Alternatives to LOCAL phone service???

Edwards Finance > Phones

Q. I am going to be moving to a "new" (built in 1915) house at the end of this month. So far, I've gotten the heat, water and electric turned on at the new place. I haven't transferred or turned on new phone service, though. For the past couple of years, I have thought on and off about disconnecting my local phone service. About 80% of the messages on my answering machine are advertisements from various companies. I feel like I'm paying to give them another way to intrude into my life. Most of my friends and family contact me via email, which I can access from the public library a couple of times a week. My wife also has voice mail at work, and she can use the phone there for local calls during her lunch hour, or before/after work. We also can access the phone at church before or after church, or when we babysit in the nursery.

A. One problem that I have with the scenario of pulling the plug on this monthly fee is that people would have to leave messages on my wife's voice mail at work. I was wondering, are there any inexpensive voice mail solutions that a person can access by calling an 800 number, or something similar? I used to have something like this through a service called Onebox, but now that service costs $13 a month. (I can get unlimited local calling for $15 a month, or $23 when you add on all the taxes and such) I was wondering if anyone knows of a way to get a voice mail box for around $5 a month or less, just so we could have a way for people to leave us messages if they need to, and for us to access the messages whenever it is convenient for us to do so. I spent the summer away from my home, onboard my boat and used my cell 95% of the time for local and long distance calls. I still had an answering machine on my home phone that I could call into and had the cell number on the recorded message. Since I have a plan that allowed free long distance it took advantage of this and never made any long distance from my home phone for 3 month. After reviewing my home phone bills, I found I was still paying about $8 a month in misc. fees/taxes to them.. I contacted my local phone company about just dropping (No Select) long distance service.. I was told that I would have to pay $20 to discontinue my selected long distance service.. Now that seems like a rip-off since you can change long distance service providers without a fee, but have to pay $20 to discontinue one. So, where am I at now?? I'm using the cell service for my long distance, but still paying the for ATT which I never use.. Kind of a matter of principle, even though it's costing me $8 a month. AFAIK there IS a fee for switching LD providers. Usually the new provider pays the fee for you as an incentive to switch. You would rather pay $96 a year than a one-time $20 fee? If you're not using your land line LD, cancel it, eat the one-time fee, realize long term savings. We cancelled our LD carrier and use a dial-around (10-10) for all LD, 4 cents a minute, no monthly fee, including in-state calls. That plan's no longer available for new customers, but there are others: http://www.10-10phonerates.com/. Or just use your cell.

Ask Edwards a Finance Question

Other Questions:

AT&T broadband ?

I am having the Fixed wireless phone service by AT&T next week and have a few questions for anyone with the service. I am in the Dallas/Ft.Worth area and this service is new to us. 1. How is the reliability of this phone service and also of t...

I was wondering if someone can give me some information, before I start looking for a solution so that I dont get missled by any sales people. 1. When a business has multiple telephone lines, how do they come into their office? I assume i...

Anyone ocnsidering switching to Rogers home phone? I know there are several good reasons to switch but I believe the service requires a separate modem that requires power to operate as opposed to regular phone system that has it's own power.I s...

Does it take less time to configure/install a classical PBX compared to a Voip PBX like the Cisco CallManager?A classical PBX is fairly stable in performance, configuration, and reliability. I'm constantly updating and working on the Cisco Cal...

I'm planning on getting a cell phone this week, but I'm not sure which service to get. Also, I "may" not be able to get service because either I don't have any or it's not any good and I'm talking about my credit. And in case of that, can anybo...

Edwards Finance Menu

Ask a Question
About Us / Me
Contact Me
Privacy Policy

Sitemap

My Favorite Sites

PFBlog
Google Finance
Yahoo Finance
Motley Fool
Nveille's Financial Blog
AllFinanceMatters
Free Money Finance
2MillionBlog
The Terror Finance blog

Q&A Subjects