OT: Alternatives to landline and VOIP telephones?

We switched to VOIP many years ago because our land line was so expensive. We were paying over $100 a month for bare bones service, no caller ID, only local calls (couldn't call family just 20 miles away), etc. I switched to VOIP for only $15 at the time and got a full range of extras. Of course, this was only possible because I was already paying for cable internet.

My bill continues to climb every year, despite me dropping more and more services. Unfortunately, Comcast cable is the only option we have for broadband internet. DSL doesn't come out this far, the land topography blocks wireless, and the forest blocks satellite.

Anthony Watson

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Reply to
HerHusband
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Look at the plans and phone from Republic Wireless. You mainly use wifi for the phone,but when out of range you go to the cell tower. Unlimiated phone and text plus wifi internet.

The plan is advertised at $ 10, but there is about $ 2 of tax added on. You do have to buy one of their smart phones. I have beenusing it for several months and it works very well. also if you do need the internet and not in a wifi area, you can swithch plans on the fly.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

The phone options change faster than I can type. Critically dependent on where you live.

I have wireless WiMax internet service thru FreedomPop $15/month. I use Google voice for my phone for free. It forwards to my OBI box for free. It forwards to my MagicJack Plus. Got that when google was threatening to kill off the obi option. It forwards to my cellphone thru PagePlus for $30/yr. It forwards to another cellphone thru Lycamobile. I answer on the computer or either or the voip boxes using regular cordless phones, or either of the cellphones.

Lycamobile is interesting if your 5-6 calls are short, or you make them thru your computer. It's prepaid 5-cents/minute...was 2-cents when I signed up. Data is 6-cents/megabyte...outrageously expensive...but. The prepaid minutes never expire, as long as you spend 5-cents every 3 months.

If you don't use it much, it's dramatically cheaper than anything else I've found. $6 for 100 megabytes doesn't sound so bad if you're saving $40/month...and rarely use it anyway.

Reply to
mike
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Big +1 to that suggestion.

We dropped the landline ~ 3 years ago and bought one of the docks (Siemens Gigaset) that will dock THREE cell phones simultaneously.

Walk in the house and you are connected to your corded and cordless sets. Truly seamless which makes it nice for SWMBO who is a non-techie and just wants a phone when she wants a phone

A number of varied systems like this out there and it's even built-in to some of the newer cordless phone sets.

Power out? No problem, the cell phone still works and if you need to charge it? Just walk out to your car.

Reply to
Unquestionably Confused

Realize that unless the telco is really close to your home, eventually, probably not that far in the future the copper cables connecting you and your neighbors to the telco CO will die of old age and/or be stolen by copper thieves. Then the telco will install a Remote Terminal at the end of your street which connects to the CO on fiber.

Those RTs have battery backup that might be good for 8 hours if the batteries have been maintained, usually less. The telco can tow a generator out to the RT to power it if the power is out a long time, but they don't have as many generators as they have RTs so don't count on your old fashioned land line working in an extended power outage.

Cell sites on the other hand have permanently installed backup generators with decent fuel supplies, so only the very worst storms with a lot of blocked roads are likely to cause a cell site outage. Your cell phone can be charged form your car or even from a small solar panel if necessary so your cell phone may well be more reliable than your land line.

Reply to
Pete C.

We had planned to cancel our landline. They asked what it would take to 'keep us' as customers. I told them if they could get us around $20 a month we'd consider. After talking with a supervisor we were offered a barebones service for $20. We accepted, kept it about a year and then cancelled anyway as both of our cellphones have proven very reliable over the years.

Reply to
83LowRider

I don't think most cell sites have permanently installed generators. They have batteries, and a big plug for when a generator is wheeled up. There may be a subset of cell sites that have generators, but those are probably more remote.

Reply to
Pico Rico

I've never seen a RT with a permanent generator, just an inlet plug. I've never seen a standalone cell site without a permanent generator. Some cell sites located on other structures don't have a clearly visible generator, but most of their gear isn't visible either. The main point is the days where the land line was always reliable are rapidly coming to an end.

Reply to
Pete C.

What happens if you turn the phone on and start walkign to the cell tower?

BTW, the donot call list required renewal at the start, biut before the first expiration date, they made it permanent.

Reply to
micky

I know card services. I said she had a pretty voice. She said Thank you. I asked what she was wearing. She said Clothes, like at the office. I said, two or three times, What else are you wearing. I think that's when she hung up.

I have the bell of the phone near my bed turned off, but if I'm expecting a call, I turn it on. Then the spammers call and wake me up. Well, once that happend.

Reply to
micky

Nonetheless, the number of spam calls I get is much lower.

And they all come from card services, and a smaller number from something like the thing that calls 911 if you fall down. And maybe a third company but I don't think so.

Why do they call over and over agin. Havent' they caught on t hat I'm not buying. Forget about my time, what about their time?. Isn't their time worth anything to them.

Reply to
micky

maybe it is not a cell tower, but a secret monitoring tower.

Reply to
Pico Rico

I'm looking for the same kind of thing. Home land line phone sits with cobwebs for months, but I need to keep that number for elderly relatives.

I'm thinking about getting an AT&T prepaid phone. Buy $100 and it's good for a year, and you can keep the same number. Then if I decided to go back to land line, just have it installed again and the number put back on.

Time Warner Cable here is $19/month for internet and $10 more for phone. I'm thinking about getting the internet only. Then if the prepaid phone doesn't work out, I'll at $10 and try that.

I found out the price trumps quality with most people. I would pay extra for good audio on the phone, but not $80 vs $15.

Reply to
Guv Bob

A lot of places that have the image of having fixed prices will bargain if they think you're leaving.

Reply to
micky

If you're talking about a Go-Phone, and the 100 is for minutes, you're close but not quite right. If you buy in 100 dollar incremnt, the minutes don't expire for a year, but you can use them up before then.

OTOH, if you don't use them up, they roll over, IF you buy more minutes. If you don't, they disappear. You can only roll over about 250 dollars worth also, so if you never use the phone, in three years they'll start taking away all the minutes over 250 dollars worht.

Of course they are not really minutes. They have 3 plans. The first two I forget but it might be minutes. The last one charges nothing on the days you don't use the cell phone (not for making, receiving calls or checking your voice mail or texting or anything) , but on days you do, it's $2, but you can talk as much as you want and make or receive as many calls as you want until midnight, I think it must be, when it will cost you another $2. I'm not sure about texting.

So for 100 dollars, you can only use the car 50 days of the year. However for me that's plenty. I use it when I'm travelling and on such days I often have to make a lot of calls. But if you want to use the phone 51 days in less than a year, the 100 dollars doesn't last a year.

So you can really get your original number back on your land line after putting it somewhere else? The fear that won't work stops from making any changes.

Reply to
micky

Very unusual plan with so few mins and so much data.

I

Just look on the web. Easier to see all what;s available and in my experience, more accurate too. Most carriers are moving to unlimited voice, unlimited text, combined with data plan of whatever size. You can get that with ~500mb of data on a prepaid plan now for ~$40.

5GB of data is a huge plan for an individual. What usage consumes so much data?
Reply to
trader_4

The phone company may not even do that. After Sandy here in NJ, Verizon decided not to restore copper wire service at all in some communities. And I can understand it, because it's not worth installing new wire for a dying service.

Reply to
trader_4

If I were you, I'd probably go with Oooma.

Reply to
trader_4

First of all, you should be able to get a land line with minimum stuff for a whole lot less. I'm an old time telephone guy and will probably always have a land line. In fact, thanks to my telco, I now have a free, 2nd land line ... I guess there are too many people abandoning copper for cell. But mine is connected to a 2 line phone and the fax/modem card on the computer. When I moved here in the western mountains of NC 5 years ago, cell was pretty bad. Verizon has made some improvements to their cell towers; I can actually walk around with only a few dropouts. Gee, I actually said something good about Verizon ... amazing. But, it's no where near as good as a real copper based land line. Back in the day (I hate that phrase) if we would give people service twice as good as the best cell service, on land lines, we would be fired. Now people just accept "can you here me?" "are you there?" etc. etc.

Also, there are those cell adapters, as many have said, that make your in-house string of copper based phone, work with cell. Walmart, Verizon, etc. have them. I know a few people that have them here and, when talking to them, it's "what happened, I can't here you", etc. And of course it's always my fault on the land line .... sure.

Reply to
Art Todesco

Oops, sorry for the confusion. I mean that my T-Mobile $30 plan has 100 minutes of talk, unlimited text and 5 GB of data. I use phone more for the data ability than for talking, but no I don't use nearly the 5 GB, although it's nice to know it's there. I always feel like, at the end of the cycle, I should stream a movie on it just to get my money's worth, LOL.

Reply to
Lee B

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