Comments on: Landline Downsize – The Saga Continues

By: MasterPo

MasterPo — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:44:27 +0000

I have AT&T for long distance and the cost is absurd!! Going to drop it. I rarely make long distance calls. If I need to I’ll use my cell.

Too bad, I am an AT&T shareholder.

By: David L.

David L. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:39:45 +0000

I got rid of my landline years ago. I could not justify paying two phone bills, and I found that I used my cell phone most of the time anyway. As long as I have good cell coverage, I am not going back to a landline.

By: Nancy

Nancy — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:31:23 +0000

I don’t deal with it. I just have no landline. Now THAT’S frugal.

By: AC

AC — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:45:12 +0000

When my wife and I got married in January and moved into a new apartment, we decided that we barely needed a landline, since we both used our cellphones as our primary numbers. We decided to try out MagicJack (www.magicjack.com), which gives us a year of service for a one-time flat rate ($40, I think, but I don’t remember).

They send you a little piece that attaches to a USB port on your computer at one end and a standard phone on the other end. We’ve found that it isn’t perfect – the call quality isn’t always the best, though it got much better when we used a wired connection (rather than wireless) on that computer. Also, the computer sometimes stops recognizing the USB device when we wake it up from hibernating, though a simple restart of the computer makes it all better. And, of course, the computer needs to be on for us to use the phone.

MagicJack also comes with free caller ID (at least on the computer screen – not sure about using a phone with caller ID or a box) and voicemail – if I don’t answer or if the computer isn’t on, a .wav file (standard audio format) is sent to my email (and, thanks to GMail’s filters, it’s forwarded to my wife’s email too so we can both hear it).

The best part? I paid them in January and don’t hear from them all year.

By: PW

PW — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:12:33 +0000

AT&T has definitely caused me much stress in the yrs I have had them and I am trying to move.Every few months my fax line bill is incorrect,and I end up calling AT&T every mo. to see what the “real bill” is.I get late notices threats on the 19th of the mo. to pay my bill or else when the payment is due 26th of the month. Huh? How can a bill be late when it isn’t even due yet-after several yrs of dealing with this I just gave up-they said it is because of the due date of my bill, again, huh? Short story, they are terrible,and never fix or credit what they say they will.Moving from them is on my list of “to-dos” but not a top priority. It should be though.