Where are you? What is available locally? How much are you willing to spend? How much data will you be moving? How important is absolute 24X7 reliability?
It might come down to simply buying an LTE access point if your location has decent coverage. I have AT&T Uverse for TV, phone, and Internet and am happy enough with it but my LTE phone on T-Mobile sends and receives data three times as fast.
I thought Uverse was land line?
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Uverse uses the old copper to your house for a broadband connection. You can get TV, internet, and VOIP.
you have your choice of all of these at your house? sounds implausible.
This might give you a couple more options:
I'm satisfied with the Verizon 4G wireless. Disclaimer: for me it's wireless or satellite and satellite has its problems. Nobody is going to be laying fiber optic to my neck of the woods real soon and the landline was installed by the Rural Electrification Agency as far as I can tell.
Thanks. I'll save that for future reference, though at this point I have 600+ Tracfone minutes and not much to use them on. I simply don't need it very often. I carry it like a portable phone booth, "just in case". I actually got it mostly for work. As a contractor I used to answer peoples' phones as a courtesy. Then everyone got answering machines. Now many people don't even have land lines. Phones have become personal. It often seems less intrusive to ask to use the bathroom than to use someone's phone.
At one point I was remodeling a bathroom and had a marble shelf with an imperfection. I needed to call around to find another one that afternoon. I suddenly realized that I was stranded, cut off from the outside world. Thus the Tracfone.
I don't know about other companies, but the chart seems to be inaccurate where Tracfone is concerned. There's no monthly charge, but I have to buy minutes every three months to avoid losing my accrued minutes. The minimum purchase is $20. So the effective cost for me is $80/year, for which I get 480 minutes. (Technically 240, but they always double it as a bonus.)
The chart also says that Tracfone texts are 3 cents each. I don't use texting, but accidentally read one that my tech-obsessed niece sent. (I can't disable texting or delete them. I have to either read them and pay, or ignore the notice that I have messages for the life of the phone!) The one text ("I'm across the street at Starbucks") cost me about $5 worth of minutes.
| | > It seems to be the same with cellphones. The small number of | > carriers try to charge as much as possible while staying similar | > to each other. I went around to the 4 main carriers a year or | > two ago, to see about what my options were. Not one could tell | > me what my actual monthly bill would be after fees and taxes, nor | > did any have a copy of the actual contract. (I finally got a | > Tracphone for $10, since I don't really use it very much. I now | > pay $20 every 3 months for 120 minutes.) | > | > | This might give you a couple more options: |
I go for the year plan which is $99. I forget how many minutes it gets along with the bonuses but since I very seldom use it, I have minutes up the wazoo. I looked at Verizon when my days were about up the last time and the Tracfone was still a little cheaper.
Fortunately, they piggyback on Verizon around here so I can reliably use it at home. Some of the neighbors with other companies say the coverage is sketchy.
rbowman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:
Likewise.
Except for dial-up I rarely use my landline. For what phone calls I need I could use my Tracfone. Now I carry it but it's almost always off.
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If you rarely use a landline, but want to keep one, after you figure out your high speed internet, I'd take a look at Ooma. The internet providers typically offer phone service too, but from what I've seen, it's usually about $25 - $30 a month on top of the internet service fee. Ooma, you buy the hardware, which I've seen recently for $100. After that it's about $3.75 a month for free calling nationwide. I have Nettalk which is similar, but from what I've seen lately, if I had it to do over again, I'd go with Ooma. And if you want to keep your number, usually you can port it, typically for an additional fee of $10 - $40.
KenK wrote, on Thu, 03 Jul 2014 14:20:16 +0000:
I have a WISP, which means I have a WiFi antenna and radio/router on the roof picking up signals from miles away, and some of us get up to 30Mbps down and up symmetric.
Due to interference, I only get about half that, but it's not the WISP's fault that there are trees and noise pollution in between him & me.
Do you have line of sight visibility for miles, or not? If so, WISP works great when there is no option for cable or DSL.
There's also Huges & Viacom satellite, which is fast, but has high latencies (>700ms) and bandwidth caps:
You can see if they cover your house (can you see south?)
Per KenK:
I have Verizon FIOS in the Philadelphia, PA area and am reasonably satisfied with it. Reliability=Excellent, Price/Speed=GoodEnough, but seems tb slowly going downhill.
KenK posted for all of us...
And I know how to SNIP
Around here we have Comblast or Verizon.
I have Comblast. I am satisfied with the VERY low outage times. People I know that have Verizon report they have many more and longer outages.
Comblast customer service is geared to selling more... I know my way around their system so I get what I need. Don't know about Verizon. Other users I know complain it tales a long time for them to respond. IMO both their prices are high but you call every 6 months and the magic words "I'm going to switch" turns on the wheel and deal.
Verizon wants everyone to switch (especially phone users) to FIOS. The only problem with this their "box" has a battery in it that requires replacement about every 3 years by the user at the users expense. This maintains the phone service during power outages. Many users just get a better quality UPS and plug in the box.
One can cut costs by purchasing a Comblast approved modem privately.
If you go with voice over ip (VOIP) make certain you call the emergency services answering point by dialing 911 and verifying your name and address. Stating you are using VOIP and verifying the info. Mistakes have been made and if the number is not registered properly the answering point will get an address that may not even be in your state.
Do your research and ask around at work. There will be positives and negatives for each provider.
Good luck. Remember their "specials" have a limited time frame.
I have Centurylink DSL and I'm very satisfied. I'm getting faster speeds than I'm paying for. Of course, what you get depends on the local infrastructure and your distance from the central office.
Centurylink typically offers two pricing tiers for broadband: bundled with a telephone account, and internet only, so you could drop your landline and just get internet from them. You probably should start out by checking with them as to what level of broadband (if any) they can supply to your address, and what the cost would be. You can then compare their package and pricing to what other local providers are offering. Due to contractual/infrastructure issues, there usually isn't much of a selection available in any given territory - usually DSL, cable, or cellular (which can be quite spendy).
And usually if cable is available, it wins as the solution. It's hard to beat the price/performance. And he did say DSL is way down on the list. So, IDK why he's here asking about the experiences of everyone, everywhere, instead of starting with the local cable company, and if it's available at the address.
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