Life without a house phone (and a Vonage Update)
on 10.20.04, 01:35pm in life • comments (8)
I talked with Vonage this morning in regards to yesterdays post. Apparently my account was terminated “in error” (something about me wanting to use it with both static and dynamic IP, a conversation we’ve never had), and they would have to open up an incident report and restart the entire line transfer process, etc.
Based on my initial experience, I decided to still cancel the service and under the terms of their “money back guarantee”, so they are going to refund the $110 that they’ve already charged me as soon as they get the device back.
To be fair, the customer service representive was polite and figured out what happened pretty quickly, but the initial experience really left me unimpressed. Apparently, I’m not the only one who’s had problems. To be fair though, I personally know a few people on the service who really like it.
This whole mess has me wondering: Is a dedicated house phone really necessary any more?
Both Liz and I have cell phones with a massive amount of minutes and as Eric points out, the costs are just ridiculous. Anyone out there just drop their home phone, and go cell only?
Justin Rudd (October 20, 2004 @ 2:20 pm)
I have a phone line mainly because I have DSL through Verizon. But I have no features on the line, and I don’t even have a phone plugged into a jack (unless you count my Tivo).
We (my wife and I) have a SprintPCS plan right now with unlimited night and weekend minutes (nights starting at 7 PM) and unlimited long distance. Costs us a little over a hundred when you include all the taxes and e911 service.
So far SprintPCS hasn’t impressed me living in Seattle. I’ve had more dropped calls in a week then I had in the 4 years I lived in Phoenix. So I’m looking at Verizon, T-Mobile, ATT, and Cingular. Any recommendations?
Justin Rudd (October 20, 2004 @ 2:21 pm)
Oh yeah…I forgot to mention that I had Vonage when I was in Phoenix. I didn’t get it for the long distance. I got it for the virtual phone numbers. I setup two virtual phone numbers in area codes that my parents and my in-laws could call without being charged long distance. But that alone isn’t worth $50 a month.
Ron Green (October 20, 2004 @ 3:25 pm)
Been without a house phone for almost two years. No problems, no regrets.
john ludwig (October 20, 2004 @ 3:44 pm)
i’ve been unwilling to drop my qwest line because of lifeline services — 911, and power failures. i could probably get around the power failure concern with a small ups but the 911 issue is real.
Brandon Furtwangler (October 20, 2004 @ 4:58 pm)
I haven’t had a land line in about 3 years. I’m a college student, so everyone has cell phones and it’s pointless to pay for a land line that never gets used. In fact, it seems strange to think that someone WOULD have a land line, but I think thats just because I’m out of touch with the real world.
Bruce (October 20, 2004 @ 7:33 pm)
I got Vonage recently, and I like it so far. Setup was a snap, and you can’t beat the price - all you can eat for $25 a month. We have cable modem, so we don’t need our regular phone service any more. On the minus side, we’re still waiting for the phone-number transfer to take effect; its been a while…
Beau (October 20, 2004 @ 11:14 pm)
Haven’t had an actual land-line phone at home is nearly 4 years. Cellular is cheap enough these days.
JeffMc (October 21, 2004 @ 12:13 am)
I signed up for Vonage a while back. no problems. $25 a month for all you can eat is pretty good. Since I have to call the LD every night a couple of times, saves big time over the Qwest monopoly. With a small APC350 UPS, I can keep the cable modem and phone unit alive.