Frugal Telephone Services ?

Edwards Finance > Phones

Q. Do you use Tracfone or any other prepay cell phone service as your primary telephone? Do you not have a regular landline phone in your home? I am considering disconnecting my landline, I currently have a prepay phone service as well in which I am a light user.

A. I share a DSL line with several people and pay $8 for my share of the DSL monthly charge every month. I signed up for voice over the internet (VOIP) with http://www.lingo.com . Their unlimited plan is $19.95 per month and it comes with an incoming number in my area, free caller id, call waiting, and so on. I had to pay $40 for activation and Lingo shipped me an telephone adaptor that I plugged into my shared internet connection. They are currently running a promotion of 3-month free service for new unlimited plan customers. I also got a referral so both the referrer and I got $25 credit with lingo. Calls to North America (including Canada) and Western Europe are all free in the plan. There is a 30 day satisfaction guarantee with Lingo but a one-year contract after the first 30 days. I also call Hong Kong frequently and I got some calling credit from http://onecent.rnktel.com and pay only one cent each minute for my calls to Hong Kong. They provide access numbers in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Since I can use lingo to call the access numbers for free, I only pay one cent each minute (rates for different countries are different). I want to challenge anybody with a better plan (can I still cut more fat?). I have a two-line telephone. I use Lingo as my primary line and my housemate's line as my second line (just in case I need to dial 911 or make occasional 1-800 calls at nobody's expense, but never any toll calls on my housemate's line). I use TracFone for convenience only and used a total of 10 minutes or so in call time last month. In fact, I have it switched off most of the time unless I am out expecting or being expected by friends. My two-line phone can also page me (numerically) at my TracFone if someone calls me, whether he/she leaves a message on my answering machine or not (but he/she always leaves his/her caller ID through my Lingo line and I get this information paged at my TracFone for free). I agree. I'm lucky enough that I just put my housemate's line onto line 2 of my two-line telephone, just in case I need to dial 911. Lingo also asked for my location (address) for E911 in a very specific way, but it does not inspire confidence in me since I do not understand how it is processed when I need it done. My place needs DSL anyway so my housemate just put DSL on his line. Presumably, he can get a metered line at a very low price. Sounds like the problem with ambulance service where I live. They're starting to miss actual emergency calls because so many people are doing things like calling for transport to the emergency room because they have a headache. Unfortunately the policy is to refuse no calls after a woman died a couple years ago when the EMTs incorrectly assessed the seriousness of her illness.

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