As most people we have a basic plan for our land line phone and no long distance plan. We use our cell phone for long distance calls. Well I noticed on my verizon bill that I am now being charged $5.00 shortfall charge for no long distance calls this month.
I just spent an hour on Google and didn't come up with any help except quitting Verizon and joining Comcast for my land phone.
Have you guys already been through this problem and come up with answers or advice?
Please chime in, this charge is really aggravating.
Thanks.
I've used SBC for several years and stayed with them when AT&T took over. Any time I thought about using one of the other alternitives (Verizon, Charter and soforth) after carefully looking at all the hidden charges and talking to folks who used their service I realized how well off I am with my carrier
I may not like them but its a reliable service and all charges are right up front and If I have a question it gets answered to my satisfaction. I'd call Verizon on that $5.00 charge. Its not costing them anything cause you don't use them for long distance. So Why should they charge you for not using them for long distance.
Besides you can always tell them that you calling the FCC to see if what they are doing is legeal and one more thing Read your contract with them very carefully.
I think a better question is, why do you still have a landline? I haven't had one in years and haven't once regretted it.
I'd avoid Comcast if I were you. If you must have a landline, consider a 3rd-party VoIP solution like Vonage.
According to all the googling I did yesterday it is legal. It was even practice back in the old days of ma'bell. The reason Verizon says they need to do it is to keep up the long distance network regardless that I use it or not. Kinda like paying school taxes if you don't have any kids.
My choice after calling them was putting a block on my phone to not allow long distance calls period. A $5.xx one time fee. Which kinda sucks because I would like to have the option to use my land phone for long distance if I want.
Than you must have a very good cell phone and be living in a high signal strength area. If I put my house and street on the my cell carriers signal map my whole neighborhood is in the one bar area. Just a half mile out is 3-4 bars.
So not having a land line is not an option unless I move. Now maybe if I hit the lottery I can get a 3G phone and pay for 3G network, but not currently on a single income.
As for VOIP my brother in law is using some form of that and it is crap. Everytime he calls I can feel my blood pressure rise. It's like trying to have a cell phone call with someone calling from inside a tunnel. Never had a good experience with that technolgy.
Why avoid Comcast?
1. You could look into a cell phone repeater. If you get decent enough signal to place/receive calls while standing outside your house, a repeater will allow you to have similar quality calls anywhere inside the house.
2. 3G is actually more limited in area than standard GPRS/EDGE, so if you're only getting "1 bar" with GPRS, chances are you are outside 3G coverage range anyway.
3. VoIP overall is a fairly robust technology. What kind of Internet connection does your brother-in-law have? What kind of connection do you have? Were either of you using the Internet for any other purpose at the time? Routers with built-in VoIP adapters usually have QoS (Quality-of-Service) capability, where it will reserve a specified part of your bandwidth specifically for VoIP calls. That way, you can be doing whatever else you want online without impacting the quality of a VoIP call.
4. A search on consumerist.com yields many reasons to avoid Comcast: http://consumerist.com/search/comcast/