I have a landline and internet from Frontier.
My bill is $70 plus $18 more of taxes.
That's around a 25 % tax rate !!!!
I am also not happy that Frontier has a monopoly on land line service.
I could live without the landline, but I have to have it because I have DSL.
Are there any cheaper options?
Thanks, Andy
Depends on where you live. Chances are the cable company will give you a much faster internet for that or less, especially the first year.
Fastest I ever got was 18 Mbs from DSL but Spectrum gives me 200 Mbs and the first year it was $44. Land line is another $10 or so with free NoMoRobo.
I assume by landline, you mean VOIP over the internet, not copper wires? But it doesn't matter. You can likely drop the phone part of Frontier, just use them for internet and use any of the VOIP companies. I've used Ooma, for example. You buy the VOIP box, about $50, then the service is just about $5 a month, which is to cover the taxes and fees. It's worked great for me. The only thing stopping you would be if Frontier won't unbundle the phone and internet or charge you just as much without phone, but they probably can't do that.
Wow - you live well ! I thought I'd died-and-gone-to-heaven when they ran fiber to our tiny rural hamlet - no complaints at all about the service, speed, or reliability but it's ~ $ 150. per month for phone, TV, internet. Plus it's a small local company to deal with - rather than a faceless mega-company. We have very poor rural cellular - hence the fiber phone service. .. and it's part of a " bundle " package. Prior to fiber, we had various separate sevices - - cellular internet being the most expensive -
- forced into it when dial-up became totally useless. .. but I still use that free ~ 12 year old router ! John T.
If it is $ 88 for internet and phone you are ok.
My cable internet was almost that much and about $ 45 for the landline.
I now have them bundeled together and use the phone through the intenet modem box. It is $ 94 a month for both. It does give me 'free' long distance, caller ID, ways to block numbers and does a fair job of knocking out many robo calls. It will ring several times on the landline and then send the call to my cell phone number. With Spectrum I get 200 mb but it speed checks out around 230 most of the time with the computer that is next to the modem and is wired to it.
The TV is Direct TV.
Thanks for the idea.
I talked with Frontier.
I can not cancel my land line because the DSL requires it. At least that is what they said.
I had call waiting which I did not know I had. Frontier does not break down a bill like they should.
I cancelled call waiting and reduced my bill from $90 -> $77.
I am happy with that.
They told me I am on a "promotion" for 12 months.
So in a year, I get the fun of going thru this again. :-)
Andy
My landline is copper wires.
I like having a landline because it still works when a hurricane hits which can knock out cell towers.
I found out that Frontier charges $6 each month for when they have to repair a phone line that someone digging cuts.
I told the lady, "You mean customers have to pay when someone damages the phone line ?"
I am praying for peace. :-)
Andy
Don't be too sanguine about that. I found out after Irma that my "central office" <a mile from the house, that allows me to have DSL is a little battery operated box on the side of the road and you get about 30 hours out of that battery. Then your phone and DSL is dead. If they are kind enough to drop a generator there you are back ion business but that took them almost a week. Some folks who knew the score around here dragged a cord from their generator out to their box and recharged the battery every day. (It is just a regular NEMA 5-15) If it happens again, I am going to go up there and ask around. Unfortunately, the places around that box are usually abandoned all summer.
So the box has a jack on the outside, or it's not even locked?
It opens with a 5/16 socket.
I wish I could remember numbers.
BTW, we don't have batteries here, outside of the local exchange, which is a building with a lock on the door.
Once in Chicago I watched while the guy punched in the code to open the door, and I wanted to go in and wander around, and maybe connect another line to where I lived, but I figured they would really dislike my coming in. That's when I was 20. Now I'm too old to get away with anything, until I learn how to pretend that I'm senile.
Ditto here in western NC. No cable, although it is at the base of the mountain where I live. So, the only thing is slow DSL from Frontier. I'm beyond the 14000 foot limit, so they only allow 3meg, however, because I'm just outside and my line it clean, they allow it to ..... wait for it ..... 6meg. Woopie! The town has gotten some federal money to give high speed all over. I'm hoping it will come this way.
We are lucky and I have choice of Comcast or Verizon FIOS. My Comcast triple play give me up to a gig. Wife complains about cost but will not do what neighbor across the street does and switch back and forth when initial offer expires and price goes up.
I have both services to my house but gave up the FIOS telephone lines. Since I only had one business phone on it the charged me land line prices which did not include long distance, caller id, etc.
I live 200 feet from a Verizon brick and mortar "main office."
Andy
Then aren't they an alternative for DSL/phone or just DSL and use OOma or similar for phone?
The days of the big 48v battery bank in the basement of a phone exchange with 3 floors of clicking relays and originating registers and your own dedicated pair going all the way there are long gone. The local phone company here was United Telephone with a #5 system in Ft Myers and an old "stepper" in Naples. They were my customer. When Sprint bought them the whole thing disappeared and they just had a computer console, a couple racks and the wire bays where the wires come in. Most of the wires coming in gave way to fiber. A lot of that switching was redistributed out to those little boxes I was talking about in neighborhoods, connected to the fiber. That was what allowed people to get DSL. You can only run DSL on copper for about a half mile or so. Then it has to get up on the fiber via a DSLAM. They call that "the central office" when they talk about DSL although it is really just the link to fiber. Those little boxes have their own 48v power supply and a battery. Next time I see the guys working on it I will try to get a picture of the insides.
You should be able to get 100mb DSL then. We are still served by Century link/Sprint and there is only one office per county. Both are about 15 miles from me.
Once 5G rolls out I expect big mobile players to try to get everyone on it and abandon any copper that is still left out there.
Generally agree. You can get a lot greater distance with DSL though. It is highly dependent on the actual wiring. If it's a straight run, that's good and will support higher speeds/longer distance. It it has bridged taps, gauge changes, is degraded wire, etc, then you're limited to shorter distances and/or lower speeds. Overall, it's only viable if you don't have something better for internet.
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