So I think I'm going to fire my phone company

In My Humble Opinion
1

I got a notice in last month’s bill that there would be an increase in taxes and fees.

Okay, says me, it’ll just be a couple of bucks. We are ideally located, in that even though we’re about 45 minutes away from my in-laws we’re in the same area code, so it’s a local call, and even though we’re in a different area code from Ivylad’s sisters, it’s still close enough to be a local call. So our phone bill was averaging about $35-40 a month.

Then I open up this month’s bill.

$50!!!

Ick, says me, that’s an $11 buck jump, taking a closer look to make sure there’s no XXX calls to Vanuatu. (There’s not. We blocked that about two years ago.)

Then I see my local phone charges are more than my long distance charges!

Ahh, says me, this must be the increases they spoke of!

Then I start to think.

I have a cell phone. Free night and weekend calls.

Ivylad has a cell phone. Free night and weekend calls.

We have a separate phone line for the computer.

Why do we need this one?

I discussed it with Ivylad, and I’m going to take great joy in calling up Sprint on Monday and listening to them grovel as I fire them.

The problem is, my 10 year old and my 13 year old get more calls then I do. So, they will talk on the phone line for the computer unless we’re on the computer.

Has anyone else divested themselves of the land line? How do you like it?

2

If your cell phone service is strong inside your house possibly this could be a way to go, but my cell clarity varies a great deal depending on where I am in the house. The clarity of a land line is still noticeably greater than a cell phone under many conditions.

Try going cell only for a month before you pull the landline plug and see how it works out.

3

My sister hasn’t had a phone at her place for 2 years and has never had issues (besides with sprintpcs). She’s never home, almost always on the go, and TELEMARKETERS can’t call a cell phone. Where’s the downside again? I also know about 3 other people that have gone to Cricket service for their ‘home phone’.

We’ve been discussing in our household the possibility of getting rid of our phone. We rarely use the phone (except for the 3-4 times a day my mother feels the need to call me) and we both have cell phones that we pay $40 a month for. The only reason we still have a land line is because you can’t accept collect calls on cell phones (don’t ask).

Only problem with the ‘free nights and weekends’ is you have to remember that with most cellular companies “night time” starts at 9:00pm … and if you go over your daytime minutes they charge you like $.50 per minute. Make sure you have enough daytime minutes before you switch or your cell bills can really add up.

4

My free night and weekends start at 7p.

That’s a good idea, astro, about testing it for a month…I think I’ll do that.

5

I keep my land line for computer use (DSL). I did drop long distance service ($8.50 a month in fees) and use my cell phone for long distance (no long distance charges in the plan I use).

6

We dropped our long distance carrier in favor of cell phones. It’s much cheaper and I say go for it. Local service we keep, but we aren’t paying that much for it.

If you do a lot of daytime phone calls then be prepared to have your bills increase since you may go over your minutes.