Works for Me Wednesday~Backwards Edition
by adustyframe ~ September 2nd, 2008
I need to find an unlimited long distance plan. I prefer land line plans, but will consider cell phone plans.
Does anyone know of a great company I should know about?
Thanks!
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:52 pm
We have our phone service through our cable company, so we have unlimited long distance to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Do you have Comcast services in your area? Our home phone is Comcast and includes all services (caller ID, call waiting, etc – about 10 services in all), plus free long distance throughout the U.S.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:16 pm
If you can have access to internet, just use Skype – especially if those you are calling also have access to Skype.
My kids love it when they can talk to and SEE Grandma & Grandpa (I’m guessing the grandparents love it just as much, also!).
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Two words: VOIP. Oh wait, that’s not even one word. Find a service like Vonage (unlimited calls everywhere, including Europe for 24.99) that works with the Internet but you use through your house phone. I currently have one called ACN, but am switching to Vonage because I call Europe a lot. I’ve had it for two years and I have no complaints.
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:24 pm
If Internet is good on both ends, Skype is really good. If not, have you thought of calling cards? There’s this online place that sells minutes for calling, usually internationally, that is pretty cheap. http://www.enjoyprepaid.com .
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:33 pm
I use Skype all the time from overseas to the US. It’s 2 cents a minute to call from my computer to any phone number in the USA. And free to call to another Skype user on their computer (or Skype handset).
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:06 am
I LOVE Vonage! My best friend lives in Australia, and we can visit all we want (well, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT), and not worry about the bill!
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:40 am
I don’t know a lot about landlines…my best friend had Vonage & LOVED it…flat rate…long distance included…and she was able to get 2 telephone numbers…one for the area she lived in & the other with the area code her family lived in so when they called her it was local. Both numbers rang to the exact same phone…so confusion there.
I am an expert on cell phones tho. I have lived about 600 miles away from most of my family for the past 8 years…I gave up my landline about 5 years ago b/c what I needed most was the long distance…and at the time, the landline plans were poor. I have had no problems. (I get a good cell signal at the house.) And I love the bluetooth…I can plug my cell up, use my bluetooth & talk for hours if it’s “catch up” day. Good luck to you!
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:40 am
opps…that’s supposed to say NO confusion there.
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:37 am
I have tried VOIP a handful of times in the last three years. It continues to get better, but I still found the regular carriers (vonage, lingo, packet8, broadvoice, teliax, etc) to not be reliable enough, and hard to get anything fixed when stuff doesn’t work. It seems that most people are now used to poor phone quality, and so don’t mind that VOIP phones sound like a bad cell phone connection.
I am now hosting my own VOIP phones, and it is working out well. We just moved, and so don’t have anything to lose if it doesn’t work well. In addition, we are keeping our old phone number, which I couldn’t have done with a landline, so that was an additional bonus.
I wouldn’t want to use Skype as my only phone line, but is useful for some things. And my extended family also appreciates the video aspect. It is amusing to listen to some of the conversations though, which seem to always involve talk about getting the camera oriented correctly, echo, delay, etc. You just can’t beat the landline for quality.
That said, I have used two long distance companies that use VOIP on their end, but it is regular POTS on my end. USADatanet does regional calling plans, where I paid $2 max for any length call in the US, and $1 max for any length call to the Northeast (where my family lives). That was pretty handy through college. If you want that, I have a referral code somewhere, and you’ll get a $5 or $10 credit to start with.
I also used zoneld.com which is a regular long distance company (USA datanet is a dial-around service, ie. don’t switch anything on your phone service) which has 4 cent/minute plans, with a small monthly charge – I think $1 or so.
If you were willing to buy a $100 phone adapter, you could get VOIP through me, and there aren’t any monthly fees, just per call, and the rates vary between 1 cent and 8 cents a minute, if you are calling rural places. If you want an incoming number through me, it costs $1/month and 1 cent a minute, or $6/month for free incoming calls. But, if you only want outgoing, there aren’t any monthly fees, which for us, means that the vonage plans are too expensive, since 2 cents a minute goes a long way before you hit the $15 or $20/month plans.
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:44 am
We love Vonage! Have had them for about 2 years now.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:34 am
Tmobile just started there @home service, its 9.99 a month free long distance, only thing is you have to have an internet conection (which you do) and tmobile cell service, we just got on it and I love it, it also gives you wireless internet
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:06 am
We use verizon for unlimited long distance, internet, and tv. We have used them for several years and have been pleased.
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:07 am
I tried Vonage and it bit the big one, to put it nicely. The only thing good about it was the price. The people on the other end could never hear me, the router they sent didn’t work, they refused to replace it, they couldn’t spell my street name right no matter how many times I corrected it, they double and triple charged me for things, the customer service reps (in India) were more interested in their next bathroom break than what I was trying to tell them. Then when I finally cancelled they charged me an extra $200 for the pleasure. AVOID!
If your local cable company has phone service, that is usually great and economical. VOIP is good too.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:19 pm
We have MagicJack (yeah you know the one that has the infomercial) We figured we could stand spending $40/mo for the ability to have free long distance in the US plus calls to Canada. I will admit, there are some downsides. If others have VIOP, they can’t call you. The whole thing about competition and all. And yes, there are many people that can’t get it to work right, and we have a phone number for a neighboring state (there aren’t any local numbers yet). IF you decide to try it, get the expedited shipping and try the free trial. If you hate it, it was a $10 experiment. If you like it, then your long distance for the year is covered. And yeah if you go to our blog you can see we had technical difficulties, but we are doing fine now and have even shut off the home phone. Its cheaper to have this and DSL than to have a home phone.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:20 pm
I wrote $40/mo but its $40 for the first year (oops) which includes the hardware and onn year of software licensing. After the first year you pay $20/yr to renew the software license.
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:06 pm
It seems like you got a lot of great ideas, but I’ll add some more.
We tried Skype. We tried paying to call regular phone numbers, and we had nothing but problems. Anytime we called a cell phone, the connection was really bad. It wasn’t too bad calling landlines, but so many people are on cell phones that it was more frustrating than it was worth.
We tried another program that was excellent called Jajah. I highly, highly recommend it. It’s about 2.9 cents a minute, and what it does is connects you to the person you’re trying to call through your landline. You go to the website, enter in the number you want to call, and then your phone rings. You answer your phone and then it connects you to the number. You then talk for as long as you want with the clear connection afforded to you from a landline. If nothing else, you can buy a short amount of minutes and see what you think – it’s not a contract and you don’t have to buy any equipment, so it’s not really an investment.
September 8th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
We don’t have long distance on our landline. We bought a calling card from Costco and the cost is 3.5 cents per minute. When we run out of minutes we just call them and they add time to our card. We pay for it by using our debit card. We have had the same calling card for over 5 years. It works well for us.
November 10th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I use OneSuite.com. For US calls, it’s like 2.9 cents per minute I believe. You buy blocks of at least $10, and that lasts you 6 months. And your minutes rollever! International calling is pretty cheap, too. It’s really easy to use, just like a calling card, and you can even set it up so that you don’t have to dial the PIN code each time.