If they don't have a landline phone, they can't get the phone calls telling them that someone they know is going to die the next day. Those calls only come on landlines. But my sims get all other kinds of calls on their cell phones. And I do get those notifications, thanks to NRaas Story Progression, so I don't use them all that much anymore, not because I don't want to, but because I hardly ever think to put them in the houses. I do like having them.
In real life, some of us still do need landline phones. If I didn't have one, I wouldn't have internet. Period. It's the only way I can get internet where I live. Well, maybe I could get satellite internet, but it would probably be more expensive than the DSL our phone company provides. I'm almost always home, so I only have a pay per minute, dirt cheap, flip phone cell phone. Everybody who actually has my cell phone number knows not to call me on it unless I don't answer the home phone, because I never answer it at home.
