Holy! $42 for a *basic* home phone w Verizon???

[L_n_O 3]

Hey all..

We've got:

Comcast for our Cable & Internet

Verizon for our home phone & cell phones.

Just got the Verizon home phone bill and it's $42 for a BASIC LINE.

When we signed up, it was supposedly $16.99 for a basic line and all the rest is surcharges and fees and bullsh!t!

For this much, we should at least be getting long distance in the US and Canada.. BUT WE DON'T HAVE THAT!!!!

Is Vonage good? Does it cover everything without all the ####### fees??

What about Comcast? or will we just run into the same fees with them?

Edited December 15, 2007 by liz_legend 'n Ol

[Delicia 1]

Call Comcast, since you already have their service, they offer a bundle deal.

[Kazan' Tiger 1]

I haven't had a "home phone" in years. I don't see the need for it what so ever. I have VOIP for home calls and a mobile when I'm not. I think traditional home phones are a dying breed.

[Neja 0]

We have Vonage. It's great. It's about $20 a month. Unlimited long distance within US and to Canada.

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

Hey all..

We've got:

Comcast for our Cable & Internet

Verizon for our home phone & cell phones.

Just got the Verizon home phone bill and it's $42 for a BASIC LINE.

When we signed up, it was supposedly $16.99 for a basic line and all the rest is surcharges and fees and bullsh!t!

For this much, we should at least be getting long distance in the US and Canada.. BUT WE DON'T HAVE THAT!!!!

Is Vonage good? Does it cover everything without all the ####### fees??

What about Comcast? or will we just run into the same fees with them?

And I thought Casper was overpriced. Yikes!

[L_n_O 3]

=)

[Texanadian 10]

AT&T is $62/month for phone service in Houston. That includes the $6 unlimited long distance in US/Canada.

Way too high for phone service though. I went with Lingo VOIP. Signed up for their $195/year plan. Unlimited local and long distance to US/Canada, many other countries too.

[PlatyPius 5]

Verizon sucks. They are the only one to offer phone service here, except for the fibre optic internet company. Comcast REALLY sucks. I had them when I lived in Indy, and they were horrible.

We don't have a home phone. I told Verizon to piss off. We have a family plan through Cingular/ATT. I've been with Cingular/ATT/CellularOne for about 10 years now.

We also have Skype installed on this computer and one of the nifty phone handset things. We have yet to use it. lol

[Emancipation 2]

We have Vonage and we love it.. Two exceptions - every now and again it drops calls.. not a big deal I just call back and at the beginning of the calls there is a few seconds delay when you answer the call (doesn't continue throughout the call though - just first few seconds)..

We have Comcast Cable Internet only + Vonage (30$ taxes in each month). It works for us, and there are no hidden fees with Vonage.. we get any time of day unlimited calling to US and Canada.

Edited December 16, 2007 by Emancipation

[KarenCee 3]

I hope this doesn't sound like a really dumb question but, how does Vonage work? Don't you have to have a landline anyway through your local phone company? I'm all for ditching Windstream (formerly Alltel here in this part of Georgia) and going with another company but I'm guessing I'd still need my landline to have internet....unless Vonage has that capability as well....

[Flames9_RN 359]

VOIP works over ur computer connection. We have VOIP with Cox and it works fine. keep in mind if internet goes down, so may ur VOIP phone!!

[Krikit 1,165]

We're in the same boat as you, Liz. Comcast for cable and internet, Embarq for basic land line. Unfortunately, Comcast doesn't have VoIP available in our area yet, so I'm going to look into Vonage. I had delayed doing that because we had a large credit with Embarq due to a massive error on their part .... something I have come to expect from most service industries in the US. Plus, I was hoping that Comcast would have advanced a lot quicker than they have in VoIP services and it would have been available by now. Oh well. Yeah.... we're definitely not in Kansas anymore Toto.

[Flames9_RN 359]

We now have our internet/phone/cable with Cox and after taxes and fee it is like $130 a month!! They adverise it as $99 a month, bt of course that doesnt include the taxes and fees, as well we pay an extra charge each month for an extra cable box!! We were hoping to stay with Verizon for the whole package, but thier high def cable TV still hasnt come to ur area and we dont want a dish!!

I have hear many good things about Vonage. Do a google search for vonagae reviews! I have no need for a calling plan to Canada, as al my family has free long dist to the USA, so I just call and let it ring twice, and they call me back,lol

[sly_wolf 199]

My fiance has Trinsic and they are very good also. She had verizon before and would never go back to them. Call for a quote.

Sly

[Reba 2]

I have Vonage and it's great! You have to have a high speed internet connection, like cable or DSI, a regular dial-up internet won't work. it costs me only $30 per month, and its unlimited calling for North America and parts of Europe (includes UK, France, Spain, and Italy now I think) It sometimes freezes up if I'm surfing the internet and talking on the phone at the same time, but it comes back no problem. And if the cable goes out (which ours does fairly often, our cable company sux!) I just have my Vonage line forwarding to my cell phone, which you can set up on your account from the website. You can also access your voice mail messages from anywhere with a web browser, and see your call history from the Vonage website. Its pretty cool. And, if you want, you can get a toll free number added to your account for like $5 extra per month (also unlimited) so your family can call you and not be charged long distance fees.

Check the Vonage website because service is not available in all areas yet, and some cable companies aren't compatible. I have a friend down in South Carolina on Turner Cable, and she couldn't get Vonage because they have their own VOiP service er sumthin'.

Our AT&T land line costs (we haven't been able to get the phone company to disconnect our service, so we just stopped paying the bill hoping they'll cancel it ) over $40 per month, and that's just for local service. Any long distance calls were costing over $1 per minute or something like that, and that's just freakin' rediculous, I had ONE phone call home that cost me like $70, so I said ###### it and got Vonage.

Edited December 16, 2007 by Reba