Has anyone minimized their phone options to save money?

[amyamanda]

DH wants us to cut down our phone bill. We currently pay something like $75/mo just for the universal package we signed up for. It's basically unlimited long-distance calling with call-waiting, caller ID, and voicemail, with some other options we don't use. I'm not entirely sure I want to give up Caller ID but I'd do it reluctantly (I forgot to ask what it costs separately); I'm okay with giving up call-waiting; I want to keep voicemail at least until we can get a free working answering machine.

For about $55/mo I can get a plan with unlimited local and where I'd pay a cheaper rate per minute for long-distance calls, but voicemail is separate.

For about $30/mo I can get the plan where I pay per-minute for all local and long-distance calls, and then have to pay separately for voicemail if we want it ($6/mo). I am pretty sure the people we call out of state mostly have unlimited long-distance and would be willing to call me back to bear the 'cost' of the call.

It still sounds very expensive, even for supposedly bare-bones. We pay something like $13/month just in taxes and fees.

Cell is not an option here as the reception is spotty where we live.

We'd keep our DSL. We can't do Vonage with DSL, only cable internet, and cable was more expensive than DSL so we switched. We don't have cable TV service either.

DH would be happy to do without a phone altogether, but he's not home all the time with the kids like I am. We live rurally and homeschool and I want to be able to arrange playdates and make appointments by phone.

I would love to hear thoughts and suggestions on this. We'd really like to cut costs here as much as reasonably possible.

[Snowdrift]

nak

cable i-net with voip (sunrocket) would prolly be cheaper.

[starry_mama]

We pay about $115 a month for cable internet, unlimited phone, and cable tv through our cable provider. All of our families live out of state so we feel it is worth the money, because I like to chat with my mom whenever I want to. I could live without the tv,but my hubby can't . But then again, we have "on Demand" which is commercial free, so we can watch one episode of Bob the Builder and my 2yo thinks he's the luckiest kid on earth and its only about 15min long, so I guess the tv is ok...

[LEAW]

Why can't you do Vonage, Broadvoice, or any of the other VIOP services on yoru DSL?

We have a DSL line that does not need a phone line to run, we cancelled the home phone, got VOIP for $15/mo (it comes with ALL the stuff - 3way, CID, voicemail, etc) with limited minutes outgoing, unlimited incoming.

We cancelled cable, and we have a great cell plan we won't change because dh's company reimburses for his phone, and mine is $20 mo/add on fee.

So, $45 phone bill gone, sat TV bill gone, DSL charge actually went down when we switched from the plan that needed a phone line to the one that didn't, though it is a faster speed now.

[Alkenny]

Why can't you get Vonage with DSL?
From their site

In order to use Vonage service, you will need the following:

A Broadband Ethernet connection such as Cable or DSL.
A credit/debit card with U.S. billing and shipping address.
A Vonage phone adapter that is provided free, upon sign up through Vonage.
Any touch-tone phone, corded or cordless.

[Kleine Hexe]

I'm also asking why Vonage won't work with DSL. We actually have microwave internet service and Vonage works for us. Our phone bill was anywhere between $90 to $100+ a month. Now it's $30 with Vonage.

[skueppers]

I've never been willing to pay extra for features like call waiting and caller ID. As for voicemail, why not buy a $20 digital answering machine?

Of course, my parents didn't switch to touch-tone dialing until about 8 years ago, because they were unwilling to pay the extra $2 a month the phone company wanted for it back when it first became available.

[sweetfeet]

I was told that voip wouldn't work my dsl because my sbc dsl requires an active SBC phone line. So I could use voip for a secondary line or some such but not primary. However my total phone bill which includes call waiting, caller id, and something else and my dsl is $67/month. The dsl portion is just $14.95 and I'm going to call and cancel the long distance portion which is $10/mo for 300 minutes because my mommy bought me a cell to call her long distance with. Here cable internet is $40ish bucks a month and vonage would be $30 so it isn't any cheaper for me to switch.

[oldcrunchymom]

Vonage isn't available everywhere. It's just become available in our small town recently (even though we've had cable/dsl availability for years), and there are still many towns in our area code that don't have it.

[Kleine Hexe]

I just looked up Sunrocket and they actually beat Vonage prices. DH doesn't want to go through the trouble of switching again though. Maybe in a few months.

[LEAW]

FWIW, Kovad offers "one link" service - it's dsl that doesn't require an active phone line... we get ours through Speakeasy, and it's cheaper than the phone + dsl from the phone company.

[mfp02]

We were going to do VOIP, but our cable co. constantly drops our connection (another story in and of itself).

So we're cutting out landline completely. It's $40/month (including taxes/fees) just for local calls, not even LD is "active". So we'll only have our one cell phone for now, which is $20 every 3 months.

[shellynnrn]

I wanted to use Vonage, but if you have a home alarm system that goes thru the phone line...you can't get it

[amyamanda]

Trying to sort this out...so what is Kovad?

Dh is trying to figure out if we can get VOIP (just figured out what that meant, LOL) via DSL. He can't remember where he heard that we couldn't...maybe we can.

Thank you for the helpful...er...vocabulary words.