Comments on: Alternative to the local phone company

By: Joseph Bay

Joseph Bay — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:08:23 +0000

I need a new dsl provider at the moment. The problem is that I don’t know which one is the best. First I thought about Verizon, Covad, Speakeasy or Earthlink. And now as I read Kim story Idon’t want to use Verizon anymore. Does anyone here have any experience with the other three providers ?

By: Kim

Kim — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:55:39 +0000

I am offended and to be honest very angry. I pay well over 120 a month through verizon and all I have is a basic phone and a wireless internet connection that is poor and I am being nice there. The connection is constantly being dropped and for long periods of time. When I call tech support they simply repair the system long enough for their jobs to be done, they do not seem to be concerned what so ever that I have threatened to drop their services completely and go to a different company. I believe the reason for this is that no matter how hard I have searched there are no services that are cheaper.

~Kim

By: Jon Gales

Jon Gales — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve only heard great things about Vonage. It seems a little expensive until you factor in the long distance. Plus you get ALL the features you want. You can even change them via the web…

When I put in a business line, it will be with Vonage for sure.

By: Misha

Misha — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I was paying $40 to SBC as well for local phone coverage BS with no extra features. I scrapped it and went with cell-phone only. SprintPCS, Nextel, and AT&T all offer “unlimited” cell phone plans for around $100. Maybe look into one of those, if you don’t mind the occassional dropped call or broken signal.

By: Larry

Larry — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Living out in country can be fun but it has its draw backs specially when it come to the internet broadband service(DSL).But this past year was one for history bookIcome from a ver small town in north western ks would you know it Phone company worked all summer putting in DSL and now we all can get it but hear is the kicker why cant any of the local phone comanys move in and offer me a good flat rate program what Iam really looking for is all in one package local phone comapny with unlimited log distance calling if you know of such a company I will responde to you and get with them as we do use more then 50 bucks month on long distance see we have an 18 year old girl who has bf and he is long distance so right now i am looking for unlimited flat rate not these 2,000or3.000min plans never did like town much but if this keeps up may have to move so i can get Mci

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

7/22/04

Re: Combined Local Telephone, Long Distance Telphone, DSL, and Digital “Like” cable

I’m appalled consumers’ willingness to let telephone carriers consistently steal money from us. The idea all regulated monopolies are built on is that one set of common facilities (the wire and switching infrastructure) is cheaper to build than five or seven sets of common facilities. Most of that expense was amortized 40 or 50 years ago yet we’re still shoveling out outrageous amounts of money for these services.

These ideas emerged in the late 1890s as citizens watched the competition to provide electrical power destroy company after company. In order to avert disasters everywhere, the Federal government created limited monopolies to facilitate the building of systems with a general and identifiable public good: gas systesm, water systems, telephone and power systems.

Now, despite the wonders of competition, I still have to pay a local carrier fees, plus a long distance carrier, plus a Internet provider, and then the taxes. And the cable companies tell us we should be excited because they give “digital like” cable? (In telecom-speak that means they’re giving you a dressed up analog signal – it’s not digital at all.)

All these wonders for $120/month. That’s $1,440 a year, not including taxes.

Isn’t anyone insulted??

Regards,

tim

By: Kalsey Consulting Group :: Measure Twice

Kalsey Consulting Group :: Measure Twice — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bad call

Telephone services are very reliable and broadband is not. Think carefully before switching your telephone service to run over your cable modem.

By: Nonliteral

Nonliteral — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Still a Vonage fan

In Bad call, Adam Kelsey points to a discussion on Inlumenent about using Vonage as an alternative to the local telco, and mentions his concerns about the reliability of VOIP services. I’ve been using Vonage since February. As they don’t…