sulution and questions to our phone bill

[myrandaandkids]

ok we live in an area where there is only service from one company and everyone including us hates them, since they are the only company they charge out the ...you know what, my phone bill was nearly $300 this month!!anything more than 10 miles from me is long distance!! and i pay $5 permonth plus a 25cents for every longdistance call i make and 5cents for every minute, not to mention i have the fastest dial up available out here and it freezes or shut off all the time because of noise on the old lines or over load, soooo we are going wirless, we found a company that will hook up fixed wireless internet in our area for $200 and a payment of $50 permonth and a cell company that offers phone services in our are with free longdistance no roaming as long as we are in the state, and unlimited minutes for only $48 per month, so so our total bill for wireless internet and phone will be under $100 yay!!!! right now we are paying just over $310 permonth for land line and dial up, and this system will boost my internet speed!! but....how do i change my email address where i am a member...like here for instance? and has any one ever done this switch yet? any downside to this?

[Christiaan]

I just switched last week. Go to User CP up in the tool bar and then to Edit Email & Password. Simple as pie.

[anniew]

Perhaps I don't understand your information. I can't possibly understand paying $300 a month for phone use.
At 5 cents a minute, even with the other charges, you must use an awful lot of minutes.
My basic phone costs about $30 a month, then less than $20 for internet (dial-up) and then I buy phone cards of about $150 a year! That's a grand total of less than $65 including the internet (which I use partially for income purposes).
I guess you have a higher income than some of us because $300 would break my bank.
Ann

[myrandaandkids]

it is breaking us, we pay $72 per month just for the phone line plus $5 per month for long distance plus 5cents per minute plus connection fees for every call, and since we live where there are no towns within 10 miles every time i make a call it is long distance and i get charged even if no one picks up we do use the phone alot since our daughter lives in another town as well as the rest of our family ect....in addition we also have a fee for maintaining the lines which is $10 and a free for having the line which is $15 not to mention all the taxes so even before any use we have already payed nearly $100 just to have the line, then $20 for internet, then all the calls,=a total bil of nearly $300

[knight88]

Myranda, check with your state Corporation commission, this is ridiculous. I am fairly sure even MN has a govt regulation system to protect people from such a ripoff. Even here in AZ its not that bad. Good luck. Andy

[Helena]

We are in the same situation as you are..But many years ago I bought and still use the same number..a calling card bought at Sam's club. I renew the minutes over the phone using my debit card and can buy about 600 minutes for $20.."some" dollars. I think it's like 3.5 cents a minute out of state and a fraction more for in state calling. BUT....I can control the cost. When the teenagers were home it was great. Being in a rural area even the high school was long distance and the girls knew that we only had XX amount of money to put on the card each month and when it was used up and ran out of minutes that was it for the month !! Sure.. it's takes a few minutes to punch in your code number and all but I think there is a way to program your phone so you don't have to do that with each call..but it's beyond me to figure that out. I will call my sister out of the area and she will call me back on her free phone service etc. It works for us..me personally...I could live without a phone..but maybe not really practical in these days... Get a phone card and save yourself the monthly phone bill !!

[e.alleg]

Can't you get a cell phone or get a flat-rate plan, I live in the middle of nowhere and pay a flat rate every month- unlimited LD in the USA.

[tamilee]

Hi Myranda;
We are in the SAME situation. WE pay approximately $215.00/month for phone service and internet access. We have a co-op; was a good thing but is now a monopoly. To lower our monthly fee, we discontinued our "bundle" that was suppose to save us money and went to the long distance carrier at $15.00/month plus 10 cents a minute for toll calls, not sure what they will slam us with for long distance. Anyway, we kept getting knocked off the internet so the phone company sent a technician to our house and he said we needed more memory on our computer so we purchsed an expensive memory card and doubled our memory. We still got knocked off and were told by the phone company's technicians that we needed a faster modem. Got that, nothing changed. (We have an internet business.) Still we got knocked off, couldn't send emails and the system was down for hours out of the day. The technician came to the house and said we needed high speed internet access. Got that. Every time the technician came to the house that was $150.00.
The problems aren't as bad now, we are down maybe one to two hours a day.
It seems like every six months we have either an increase in feess or a NEW fee added. We are frustrated by the whole thing. It would be great to chuck it but then our customers couldn't contact us nor would we be able to keep up with my dd's doctor appointments or call the pharmacy for her prescriptions or the medical supply people when her standing monthly order of medical supplies doesn't arrive.
I'd also miss the forum.
Anway, thanks for tolerating my rant. I jus wanted to share that many of us are in the same boat.
Tami

[myrandaandkids]

unfortunatly there are no flat rate programs in my area, its good to know im not the only one, i think we are going wireles, a total of $100 per month for cell phone and internet versus $300 for land line service, just hope there are no down sides to this switch that i am missing.

[tamilee]

Originally Posted by myrandaandkids

unfortunatly there are no flat rate programs in my area, its good to know im not the only one, i think we are going wireles, a total of $100 per month for cell phone and internet versus $300 for land line service, just hope there are no down sides to this switch that i am missing.

Hi Myranda;
I have heard about those plans and am wondering the same thing myself. They sound so good. My only drawback would be the internet access. When I first had internet service we paid by the minute so, we went to mindspring. It cost us $39.95/month for unlimited usage so we signed a two year contract. We later found out that we still had to pay the co-op the flat $39.95/month for use of their lines. I'm not sure if we wouldn't have the same situation. (Of course now we have unlimited internet access.) We went back to the co-op totally when they started offering unlimited internet access.
Keep us posted and let us know what you find out.
Tami

[oreo]

Do you have cable? I have my internet through my cable. I then ordered voicewing (Verizon's VOIP) for my phone calls. VOIP is voice over intenet. It is the same thing as Vonage. With taxes, I pay about $25 for unlimited phone calls anywhere. I found out how to disconnect my house from ma bell so that my rotary phones would work. I have both cordlesss (constantly misplaced) and corded phones (that DH can't leave outside, in the garage, on the car roof, et...). I can also have my calls forwarded to my cell phone (in case of power outage). You will lose phone service if you have no power (to run your modem for the internet). I LOVE IT! I made the switch after bellsouth kept calling me at dinner to add services. I did use the calling card like a previouse poster mentioned. I just programed speed dial #1 with the card # and then sd#2 was the pin #. I think you can get internet over satellite service. Switching my internet to cable from dial up gave me great internet connection speed and then allowed me to do my phone through it. My cable bill (TV and internet) is about $70 and then phone is $25. Way less than what you are paying for your phone. You might want to check out this option of cable or satellite internet and VOIP. HTH

[myrandaandkids]

we did that when we lived in town but there is no cable where we live,