I currently pay around 75 bucks a month without long distance by using SWB. I have heard good things about Broadvoice and it is only 9.95 per month for unlimited in-state long distance. You can also transfer your existing SWB phone number to it now. Of course, there is still the 911 issue, but I'll use my cell for that. We only have 3 of them. For those interested, here is the website. http://www.broadvoice.com/ Edit: I do pay for long distance. I just never use it.
How does it cost you $75 w/o long distance? Granted I have no extra services, mine is only about $23 a month.
i have the Works package...call waiting...caller ID...it only costs me around $40/month. how in the world were you paying $75/month?? were you calling those 900 numbers again??
Dudes, I got rid of 3-way calling, Caller ID, call waiting, all of those... My bill for Phone is only $23, just like LeRoy; granted, I pay for SBC Yahoo DSL in the same bill, and it jumps to probably 50 to 60. swilkins, do you REALLY need "the works"? Get only the stuff you need. Do you need *69? do you need Call Waiting? Do you need 3-way calling? We didn't. We got rid of it. It is useless to pay for something you will never, well, use.
http://www.lingo.com Got the service and it's good. The only downfall and I think it's w/ every VOIP: If you're uploading files from your PC, it's going to constrict the bandwidth and calls are going to be choppy. Downloading is ok.
maybe i only have parts of the works. i have call waiting and caller id, i think. and my phone number isn't listed, so i think i pay something for that, too.
I have a few extra services (that are included with Broadvoice). I do have LD through SWB, but I use my cell. I have to pay for a Houston line or I get charge long distance if I call further than a few miles from my house (I live north of FM1960). I still don't understand this one, but now I don't have to. I just wanted to suggest a way for people on the bbs to save money. VOIP is significantly cheaper than SWB.
I switched to Vonage last Christmas and have not been to impressed so far. Recently I was unable to make any outgoing call for hours, and the sound quality is definitely worse than the previous land line service in my area. While I did get the router & phone adapter all-in-one for free, the activation charge of almost $70 was a real downer. Plus there is a charge for switching plans, as I could not keep my minutes to under 500 no matter how hard I tried. I am not saving too much money using Vonage. My trade-off is I pay the same for high speed internet and Vonage versus SWB and dial-up. Since I would much rather have a faster internet and sacrifice sound quality so I can play Halo2 online, I will be stuck with Vonage for a while.
the digital phone service through Time Warner is awesome 39.99/mo - unlimitied calling anywhere in the US I've had no problems with line quality or service outages.
is there a way to get some kind of broadband connection without having to get something else. example phone line, cable, etc.?
AFAIK, the only way is if you happen to live in a WiFi hotspot i.e. next door to a new McDonalds WiMax could be the answer to that one in the future, however
Ditto. Landlines are for suckers. And I say that with the greatest of respect. I can't believe I was paying 45 bucks a month for an answering machine full of telemarketer messeges every time I came home from work. I scrapped the landline last year and never looked back.
