We've been kicking around the idea of disconnecting our land line for some time now. But kicking old habits are hard and this one didn't go without a fight.
Let me start from the beginning. We've had this phone number since 1988. That means that everyone knows it. All business that is transacted has this phone number for a contact number. Not only did we have a land line but we were also using dial up. Which is an absolute pain.
Over the years, we have had bouts of really poor reception on our phone. Our telephone provider is Verizon. I would call and complain about the reception. The call usually resulted in a long wait before someone would answer. The standard drill would be for them to tell me that I needed to go outside and plug a phone into the grey box. If there wasn't any static, it meant that my inside wiring was to blame. Now I pay $2 something a month for inside wiring plan but that didn't make any difference to these people. Also it doesn't sound like a big deal to plug your phone into a little grey box to check the reception. But in our case it did. All of our phones need 110v to operate. I just wasn't going to go buy a phone for diagnostic purposes only. My bill was already too high.
The last 3 years have been a constant battle with Verizon to keep Sprint and MCI off our bills. A normal month for us is 9 calls. No really, 9 calls. Probably 8 of those were attempts to get online using dial up. Now for the real kicker...our bill is normally $47.00. No really....47 big ones. Now before you say..."well disconnect caller id, 3 way calling, etc etc". We have none of that. The only extra I have authorized is that stupid inside wiring plan. I have tried to lower our bill or speak with someone but they refuse to talk to me. They insist on speaking with my husband because his name is on the bill. R doesn't take care of any of the bills. I take care of all paperwork etc.
The final straw was in the last few weeks when all of a sudden we have gotten a rash of telemarketing calls.........at 8:30 and 9:00 AM. Yup...that's right. Now that may not be a big deal to you but I don't arrive back home from work until 3AM and usually the earliest I crawl into bed is 4AM.
Add all this up. Bad reception, high $$$$, impending elections with please vote for "candidate's name", and dial up. It all added up to....kill the land line and go cable Internet. Dollar wise it is cheaper. $47 for land line, $28 for AOL=$75 Cable Internet=$19.99 for 6 months and then $42.00 a month.
But first we had to get Verizon to turn off our phone. Took 3 hours......and two phone calls to me at work from R to get it disconnected. Seems his first attempt didn't go too well. I had made a list of why we were shutting off our phone, bad reception too much $$$, yadda yadda yadda. I wrote down the phone number for him to call. 1-800-Verizon sucks or something like that. He calls and after going through the long menu, he is put on hold for 15 minutes. Finally he is connected to someone with a heavy accent and practically no grasp of the English language. She refused to cancel the phone because he didn't have a copy of the bill in front of him. He told her if she thought by giving him the run around it was going to keep our phone on, she was sadly mistaken.
So he hung up and called me at work. He needed to know how much our last bill was? I told him and he called Verizon back. This time he was connected to an English speaking person. He explained the whole deal to her and get this......."Oh Sir, we can lower your bill to $17.60." What in the world. All the other times we complained about our bill being too high, we were always told that's the lowest plan we offer. Completely unreal. He was able to have her disconnect and we are now free....free...free at last!!!!!
I would suggest looking at your land line bill. Look at all the little charges. 2 something for this, 3 something for that. It all adds up to too much. Especially when you can have cable Internet for less money.
I'm waiting for all the big phone companies to start crying how they have lost customers and will need to lay off people. I say, "Too bad." I'm just concerned that there are a lot of elderly people who need their land lines and the phone companies are taking advantage of them.
We decided not to get a landline 3 years ago for the very same reasons! It was just too expensive. We've lived without it for 3.5 years, and have only missed it once... when my husband was out of town and I couldn't find MY cell phone anywhere. I just wanted to call it to make it ring! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm seriously considering getting rid of my land line, too. We only use it for dialup, too, and it is a big pain in the hiney! Every room in my house--including the bathrooms!--had phone jacks when we bought it, but only the one in the dining room works anyway. You may have just talked me into it!
ReplyDeleteWe have been with out a land line for about 5 years. It wasn't so bad in our smaller house, but since we've moved into the underconstruction, ThirteenEleven, I have trouble making it to where I've left the phone before it stops ringing. I need a spot in the central part of the house to keep the cell. But that needs to be finished first. We had sooo much trouble with our land line and Terrible customer service. I think land lines will soon be a thing of the past, mostly due to poor customer service.
ReplyDeleteReally once you've added everything up and looked at the pros and cons, it's a no brainer. The only thing I would do different is probably pay the money to install the Internet and then see if I could slip the cable guy a $20 to install the router. Once everything is in place, it's stress free. No unwanted calls, no dial up, no wires everywhere, and most important less money. Another thing is I would watch the ads and look for coupons etc and save on the card and router. Also get the router/card combo that gives you the longest distance. Once you're wireless, you'll want to roam. I can't wait to go outside, sit in the shade, and shop on eBay.
ReplyDeleteI agree. they will be a thing of the past due to their terrible customer service.