The overall cost of telephone service is quickly becoming a major item in the family budget. With most households paying fees for both landline and cell phone service, it's no wonder that many families are looking for ways to economize without losing the features they enjoy.

Cutting landline service can be a traumatic decision. Truth be told, there were real reasons not to do so in the past. However, changes within the industry—and the advent of new technology—have eliminated many excuses for staying tethered to the landline. Two do need to be mentioned. First, cell phones can break more easily than traditional phones. If a landline phone breaks, the resident can use another handset in the home to place a call. If a cell phone doesn't work, service is temporarily lost. Second, there is the 911 factor. While GPS is improving all the time, accuracy in pinpointing the location of wireless callers can be a few yards to several miles, and data on how often 911 fails to locate wireless callers are not available.

Even bearing in mind these concerns—and taking into account the growing impact the economy is having on virtually every household—the timing could not be better to cut the landline and save valuable dollars on telephone service.

In the past, cell phone usage levels—and the charges for going over allotted minutes—were a concern. Since no one can predict precisely who will call and how long the conversation will last, the wireless industry's practice of billing minutes for both incoming and outgoing calls was a disincentive to cutting the home landline and adding these calls to the mix.

Today, every wireless provider offers comparably priced cell phone plans featuring unlimited minutes plus unlimited Web and text messaging (Sprint's Simply Everything Plan, AT&T's Nation Unlimited, Verizon's Nationwide Premium). So, whether your calls total 2,000 minutes a month or just 20 minutes, costs are covered. Thus, cost helps make the argument to kill the landline and avoid monthly landline fees ranging from $20 to $40 each month. In a year's time, the savings could be $240 or more.

Of course, some people are more concerned about giving up the home telephone number they've had for years. Still others prefer speaking over a traditional corded/cordless phone rather than a cell phone. Today, there are simple ways to overcome both obstacles.

Federal Communications Commission rules allow customers to switch telephone service providers within the same geographic area and take their phone number with them. This practice, called "porting," includes the move from a landline to a wireless carrier. So, people can port their home number to their cellular plan, adding it as a new line. Typically, it costs an additional $9.99 a month to add a line, giving access to all the minutes that come with that plan. Then, there are devices called "gateways"—two popular ones are the GE Cell Fusion and Cell2Tel—that can connect the cell phone with the ported number to the home telephone wiring system. By feeding the home wiring off the cell, corded/cordless phones can be used within the home as before but now serviced by the cellular carrier. So, for the price of the gateway device (about $50 and up), it is possible to retain a home phone number, enjoy the convenience of traditional telephone handsets and only pay $9.99 a month, rather than $20 to $40. In the course of a year, a consumer could save at least $120.

While the ideal cell plan in this scenario would be one with unlimited minutes any time, many cellular providers offer unlimited minutes nights and weekends as a standard feature. Where households have two earners working outside the home, they are not arriving home until the evening anyway. So, even if there are limits in a cell phone plan, the impact of the transition to a cellular residential phone could be minimal on minute limits.

Another reason given for not cutting the landline is spotty cell phone coverage in different areas of the home. Here, too, new technology is coming to the rescue. A device called a femtocell, which can support up to several mobile phones in a residential setting, boosts cellular reception throughout the home. Basically, it is a base station that connects to the cellular carrier's network using broadband (either DSL or cable) to enhance coverage.

Sprint, for example, offers its customers the AIRAVE (purchase price about $99), which can be used with up to three phones. Then, for about $15 per month, users gain unlimited incoming and outgoing calls, including nationwide long distance, as long as their Sprint phone initiates the call. So, for $15 a month, there are no minutes to worry about, even if the user's basic cell phone coverage is not an unlimited calling plan. The $15 a month charge is still cheaper than the landline alternative costing $20 to $40 a month.

AIRAVE is easy to install and offers an exciting feature: the ability to automatically transfer calls from the AIRAVE to the Sprint Nationwide Network if a user leaves the home while on a call. There are no dropped calls; conversations initiated at home can be continued while commuting to work, running errands, and so on. The downside is that femtocell operation requires a broadband Internet connection; they are not standalone devices. Thus, households without broadband access will incur a new fee for Internet access.

Wireless carriers offer a wide variety of phones, plans and devices that make now the right time to cut the landline. When you do, you will not only reap significant savings but also gain the limitless applications and access the mobile world offers.