Telephone is essential. It is used with doctors to setup appointments. It is used by your landlord to reach out to you. It is used by Social Security, and DPA to reach out to you regarding your benefits. Telephone can be considered as an essential utility in these modern times. Even if you were homeless, you likely can afford a telephone line to where you can get voicemail, and return calls when your phone is fully charged. Keep in mind, you qualify for Lifeline.
For one, do not acquire a POTS (Plain Ordinary Telephone Service) phone line for your home. These lines are sometimes more expensive than a cellular line, and doesn’t offer any benefit except for if you needed a fax line. In most cases, you do not need a fax line. As for VOIP lines, I would only acquire one if it is much cheaper than a voice line, and you have a limited cellular plan. In which case, I will then acquire a SIP application, and use that application to install your credentials for your VOIP line. If this is not possible, find a VOIP provider that will support SIP. My preference is cellular. Even if you need an unlimited plan, you can get one for cheap if you are willing to pay annually. If not, you will be paying more for a month to month plan.
I do not recommend buying your phone from the carrier. Your carrier will have likely installed bloatware on your phone, and lock the phone to their network. These are all hurdles you have to deal with when dealing with your carrier. And if you decide to change carriers, you may end up buying a new phone. This is an environmental waste, and a financial burden on you – the consumer. Instead, I would recommend buying the phone directly from the manufacturer. For phones, I would recommend the Pixel from Google (Android), or the consumer version of the iPhone (Apple iOS). Neither one of these phones are cheap, but they are solutions that allows you to choose your carrier, and change carriers. It is also from the manufacturer, and likely to last for at least a few years. Also, both of these phones support dual SIM, so you can have your personal line, and work line on one phone.
As mentioned, Lifeline is available to you. Every state have different requirements to the carrier, and every carrier will be different. This is a complete mess when it comes to benefits. I would recommend that you buy your own LTE capable phone, and choose a Lifeline carrier that will meet your needs. If you get an iPhone, you must find a carrier that supports eSIM. If you are using an Android phone, I know most newer phones supports Dual SIM which means you can have 2 lines at the same time. In most cases, SIM 1 will be a SIM card, and SIM 2 is an eSIM. If your carriers doesn’t offer eSIM, then you would have to go with Android phones.
What I Do
I am a bit overkill for most things. I have 2 cellular phones, and therefore 2 cellular lines. I also have a home phone line. This definitely sounds like overkill, but there is rationale for every number I have. With that being said, you may not need the setup I have. If you are getting a new phone for the first time in a while, then your new phone number will likely be your only phone number.
For my home phone line, I use a company called Callcentric. They charge $3.95 for the toll-free number, and I have to pay anywhere between 2¢ and 23¢ per minute depending on the origin of the number calling. Someone calling from an +1 907 number across the street from me will cost me 23¢ per minute. However, someone with a +1 412 number calling from Alaska will cost me 2¢ per minute. This means that the calls is based on the first 3 digits of the domestic telephone number.
Next, I have an iPhone. The reason for the iPhone is it is my preferred device, and I had pretty good results with iPhones. iPhones also work natively with Macs, and Apple Music which is also my computer. Due to very poor experience with Windows systems, I will not use them unless I had no choice. I would rather for my computer to run Linux, which will not work well with iPhones. However, again – since I have a Mac PC, I can use my iPhone just as it was designed to do. Since this is my preferred phone, my primary number is on this phone.
As for my second phone, it is a Motorola Android phone. The reason for this is there is a beneficial app that is only available for Android. With that in mind, I have come to need cellular service for my Android phone, and I acquired a plan from a Lifeline provider. This provider gives me 3,000 minutes, unlimited SMS, and 4.5GB of data. All of this is overkill even if it was my primary phone. With that said, my Android’s phone service is free.