Gettin ready to "Cut the Cord"

[Bud]

RANT ON

 

It's hard to say goodbye to a friend that we have known over 31 years and has cost us tens of thousands of dollars, but we are getting ready to get rid of our land line.

 

The icing on the cake (NOT the only reason for doing so) was when I called last night to ask about long distance charges. On hold for 27 minutes and was told, 54 times, the next available service rep will be with you only to then be told their center was closed and call back tomorrow!!!

 

BTW they charge $10 to cancel long distance and charge nothing to discontinue service all together. Guess who chose to save the $10 charge. ;D;D;D

 

Customer service my A##.

 

Goodbye AT&T. ;D;D;D

 

They told me that I wouldn't have the convenience of 911 knowing my location. I told them I had to use my cell phone to call in all the trouble reports when my line was down and couldn't have called 911 during all those times.

 

PS I heard that they are considering raising rates as they have fewer customers over which to spread the costs. Hmmmm, wonder why that could be? Wanna bet they call me back and offer me a better rate if I return? Everyone else does when you cancel. I always ask them why the didn't give me that rate as a loyal customer. They never have an answer.

 

Now what to do with that extra $500 per year?

RANT OFF

 

[Jake]

Ditto's. Cut 'em off two month's ago - don't miss a thing about it, certainly not the telemarketers.

 

Now I'm looking for my next victim - I'm thinking Comcast, those bastages...

[OoPEZoO]

 

I've never had a land line and don't think I ever will.

[bakerzdosen]

I was pretty happy to dump Qwest for my VoIP line. Of course, I got screwed there (SunRocket for those in the know) about a year and a half into it, but I was back up and running with another carrier a couple days.

 

I found it a bit ironic how, at the time, I had to use my Qwest DSL to report phone outages. My DSL only went down once in the years I had it. Not so with my landline.

 

I personally really like the concept of a landline (as there are people that I just don't want to have my cell phone number, but I'm fine with them having my landline as I can block numbers pretty easily there.) However, the phone companies' implementations of local phones is just lousy, so I'm pretty happy with my voip line.

[yabadabapal]

Congrats on the change. But as business goes, do you think the cell or moble phone companies will do the same to us as the land line companies have done, once they get dominantly entrenched in the market.

[BULLman]

Did the same thing this week. Not because of my dissatisfation, my unemployment

 

I use 9 minutes on my cell @$47, but I got all inclusive local and long distance for $60. [At one time, I was making 83+ local calls at 25 cents apiece. - this plan saved me $$$]

 

I am still using my DSL, but they are charging me less now! WTF

 

Still haven't figured what to do with my long distance, but since the only person I really called are my parents, and they are in Murphy. I can eventually put them on one of MYcircle-Alltel numbers.

 

If I got nationwide thru Alltel, NC isn't covered

 

I guess I'll get a phone card for those few times I need to make a LD call.

 

Funny thing, is that I starting a new job on Monday and they will provide me will a cell w/unlimited minutes. I might turn off my cell and turn on my landline.

 

The business cell is from Metro PCS, but I haven't read any good reviews [No contract and I can't put up charges on it] , so I might keep my cell for a while.

[Paul_Burkett]

I would cut the cord on the LL, but SWMBO will not give me the pleasure of dumping the phone company.

[Bheckel169]

About a month ago we did the same. I have to keep a landline for my business at home, but I'm still going through a few habitual withdrawal syptoms, eg, coming into the house and checking for messages on a phone that doesn't exist, etc. I'm getting used to it.

Bruce

[Gregori]

The only reasons we've not yet cut the landline are 911 (as previously mentioned) and easy use of a Fax machine.

 

I'd have to say that the 911 is something I'm pretty comfortable living without. (At conservatively ~$250 a year, it's awfully expensive 'insurance' against not being able to remember your own address.)

 

However, I haven't yet found a good alternative to the Fax use. I know there are internet accessible alternatives, but haven't found one I like, yet...

 

 

 

 

[Fightingpiper]

We went VoIP about 4 years ago and don't miss the land line and its associated cost.

[Bud]

We went VoIP about 4 years ago and don't miss the land line and its associated cost.

 

You you mind telling us who your VoIP provider is and how the service is?

[Ken H.]

Yeah, as part of our most recent move we went cell phone only too.

[tallman]

I miss our party line days.

That was always something that could liven up a slow evening.

[yabadabapal]

I dont like cell phones. Never have, never will. What i do is pay a annual rate for unlimited long distance on my land line and it covers all nation wide and most international calling 24 hours a day. And with my internet service from quest, my bill each month is about 125.00, which I think is a pretty good deal.

I do have a cell phone in the car that has never had service. The law states that even if you dont have service on a cell phone, it has to accept and transfer calls to 911. So I can call 911 from my car in an emergency and there is no cost.

[Bullett]

Qwest lost our business about two years ago. We kept having outages on our land line that also took out the DSL.

 

Every time it rained, the phone had a buzzing feedback noise. Some times you could hear other people talking. The last straw was when I picked up my phone to make a call and couldn't get a dial tone because there was someone else talking on my phone line.

 

What 911 access is that? The phone company's "excuse" was the advanced age of the trunk lines in our area . . . well gee, if they don't work and are continually shorting out shouldn't they be replaced? Not on the agenda though.

 

Accordingly, we got cell phones. I am always leaving mine at home or at work or on the bike or in the car, so its really not much of a bother to "always carry" the darn thing.

 

 

[John Ranalletta]

Anybody try the MagicJack?

[motoguy128]

Congrats!

 

I'm still stuck with the phone company since IMO the only thing worse than the phone company is the cable company. So I'll keep DSL for now to avoid having Cable internet. Dish based internet is still too expensive.

[Joel]

I cut the cord in May when we sold our house. Never had particularly bad service from Qwest, but I was begrudging them the $40/month I was paying them for something I hardly used. My cell plan usually has more than enough minutes, and no LD charges.

 

This may have come back to bite me in an unexpected way. To make a short story long: Our new residence is rural and has Qwest's lines running on the power poles that serve our property. We're currently re-routing and burying some of the electric service, and we plan to retire the power pole closest to our house. The REA has been quite attentive, but since I'm not a Qwest customer anymore, I've had to raise Hell to get Qwest's attention and permission to bury the phone line in the same trench. I started calling Qwest's local engineer (the guy everyone said should be in charge of this) on August 21. On November 14, after repeated phone calls and complaints, culminating in begging the Qwest rep who handles my law firm's business telephone account to intervene (this is NOT his job), some Qwest lackey dumped a big spool of cable in my driveway and drove off without making contact or giving any explanation. Hope he shows up Monday to finish his work. Moral of the story: if you dump your landline service, it might be a challenge to get the phone company to pay attention if you need to make improvements that involve their infrastructure. OTOH, given Qwest's reputation for customer service, I probably would have had to raise Hell even if I had been a customer.

[stubble!]

Although I love cell phones for convenience, I won't use it as my only phone. I find the voice delay/latency annoying for anything but brief conversations.

 

I still have a land line, but no services on it ($10/mo). Just use it for DSL, and then use AT&T CallVantage IP service ($25/mo). It's very reliable and works great over the DSL. Even after you count the land line, we're paying much less for home phone than we were with normal service (ironically, also via AT&T). Bonus, our phone number is local to my mom a few towns north. We chose this so she can call without concern.

 

Also, the throw-away land line doubles as a work line for me, which works well as my office phone system is an IP system that always dials me, so I don't need to make outgoing calls from this line.

[smiller]

In my case there isn't any real economic benefit from terminating landline service. Since I have DSL (my only Internet option) I still have to pay the FCC line access charge and a bunch of taxes whether I have voice service or not. That makes the voice service component of the bill so small that there's no point in disconnecting it. I would think that this would be the same for most DSL customers(?)

[BULLman]

In my case there isn't any real economic benefit from terminating landline service. Since I have DSL (my only Internet option) I still have to pay the FCC line access charge and a bunch of taxes whether I have voice service or not. That makes the voice service component of the bill so small that there's no point in disconnecting it. I would think that this would be the same for most DSL customers(?)

 

I'll let you know. I was able to turn off the landline, but keep the DSL. The price for DSL was cheaper because of 1yr contract, but I have to pay thru credit card.

[Bud]

The part I missed, but was pointed out by my son, is that I can take my land line number and transfer it to my existing cell phone!

 

Sweet

[BULLman]

The part I missed, but was pointed out by my son, is that I can take my land line number and transfer it to my existing cell phone!

 

Sweet

 

One bad thing is the solicitors that bother you at dinner time will also have your number

[Bud]

Only have one that doesn't understand the Federal Do Not Call law.

 

Credit Services is what they call themselves. Slime of the earth. But they don't bother me because I ask for the name of the person on the other end, document the day and time and inform them they are in violation of Federal law and they have nothing else to say except "click" when they hang up.

 

Other than that we have ZERO telemarketing calls.

[rob1100r]

I would 'cut the cord' in a heartbeat, but my cell service (does not matter who the carrier is) is sporadic in my house, so I need the landline unfortunatley...At least the cellphone will ring, but when I answer it, it cuts out, then I need the landline to return the caller...

[baggerchris]

We live way up in the mountains with very spotty cell service and terrible dial up. I will dump the land line as soon as we are able.

[too old to care]

We cut the cord more than a year ago. The only things we miss are the wonderful calls at dinner time trying to sell us more insurance, or aluminum siding, or other things we do not need or want. The “Do Not Call” list was a joke.

 

After we cut the line we wrote letters to a few callers telling them how upset we were because we had to go to such extremes to get some peace and quiet. One of them even wrote back and told us that they had a right to call us even we were on the Do Not Call list because they had called us in the past. They then requested for our cell number, which they never got.

 

[yabadabapal]

Here is wome supportive info on your emotional sendoff of your old friend, Mr. telephone.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/11/five-gadget-whi.html?npu=1&mbid=yhp