What Long Distance company

[CRG_80cc]

What do you guys use for long distance company on your home phone? I don't make any at all from the home phone (use my cell phone if I have to) but like to have one just in case. I had MCI when they didn't charge a fee if you didn't make a call. But they started charging $5.99 and couldn't justify paying $72/year for something I don't really use.

Doing a search, I saw Pioneer Telephone which is pretty cheap ($0.027/minute) and no monthly fee; anyone use them? AT&T doesn't seem to get good reviews and is $0.10/minute and $2.95 fee/month.

Any suggestions welcome. Thanks.

 

[TizMe]

We use Vonage for our phone service and it cost us I think $35.00/month (us$). That includes unlimited calling and free long distance to anywhere in the USA,Canada and a few other places. You have to have cable modem service for this VoiP because it works through your internet service so our internet is through Comcast. The ONLY trouble is with VoiP if your internet goes down so does your phone service but for $35.00/month and maybe some inconvenience once in awhile I will take it over AT&T's $90.00 or more. With Vonage all the accessories like call forwarding,voice mail,caller id, call forwarding etc are all INCLUDED in the price.

You have to purchase a phone router to connect to your cable modem which if I remember right was like $50.00 and it pays for itself in a few months with the $$$ your saving from these other monopoly jerks and their high prices! Other than that its cheap reliable phone service and we havent had any trouble with it.

 

[The Mermaid Queen]

We also use vonage, though I though the final cost was more like $30 (our base price was $25). We also got in on a deat that we got a nice rebate for our router after 90 days of service, and we chose the wireless router so the computers are now networked.

I occasionally have to reset the router, but I don't know if that is a vonage problem, or a problem with the router. I have found the vonage to be just a tiny bit less reliable than Cinci Bell... some dropped calls, and sometimes it cuts out for a couple seconds in the middle of a conversation.

The only other drawback to the vonage or other VoiP that I can think of is that if you lose power, you also lose your phone. With traditional phone service, or even through your cable provider, your phone is independent of your electricity, provided you have a corded phone somewhere in the house.

Before we got the vonage, we had no long distance on our land line, and had canceled our cell phones, so we used calling cards, like you get at Wally World, or even cheaper at Sam's. We do not make a lot of long distance calls.

 

[TizMe]

Grace, We have one of the virtual numbers through Vonage for my wifes best freind who lives in another state so thats why ours is about $35.00 a month. The virtual number is like $4.99. I may be wrong on the total price but thats the figure that comes to mind .....lol

BUT ITS STILL A HECK OF A LOT CHEAPER THAN REGULAR PHONE SERVICE !!!

 

[MikeInTN]

I'd say go with AT&T, but then again, I work for those "monopoly jerks", so I may be a bit biased.