.  Make sure your family recognizes its need for a safer house with the landline. 

Contact National Access Long Distance to save money on your long distance services.