phone service

[cellio]

We're paying too much for phone service and want to reduce that, but -- as you would expect -- there is no one-stop source of information on the options. (Quick, someone set up phonesfordummies.com!) Part of the problem might be that we need to change the way we think about phone usage. So, I turn to the brain trust. :-)

We currently have a land line, from which we do most of our calling, and two cell phones with minimal usage (but enough that we want to keep them). We have, for each phone, a $20/month plan that provides 40 minutes (20 peak, 20 not). We feel we're over-paying for the land line; Verizon makes it hard to find out about the lower-end options and all the other fees you'll pay in advance, and we probably got sold a bill of goods on our current plan. We can undo that.

Most of our calls are local or regional. We rarely make long-distance calls, except to his family in Canada. Conventional long-distance plans really only mean the US, by the way. We used to sometimes use those 10-10-### plans for long distance, except that we couldn't keep track of which ones were best for which types of calls and when we lost the cheat sheet next to the phone we didn't recreate it.

I don't know how much Dani cares, but I want to use a conventional phone for most calls, particularly longer ones. Cell phones are not as comfortable to hold (and sometimes be able to hear on), and I assume VoIP constrains me to use a mic while sitting at my computer, which is sub-optimal. (We are, by the way, very satisfied with our DSL service, so we're probably not open to changing that as part of a package.)

My current thinking is that we should get a minimal local service plan for the land line and use cell phones for long-distance calls. This implies that we want cell plans that include free long distance (I gather that's common). Ideally, we'd have a two-phone single plan (shared bucket of minutes), but so far those look more expensive than two individual plans. Maybe I just don't know where to shop. Carriers don't advertise their cheaper options sometimes; we couldn't find our current plan on Sprint's web site when we last looked for it.

We currently have Sprint for the cell phones. We like the phones and the service has been fine so far. We're not averse to buying new phones if we need to change carriers. We do both require phones that fit comfortably in a pocket, which presumably means flip-phones. We basically don't care about other features. We want to keep our phone numbers.

Who and what should we be looking at? What other questions should we be asking ourselves?

Comments

[rani23.livejournal.com]

I have a landline for emergencies and if people want to call me. I have no extras, no long distance -- because not only do you have to pay for that, but you also have to pay for extra taxes and fees that go with them. The landline is approximately $14 a month.

I also use my cellphone a heck of alot. I pay about $50 a month (Cingular) for my phone and have about 1500 minutes per month with unlimited weekends.

[cellio]

Thanks for the information. I hadn't considered that we might be paying fees just to have long distance on the line! If we can get the land line down to $14/month it'll be worth keeping around for incoming calls. Heck, if we pay a few cents more because we made some outgoing calls that's fine too.

[rani23.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, long distance has all sorts of fees and taxes on it, including the Universal Service Fees (which is a tax, not a fee...) and etc. I can go on at length about that sometime if you like...or not. :)