Things I Did Not Know About Phone Service
1. Dry Loop DSL is DSL service without a telephone line. I didn’t know you could get this until I met Jericho Hill at a DC PF Blogger happy hour a few months back. (Email me if you want to be on the invite list. I am somehow the unofficial keeper and we do like to host out-of-towners.) JH lives in my neck of the woods and told me he gets dry loop because it’s cheap and he uses a cellphone as his main line. I always thought you needed a phone line to get DSL. Imagine that. (Technically, I know that it’s not necessary being that it can be carried without a POTS line into the house. I’m not that dumb. But when it was first available it was always sold in a bundled package and I was not aware that had changed.)
2. In my desperation to feel like I’m doing something, rather than nothing to be frugal, reduce my expenses, pay down debt, etc., I called Verizon. It turns out that I have close to the barest bones phone service available so that can’t get any cheaper than $22.53 a month. Dial tone is dial tone and it comes at a flat rate. That price includes most, if not all, of the taxes and the unlisted number fee, which is my only optional service.
3. I can also get DSL for $31.99 for a 12-month contract. Very interesting. I tell the guy that I don’t want to get anything longer because I might be moving away out of state. (That returning to CA fantasy of mine.) The agent tells me that if I was going to move to a destination where Verizon does not provide service, I WILL NOT HAVE TO PAY A CANCELLATION FEE ON THE CONTRACT. For all of you movers out there, this is something very good to know. They also do not make you pay it if you are moving from one location to another and retain Verizon as your provider.
The new DSL pricing means I save about $6 bucks a month. ($5.94 to be exact) It’s not a lot, but that’s what I pay for lunch at the yummy in-house cafeteria. I had a hard time deciding whether or not to keep my phone line. I like having a land line for security reasons because I still don’t trust E911 services off of anything other than a POTS line on a dedicated circuit to the dispatcher. (Stupid technical telecom knowledge I know from work. Woe unto me for the knowledge. I pay a lot for the insurance of reaching the cops when I need them.)
So I kept the phone line but got the reduced rate for DSL. Something rather than nothing. I can still call back and cancel the land line. I was actually surprised at how easy it was once I got a human being on the phone. The automated voice menu is kind of slow and tedious, but it did get me an agent fairly quickly once it decided I didn’t fit the menu options.
Millionster wrote:
Where I live at AT&T wouldn’t let me get DSL with out their phone service.. which I never use the stupid land line — so I got their metered service instead — which is about $8/mo! lol. That’s definitely a lot cheaper than the $35/mo they were charging me to have phone spammers harassing me at all hours of the day. Now I get harassed for less lol. Or I just turn the ringer off! hehe
Posted on 04-Oct-07 at 6:45 pm | Permalink
Millionster wrote:
Sorry just wanted to add that I had to beat the metered service plan out of the cust svc rep — they almost didn’t want to tell me about it!
Posted on 04-Oct-07 at 6:46 pm | Permalink
Chief Family Officer wrote:
Do you have any idea why DSL rates are so widely varied across the country? Or maybe you have a faster speed than we do. But we pay $20 per month with AT&T (our phone service is with them also but not bundled). Seems odd to me, given that DC and LA are both high cost of living areas.
Posted on 04-Oct-07 at 8:12 pm | Permalink
Clever Dude wrote:
You obviously don’t read my or Nick’s sites. He did a very good writeup of naked DSL (dry loop) months ago and I wrote something up a while ago too. I’ll forgive you.
Some things to note:
- I get dry loop up here in MD for 26.99 per month final price. It’s the 768kbps. I also have Vonage and it mostly works fine at that speed.
- If you drop your phone line and add dry loop DSL, they’re going to renew your 1 year contract and charge the ETF if you cancel. I’d like to switch to cable internet for the higher speed, but I have to wait till spring.
- They’ll require your CC to bill it each month.
There’s other nuances, but if you just don’t need the home phone, then think about it. But also consider the early termination fee, and maybe look into cable internet prices (there’s always specials)
Posted on 04-Oct-07 at 9:00 pm | Permalink
mapgirl wrote:
Millionster: Good to know about the metered service. I’m not sure my CLEC provides that, but I will ‘beat it out of them’ as you suggest. (A CLEC is a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier. Sorry to get technical, but I work in telecom.) As far as the telemarketers go, I only plug the phone in when I need to make a call.
Chief Family Officer: I believe pricing is at what the market will bear. The more Local Exchange Carriers there are, the more competitive pricing will be. I suspect that where I live, there aren’t that many LECs operating. (Also technically, I get my service from the existing RBOC entity, aka Regional Bell Operating Company. The formal term now I guess is ILEC, Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier)
Clever Dude: I never, ever, EVER read your site.
Clearly you don’t read mine either. I just posted that I don’t trust VOIP service. I will never use cable as a phone provider. What’s the point of Comcast to me anyway? I don’t own a tv and don’t need their endless marketing crap to buy more of what I don’t need. I suppose I could ask them for dry loop DSL service, but I don’t trust the cable company to set it up properly and it would require some new equipment. UGH. After the work week I’ve had, I’d rather gouge out my eyeballs than deal with hardware.
Posted on 04-Oct-07 at 9:29 pm | Permalink
Mrs. Micah wrote:
Mr. Micah and I stuck with cell phones since we couldn’t get anything better than $20/month for landlines. We’ve got great receptions. Now, we considered not having cells, but that doesn’t seem practical right now.
Posted on 05-Oct-07 at 6:26 am | Permalink