It looks like we’ll be getting a weekend place and the cell phones don’t work there. So we’ll have to get a land line. And long distance. The local carrier wants us to pay a monthly fee for long distance, which is not good since we won’t even be there every month. Any experiences that you can share?
BTW, my previous thread on getting a new credit card turned out to be a great success. Thanks again to all who contributed.
Must you have long distance service tied to your phone line or can you use a calling card for the occasional long distance call you’ll need to make?
Calling cards are such a pain in the butt. We’ve tried them. We lose them. We make mistakes with them. My limit is to dial 11 numbers to call someone. Anything more and the system breaks down real bad.
I use Zone Telecom, but I don’t see anything on their site regarding new sales. But searching around, I did see this page with different plans:
The first plan is pretty interesting, in that you don’t get charged if you don’t use it.
I use 10-10-987-1- plus area code and number . it’s about 50 cents plus 3 cents a minute.
Get a calling card, and add 800# plus the account number to your speed dial.
Speed dial +number makes the call.
When you run out of minutes, recharge the same card, rather then getting a new one. Now you don’t have to reprogram the speed dial.
Keep a copy of the card some place in the vacation place and a copy at home, so you can recharge it over the internet.
Prior to getting cell phones with a “free long distance weekdays after 9 and all day weekends” plan, we used Qwest. Things may have changed since but I found their rates very reasonable and little, if any, monthly fee.
Yes.
Skype In and Skype Out. Basically Voice over IP with the ability to call and receive calls from traditional phones. I’ve been using it for my work line for 2 months now, and it’s great as long as you have a computer in a handy location.
If I recall right, I paid $70 for a year’s worth of service. I also dropped $100 on a wireless headset, but if you can live with wired, you can get that for $20. If you don’t need a year, you can get service for less, but I don’t remember the price.
It’s great. I’ve had no problems with Skype service at all. Quality-wise, it’s not as good as a land line, but it’s loads better than most cell phones audio quality.
Yes, again.
Thanks for the ideas.