Long Distance Shopping

[bjarvis]

Not shopping over a long distance, but shopping for a long distance service provider for our residential telephone.

MCI has been our residential long distance provider for years but they're getting out of the residential business. I'm sure the default long distance charges via our local provider (Verizon) will be horrendous so I'm looking into possibilities for a replacement provider.

Verizon has a couple of packages offered online but it's not clear how much calls to Canada would cost --our major long distance destination. I went online to check with our mobile phone providers about their long distance rates but they're even more ambiguous.

I'll have to talk to a human at some point to get this sorted out. Ew.

Comments

[pectopah.livejournal.com]

We have been using Vonage for 5 years now and are quite happy. We have a Montreal number and a Burlington, VT number. It is a VoIP service and we've used it on DSL and Cable setups. For US Vonage, with 2 phone numbers and unlimited calls is about $40/month and we can call several places in Europe at no charge. And, you can keep your existing number. The one potential drawback is that your number won't show up in directory assistance searches (which isn't something we were particularly concerned about).

[abqdan.livejournal.com]

I liked the Vonage service, but it doesn't work with alarm systems that have central monitoring and it was randomly successful with faxes; so though we tried it, we went back to a traditional service in the end.

[pectopah.livejournal.com]

Faxes--that is an issue. We considered getting a Vonage fax line, but we don't send faxes often enough to make it worthwhile.

I don't have a central alarm system, so I hadn't even considered that possibility.

[deege.livejournal.com]

I have Vonage and it works fine with my Brinks (now Broadview)centrally-monitored alarm system. They asked me to sign an agreement saying I'd test it once a week (which I do) and it always works.

In fact, I know it works because my cleaning service seems to regularly set off my alarm and then Brinks calls me at work to ask if they should call the police. Then I don't have to test that week! :0

All in all, I heartily recommend Vonage. It's cheap as dirt, I still have my NY number plus my VA one, and I've never had a service disruption in five years except when the router died (and they sent me a new, better one for free).

[abqdan.livejournal.com]

I'm glad they've improved the service. The (geek) problem is that you are taking a digital signal, changing it to analog, then back to digital twice in order to get a message through from the house to the alarm company. That doesn't work in a lot of cases, but I guess they've found a way around it. Our alarm company (ADT) will not support a Vonage connection, but they apparently do have a deal with Comcast now if you use their internet phone service.

I think fax is still a problem unless you get an extra 'fax line' from them.