For those of you in the Toronto area

[Tinker 0]

Bell just called me the other day, I had switched to Cogeco.

They're giving me free installation, unlimited north america calling, and all the other #######, high speed internet, for the same as cogeco, BUT they're giving me a $250 credit, no catch, to come back.

didn't tell them I'm hopefully leaving in a couple months!!!

[Galateia 1]

From when I got my bell line in, it was about $50 to get it installed. I can tell you exactly what you're looking to pay for a monthly service. Ahem. *breaks out last month's phone bill* If he gets bare bones set up, it should look like this:

Residence Line: 19.13 (obvious)

Network Charge: 2.95 (involuntary)

911 Emergency Service: 0.19 (ditto)

Touch-Tone Service: 2.80 (likewise)

GST + PST: 3.51

Basic phone line with no bells or whistles: $28.58 CDN

Hope that helps.

This might be a stupid question but what is the GST + PST? sigh...all the extra fees and taxes suck. Plus there's the wire maintenance fee that is an extra $6.00.

I talked to Bell last night and they said that if anything ever went wrong with the wiring inside his apartment it's $99.00 just for the guy just to go there and check it out. That's not even counting FIXING the problem

With my fiance's luck?? He'll need the wire maintenance on there too.

True, but I didn't include that because it's optional. It's only $5.00 on my bill. I see Misa's taken care of PST and GST.

Vonage sucks the rotten sewage from an old rusty pipe. My finace has it, and it drives me INSANE. If his Vonage, computer, or internet goes down, I can't even call the man, which upsets me because we talk every day, and if he hasn't gotten ahold of me, it means something's happened.

A phone line is used for your ID in some cases, and it's important to have something reliable that people can reach you at. Internet phones are terrible for unreliability, in my experience.

I've never had a Rogers phone, but that's an option. Watch out, though, because Rogers also doesn't go through the phone lines, (I think they use the same cables as their TV/Internet?" so if the sh!t hits the fan, you'll still get splattered.

[Tinker 0]

Galateia is right. I switched from Bell when they were having all the union problems, and causing me problems with that.

The Cogeco phone, was cable and it was always hit or miss. Power went out, no phone, cable went out, no phone. Static if you had internet, tv and cable on at the same time. They've become worse, not better.

[Lyric 0]

I'm pretty sure he goes through cable for his internet. I want to have SOME means of reliable communication that won't cost him an arm and a leg and it seems that Bell-basic would be the best way to do this. I called Fido but they want a 2-3 year agreement or if you don't do an agreement it's like $90 for a new phone which is insane. So anyway, I don't know what he's going to do because I haven't even gotten to talk to him yet. When that will happen, I don't even know. When I know he's not feeling well, I just freak out so easily when I don't get to talk to him. We used to talk every single day and now...sometimes it's 3 to 5 days and I can't handle it anymore.

I really appreciate everyone's input on this.

[L_n_O 3]

I had a Rogers home line... initially I had tons of service interruptions and problems.. cuz they use a modem to run it ...

well, If you yell loud enough (like I did), they'll send a tech over to switch it to Rogers Telecom! No modem.. no problems..!

and I think it was around $40ish per month... unlimited calls to USA and Canada

now I've moved back home with my parents and we added Primus for our long distance plan to their existing bell plan.

pretty good too

think it's like $20ish for long distance

Edited July 28, 2007 by liz_legend 'n Ol

[Tinker 0]

He can always use a CiCi phone card on a pay phone for now. Telus has some pretty good buys for pay as you go. Refurbished phones.

[Galateia 1]

He can always use a CiCi phone card on a pay phone for now. Telus has some pretty good buys for pay as you go. Refurbished phones.

Hmm. That would work for him calling out, but I think she's more worried about being able to call him, and she won't be able to do that with a pay phone. D'oh! Do you mean a pay-as-you-go phone or a phone booth pay phone?

I didn't know about the union stuff, but I know that Bell was recently bought by another company and that things really went to hell's handbasket there for a while because they had sold the company anyway and were just waiting for the new owners to take over, and thus didn't care about their customers anymore.

I am not a fan of Bell, but I'm not even going to go into the INSANE problems I had with Roger's cable/internet. Sweet atomic snakes on a stick, it sucked. They made Bell look like it was blowing angeldust out of its ... anyway. You get my drift.

Edited July 28, 2007 by Galateia

[Tinker 0]

Telus, you can usually get a pay as you go phone, with a credit on the phone, for just about nothing. If you figure out the credit as well. You can even get those at walmart. Only problem is they run about 25 cents a minute. You can go online and get a transaction record showing out going long distance calls, showing the number, but will not give you incoming call numbers.

hmmm didn't know that about bell, wondering if I did the right thing switching back.

[Galateia 1]

hmmm didn't know that about bell, wondering if I did the right thing switching back.

Seeing as they are under new management, I'm guessing they've pulled their socks up and are trying harder than they used to. Bell no longer has a monopoly, and I imagine they've figured that out. You probably got the offer from the new management.

[Lyric 0]

I STILL don't know what internet company he has but whoever it is, they SUCK. So what are really good internet companies there? I know someone else who lives in Toronto and is forever more having major internet company problems. I honestly don't get it. I live in Kentucky for crying out loud, and I have oustanding service here. Toronto is a huge city...I would think there would be a company that could provide decent service there

[thetreble 19]

I am also not a bell fan.

And just so you know, the prices you were quoted for a bell monthly bill were JUST the basic. If you want to make anything other than a local call it's A)going to cost you A LOT of money and B)even if youwere to get a long distance plan its still going to cost you lots of money. Some of my phone bills last year with bell were 150+ (some as much as 350) even with a long distance plan. We gave up after than and just used skype.

I suggest he gets another internet service. There are a few he can get. He can get Bell DSL, Rogers Cable, and I'm sure there are a few others out there in the Toronto area. And just so you know, it might not be his service. Most people I know, including me, have or have had rogers and they were always great. Be positive and I hope you guys can talk soon.

Edited July 30, 2007 by thetreble

[Lyric 0]

I am also not a bell fan.

And just so you know, the prices you were quoted for a bell monthly bill were JUST the basic. If you want to make anything other than a local call it's A)going to cost you A LOT of money and B)even if youwere to get a long distance plan its still going to cost you lots of money. Some of my phone bills last year with bell were 150+ (some as much as 350) even with a long distance plan. We gave up after than and just used skype.

I suggest he gets another internet service. There are a few he can get. He can get Bell DSL, Rogers Cable, and I'm sure there are a few others out there in the Toronto area. And just so you know, it might not be his service. Most people I know, including me, have or have had rogers and they were always great. Be positive and I hope you guys can talk soon.

Well this is the thing with Bell. All he needs is basic, basic service. I just want a "reliable" phone line where I can call him and where he can make local calls out. He doesn't have the money for any long distance. I can call him for practically nothing from my computer with Skype. We used to do voice chat and IM but now with his internet on the fritz I am trying to talk him into getting a phone line so I can call him. He still needs internet as well.....sigh. Things just go from bad to worse. He's really, really not feeling well and it's very hard to be sitting here and not be able to have contact with him. That's why I'm in desperate mode ..........again.

I think getting the most basic Bell phone line shouldn't be over $35 per month from all the info from other people here who have it and from what I learned from the company itself. I told them that I need to account for tax and wire maintenance. So hopefully that would be right.

[thetreble 19]

Ok I understand what you are saying now. The basic line with tax comes out to like 35 bucks a month. If you can afford that, might be good. But if he needs the internet any ways, he might want to look into another service.

I hope he feels better soon. I know how awful something like botched communication can be.

[h_bomb 0]

WINTEL all the way!!! bell sucks so bad! i've been dealing with them ever since i moved to canada and they've given me nothing but headaches, but out of the big monopoly companies, they were the cheapest. WINTEL is a little company, they don't advertise much except for flyers in the mail occasionally, but they have a website. i have their high speed internet and long distance package. i pay about $45 a month for everything. the high speed is $38 a month if you buy their modem (you get to keep it and there's no contract) and 42$ a month if you don't. the rest of my bill is long distance and taxes. every long distance call is 25 cents, FLAT RATE. THEY CHARGE PER CALL, NO PER MINUTE FEES! the only thing is that there's a long access number you dial first, it rings once or twice then you will get another dial tone. you then dial your long-distance number as if it were local. if you forget to dial the access number, you will still only be charged 50 cents per call. i got a bell local phone and i pay 35-47$/ month with one feature, and depending how many times i dial *69 that month. wintel is now doing local phones in some areas, and toronto is one of them. you can get the whole package-local phone with all features included, unlimited canada and u.s. long distance and high speed internet for $70. best of all i don't think they make you lock into contracts for anything and i've never had a single problem with them. highly recommended!!

[thetreble 19]

Might not be available in her area as I lived in Canada all my life until just now and never heard of WINTEL.