Telephone service options......advice please

[angie_nrs]

I spent the entire afternoon researching this. Ug! Let me preface this by saying I am very VERY very low tech. I also do not like change. So, I guess I'm a stubborn, stuck in my ways kind of gal. I like to leave what works alone. However, just b/c I want to stay in the stone ages, my service provider does not. Currently I have a landline with DSL service. The speed I have is....and don't laugh..... 368K. Until doing my research today, I didn't even realize how truly slow this was. With my landline and this DSL it cost me about $63 per month with taxes and all. I'm not thrilled with my internet and would be willing to step it up, but I do love the clarity of my landline b/c my hearing isn't what it used to be. I really don't like talking to someone on a cell with a cell, since I think the clarity suffers majorly. At least talking on my landline with someone on a cell is manageable.

Fast forward to today. I got a notice in the mail that my current provider is closing shop. I need to find a new service provider by the end of the month. So.....off to internet searches I went. I'm in a rural area, so my choices are pretty limited. It seems AT&T is the only provider that will service landlines, but it ain't cheap. Just for the landline they will charge $38 plus $6.99 for call ID, plus .07 per call made within 13 miles, plus long distance expenses. That's JUST the landline. The only service they offer with the landline is a 1.5Mbps speed service which costs an additional $59.99 per month. So landline with 1.5M internet will cost around $105 per month plus taxes. In addition the cost will go up $10 after the first year. God only knows what they will charge after that.....

The other option I have is a cable company here who will do VOIP and 10Mb internet for $100 per month with taxes and fees included. I'd have to pay a set up fee of $50-$75 depending upon my current set up. I talked to a computer guy who said VOIP would be OK for me to use. He said with that internet speed, it really wouldn't affect my call quality on the VOIP. The rep told me I could keep my current phones and answering machine using a phone adaptor which was included in the monthly price. There is no contract required with this service but there would be a $63 disconnect fee if I left before 12 months.

I really don't want any kind of satellite service with my phone, althought I do have Dish Network already. We have a lot of trees around here, but we have decent cell service signal. I'm not sure a hot spot is the way to go.

I dunno......it's kinda overwhelming. Someone help me out with some suggestions PLEASE! Are there options I'm missing?

 

[Peanut]

I'm paying about $40 a month for landline phone... no cell service where I live so I have a seperate "pay as I go cell phone". My satellite tv and internet are both separate from each other and from the land line phone. I pay about $60 a month for each. (2 satellite dishes)

The prices you quoted are comparable to my situation. I keep a landline phone because it works if I lose tv or internet due to storms or electricity for that matter. I did it this way because of my parents advanced age. With their current health concerns its even more important. They pay for a separate landline phone but I pay for their tv and internet. They never use the internet.

 

[Curmudgeon]

I would go with the cable option, mainly because of the faster internet speed especially if you want to stream movies. 60 bucks a month for 1.5 Mb is horrible. I pay 29 for 15Mb.

 

[Sentry18]

My personal experience with AT&T is that their customer service and quality of service is akin to the product that comes out of a donkey's backside. I would rather wear a "I ❤ Nancy Pelosi" shirt for a week than involve myself in any way with AT&T.

That being said my office uses a VOIP phone and it works just fine. My in-laws also use VOIP phone service and they like it. 10mbps of internet speed is not great, but 1.5mbps is atrocious. 368kbps however is so sad I want to somehow gift you some bandwidth. Are you living alone on the backside of a mountain in Cambodia?

 

[Peanut]

There is a trap with satellite internet no one advertises. It's called latency, the speed at which video reaches down to you and your reply back up via satellite. Another issue... depending on how video is sent, audio and video sometimes do not match.

I can't take online classes despite the fact there are several I'd like to take. I would be a registered member of the american herbalist guild 3 times over if I could take online classes.

I have no choice, satellite internet is my only option.

 

[Cnsper]

You apparently have a cell phone. Go to a truck stop or online and get a blueparrot headset 350 or newer. They are not cheap but the clarity is excellent. You can get a wifi hot spot from straight talk for internet service. Just don't be watching a bunch of videos.

 

[Bacpacker]

My parents went to VOIP thru their provider a few years ago. I never noticed any problems talking to them, they never mention a problem with it. My step dad has hearing issues too.

 

[backlash]

I would go with the cable service if I had that option, I don't.
Have you called Dish Network? They offer Internet and landline packages.

 

[The Lazy L]

VoIP unlike your tradional land line you will lose service during power outages.

 

[hiwall]

Like you we have landline and DSL. Ours is $83 per month. It is with Frontier who recently filed for bankruptcy. It is our only choice for internet (which is poor). Obviously we do have the option of satellite internet. All phone and internet companies have terrible reviews (and rightfully so).
I do like the fact that we have phone service when the power is down. We have spotty cell service at our house and when the power goes down the cell service shuts off.
Good luck

 

[Haertig]

Many cellphones are difficult to hear through because the speaker is itsy-bitsy and may not naturally position over your ear. So you have to move the cellphone around - up, down, etc. until you hit the sweet spot for sound quality and loudness. And some cellphones just don't sound as good as others.

Have you tried a cellphone with a headset? You have to make sure the headset connector matches the connector you have on your cellphone. They make wireless headsets too, but generally you might lose some sound quality there. Plus, then you have to charge both your cellphone AND your headset. If you're after sound quality, you will probably do better (and cheaper) with a wired headset. I'm not talking about those little earbuds to stick inside your ear. I'm talking a larger over-the-head type of headset.

Here's a picture of what I'm talking about. I don't know if this particular one is good or if it's trash. I just picked a picture that generically illustrates what I'm talking about, without researching the specific headset to see if it was any good or not. Notice that this model has a speaker for each ear (some headsets are one ear only). Also, it has a positionable mic, so you're not talking into a mic on a cable dangling down below your chin somewhere. You can buy both cheap and expensive headsets that look like the example below. Just because they look alike does not mean that they perform alike. Far from it. You might want to look into a business/office supply company. They may have some headsets that are better quality than the CCC ("cheap Chinese crap") products you'll find at the low end of the consumer market. I suspect the model below may be junk ... the picture came off of Amazon, just by me doing a random search. But it may be good. Who knows? It looks kind of CCCey to my eye though.

 

[Cnsper]

The reason for one speaker is that in some states it is illegal to drive with headphones that cover both ears.

 

[zoomzoom]

VoIP unlike your tradional land line you will lose service during power outages.

I have 2 land lines through our cable company. Pretty sure the service is VOIP (what else would it be via cable?).
There's some sort of power supply in the phone modem that'll keep your phone service going for hours after a power outage. That gives you the power needed to call 911 or whatever.
If there is a power outage, be advised that your cordless phones won't work as they need electricity. Somewhere in your house, install a corded phone. They'll still work during the outage.

 

[angie_nrs]

Thanks all for your replies. It's mentally exhausting for me to grind at a problem (for 6 hours) that I really am not knowledgeable about, like phone/internet service. Ug! This is soooooo not in my wheelhouse. I contacted a company today and they think they can help me out. They are working up a quote for me and will have it by Monday. The company is located a couple of hours away from me, so I like that it's a local company. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will be my answer!!

I would go with the cable option, mainly because of the faster internet speed especially if you want to stream movies. 60 bucks a month for 1.5 Mb is horrible. I pay 29 for 15Mb.

Yeah, not many choices where I live aside from satellite service, which I really don't want. So, the one cable company that runs service out here can charge what they want. Stream movies? Ha, I wouldn't even know where to start. I watch movies on DVD. Told ya.....I'm VERY low tech.

That being said my office uses a VOIP phone and it works just fine. My in-laws also use VOIP phone service and they like it. 10mbps of internet speed is not great, but 1.5mbps is atrocious. 368kbps however is so sad I want to somehow gift you some bandwidth. Are you living alone on the backside of a mountain in Cambodia?

That's good to know about VOIP. I will keep that option on the table and will be my choice if this quote on Monday is ridiculous.

How the heck do you know where I live??? I told ya not to laugh at my speed. I should've said don't make fun of it either. LOL! My bad. There was ONE really good advantage of having crappy internet when the kids were here. It gave them a huge incentive to get out of the house after finishing school. They hated my internet and begged me to upgrade. I told them I would after they left. Well, now I'm used to crappy internet, so I never did upgrade. But hey, they're gone! Ha!

You apparently have a cell phone. Go to a truck stop or online and get a blueparrot headset 350 or newer. They are not cheap but the clarity is excellent. You can get a wifi hot spot from straight talk for internet service. Just don't be watching a bunch of videos.

I have considered the hot spot, but isn't that satellite service? I didn't know straight talk had that option. Although I don't want to go in every month to recharge and pay for a monthly fee. When one of the kids had a straight talk plan he had to buy his card every month for service. I don't know if that's how their hot spot works as well? My cell phone is an old flip phone, not a smart phone. I don't know if that makes a difference or not.

I would go with the cable service if I had that option, I don't.
Have you called Dish Network? They offer Internet and landline packages.

I had no idea Dish did landline packages. I called......nope, no landline service in my area. Dang

Many cellphones are difficult to hear through because the speaker is itsy-bitsy and may not naturally position over your ear. So you have to move the cellphone around - up, down, etc. until you hit the sweet spot for sound quality and loudness. And some cellphones just don't sound as good as others.

Good point! Most of the issues I have with talking with others on their cells is that they let it slide down their face or chin and when they talk everything is garbled. A friend that I call and chat quite a bit with does this and it drives me nuts! I always ask if she is talking right into her phone and she says yes, but always right after I ask, the sound is clear. So, that tells me that she has adjusted it. Trying to hear that while I'm also on a cell is frustrating as all heck. The cell signal can be very spotty here, although generally it is pretty good. Sometimes it's great.....others not so much. It depends on the day, the weather, where I am in the house, etc. I wander and talk, so I want a good signal everywhere in the house. I actually do use a headset with my regular phone so that I can do chores while chatting. I also find when talking cell to cell, there often is a slight delay, which I really don't like at all.

 

[Curmudgeon]

Stream movies? Ha, I wouldn't even know where to start. I watch movies on DVD. Told ya.....I'm VERY low tech.

LOL. I hear ya. I was too, but we ended up getting a ROKU and we actually use it more that I thought we would. You can get Netflix, HULU and a few other streaming services through the box. A small monthly charge applies, but you can watch unlimited movies, shows etc.

IF you have an Amazon Prime account you can get those through that a bit cheaper I do believe, as well as some things that are included with Prime.

 

[Frodo]

Play the game for a year
AT&T will offer you service for $10.00 a month for X months
sign up
then C spire will offer the same thing. Threaten AT&T with c spires offer
AT%T will then beg you to stay and drop the fees again.
Or just switch at the end of the pormo period for another promo from someone else
You can save hundreds a year if you play them against each other

It will involve being on the phone every year for 4 hours.talking to someone who will not listen

 

[The Lazy L]

I have 2 land lines through our cable company. Pretty sure the service is VOIP (what else would it be via cable?).
There's some sort of power supply in the phone modem that'll keep your phone service going for hours after a power outage. ...

Traditional phone companies are required to provide a minimum of 8 hours of power. VoIP providers are not under the same requirement. You have a Cable Company that cares by providing you a on site battery backup.

 

[zoomzoom]

Traditional phone companies are required to provide a minimum of 8 hours of power. VoIP providers are not under the same requirement. You have a Cable Company that cares by providing you a on site battery backup.

Traditional phone companies supply their own voltage independent of your household electric. As I recall, it's something like 6 volts being sent through the actual phone line.

And yes, we have a VERY good cable company. Although a local provider, they're rated at the top. Free installation & setup, free service calls (normally same or next day), excellent customer service... Our rates may be a little higher but you get what you pay for.

 

[phideaux]

We do not have access to Land lines ...ATT stopped it here years ago.
No DSL.
Only one satellite provider Hughes net. That is crap.
We are supposed to get fiber optics internet for last 5 years. Never happen.

So only internet we have is thru our cell phones.
Senior citizen program at TMobile unlimited data,minutes, texts, for the 2 of us is flat rate..no fees or taxes on top is $70/mo for 2 phones , and hot spot use of phone sucks...super slow

But I'm on here daily , have fast full access to internet , and phone is a Moto e5 plus...great sound.

If we ever get decent provider for internet , I'll go back to Consumer Cellular just for phone service, cheap,
I would use them now but their data limit is too low.

Jim

 

[zoomzoom]

And yes, we have a VERY good cable company. Although a local provider, they're rated at the top.

Quoting myself here... and just remembered something.

2 years ago we bought another house. It previously had satellite service because there was no cable to the house.

I called our cable company and asked if we could get their products. There is cable across the street up on a pole. They weren't sure so they sent out an engineer.

The short story is they could provide service. They came out, pulled cable through the house for 5 TV's, dug a trench from the house to the road, bored under the road and ditch to pull cable, pulled cable up to the pole then returned the next day to install TV & internet devices and plug everything in. Total charge for this.... ZERO.

 

[angie_nrs]

Play the game for a year
AT&T will offer you service for $10.00 a month for X months
sign up
then C spire will offer the same thing. Threaten AT&T with c spires offer
AT%T will then beg you to stay and drop the fees again.
Or just switch at the end of the pormo period for another promo from someone else
You can save hundreds a year if you play them against each other

It will involve being on the phone every year for 4 hours.talking to someone who will not listen

I play that game with Dish Network and Direct TV every year or so. I hate it! I finally got Dish to agree to a price for 2 years so that I didn't have to call them after the 12 month period again.

However, this won't work with AT&T. They know they are the only game in town for what I want (very basic service), so they are snotty to deal with and could give a rip less about whether I go with them or not. Sadly, I don't think this other company (that I had some hope in) is going to be able to help me out. I got a message from a rep on Friday while I was out and they referred me to someone else who I called and didn't get very far with. So, Monday I start ALL OVER again. Thus far I have only been able to figure out who can't help me......the list is long!

I had never heard of c spire. After a quick search, they are not in my area. Pretty much par for the course.

 

[angie_nrs]

I remembered this thread this week b/c I finally cut the Dish Network cord. I have been wanting to do it for a long time now and finally my receiver hard drive started squawking and I couldn't acess my DVR'd shows due to "hard drive failure". Well, without that, there was no reason for me to stay with them. I called and they tried and tried to keep me as a customer. I reminded them that I called months ago and the rep told me at that time I couldn't get a cheaper plan. The response this time was "well, I'm sorry ma'm that the rep told you something that was inaccurate." LOL! Nope, I'm done, you had your chance.....cut the cord. No cheap plan, no freebies, no 9 month pause........cut the cord! After a 10 minute back and forth, he finally relented. OK, your service will be cut off within the hour, we don't want your receiver back but don't try to sell it. Take it to a recycle center." I wish they would have just taken it back! It's junk now anyways since the hard drive failed. I'll be checking my last bill closely.....

So, now I'm back to a digital converter box with a plastic antenna that I affix to my window by the TV. LOL! I get the basic lyin' networks and a few others like Laff and Comet. I barely watch anymore anyways, but I do like Comet so I have that on while I'm on the computer. The kid has us hooked up to something that has all the unlimited TV shows and movies we could ever want to watch that uses our internet, but it works pretty well and it's free for us. There are times when there is some buffering on movies, but not often. I think I spend more time looking through what would be good to watch vs. actually watching something. Maybe in the winter we'll be more interested in that. But for now, hubs just likes to watch the early weather on the local channels. We're usually too busy this time of year to pay much attention to TV.

I'll probably save some electricity too.....that Dish box put out some heat. Plus, I just saved about $80 per month to a company I have little respect for. I really don't think I'm going to miss it that much. I've got lots of books anyways.

Next will be a cell phone switch. Before the end of the year, I want to make a change there too. Our phones need to be upgraded anyways, so it's the perfect time to make the change to a differnt provider. Any suggestions on a good cell company with good service? We live in a rather rural area, so that is a challenge.

 

[Sourdough]

Any suggestions on a good cell company with good service?

"NOPE"........I loathe cell phones. Which is handy, as there is NO cell phone service here.

 

[Bacpacker]

I remembered this thread this week b/c I finally cut the Dish Network cord. I have been wanting to do it for a long time now and finally my receiver hard drive started squawking and I couldn't acess my DVR'd shows due to "hard drive failure". Well, without that, there was no reason for me to stay with them. I called and they tried and tried to keep me as a customer. I reminded them that I called months ago and the rep told me at that time I couldn't get a cheaper plan. The response this time was "well, I'm sorry ma'm that the rep told you something that was inaccurate." LOL! Nope, I'm done, you had your chance.....cut the cord. No cheap plan, no freebies, no 9 month pause........cut the cord! After a 10 minute back and forth, he finally relented. OK, your service will be cut off within the hour, we don't want your receiver back but don't try to sell it. Take it to a recycle center." I wish they would have just taken it back! It's junk now anyways since the hard drive failed. I'll be checking my last bill closely.....

So, now I'm back to a digital converter box with a plastic antenna that I affix to my window by the TV. LOL! I get the basic lyin' networks and a few others like Laff and Comet. I barely watch anymore anyways, but I do like Comet so I have that on while I'm on the computer. The kid has us hooked up to something that has all the unlimited TV shows and movies we could ever want to watch that uses our internet, but it works pretty well and it's free for us. There are times when there is some buffering on movies, but not often. I think I spend more time looking through what would be good to watch vs. actually watching something. Maybe in the winter we'll be more interested in that. But for now, hubs just likes to watch the early weather on the local channels. We're usually too busy this time of year to pay much attention to TV.

I'll probably save some electricity too.....that Dish box put out some heat. Plus, I just saved about $80 per month to a company I have little respect for. I really don't think I'm going to miss it that much. I've got lots of books anyways.

Next will be a cell phone switch. Before the end of the year, I want to make a change there too. Our phones need to be upgraded anyways, so it's the perfect time to make the change to a differnt provider. Any suggestions on a good cell company with good service? We live in a rather rural area, so that is a challenge.

We've used US Cellular for years. They provide coverage in most areas we go to. Tried Verizon years ago for 1 cycle. Coverage was horrible for us.

 

[Morgan101]

We still have a land line, and we bundle cable, Wi Fi, and phone in one service and one bill. This includes my wife's phone. I am only one step out of the stone age. I still use a flip phone through T Mobile. Service has improved, but I have no contract and just pay for minutes. For the small amount of time I use my phone, this works for me.

 

[angie_nrs]

I still have a flip phone and I will be getting another one b/c I don't need a smart phone as I hardly use the one I have now. My phone is still 3G, so apparently it needs to be upgraded before the end of the year or it will no longer work, otherwise I'd keep it. Hubs has one step above my phone. He can text but it is ancient as his too is 3G and starting to give him issues.

Verizon seems to have the most towers where we are, but I thought that carriers shared towers? I don't know if that's the case or not. I'd like to get rid of Verizon, but I don't know if it's possible where I live and still have good signal.

I'd be interested in Patriot Moble or Consumer Cellular if they use the same towers. I guess I'll have to check on that.
Does anyone currently use either of those and if so, did you switch from Verizon?

I'll have to look into US Cellular too, for my area....thanks BP.

 

[montanabill]

Everyone keep paying your cable bills. Here in montana we have received some of he benefits of one of those taxes/fees tacked onto internet access. We have some fast fiber optic running the oddest places. Our kid can play video games and the wife and I can both be watching documentary's/movies at the same time with no lagging. We use verison cell phone just for it's better coverage in our area.