Just another side of this. Warning - a loooong boring side.
We have SBC phone service here, and I understand that you have Verizon (I
have their cell service). Maybe Verizon's not as competitive as SBC, but
have you really checked on what they offer NOW? I used to hate SBC when
they first bought Ameritech, the old Illinois Bell, and raised our rates,
but they're become MUCH better and now offer some great deals.
We just changed our phone service (1 line). One line, unlimited LD, all the
extra features we could want, taxes, and DSL, for $69.00 per month total
bill.
We get unlimited long distance and local calling, Caller ID, Call Waiting,
Automatic Callback (*69), and Voice Mail, for $48.95 per month. Total bill,
no ups, no extras. A second line sounded pretty cheap to me, including the
same features, but I really don't recall how much it was. Call forwarding
is available just like VOIP but we just don't use it, ditto 3-Way Calling.
We can't get our voice mail on a computer, but we can get it from any phone
anywhere - and we have 4 mail boxes too, so I have one for business, Jill
and I each have one, and one for the kids.
We also get 1.5 Mbit DSL from SBC for another $19.95 per month, as a package
with the above phone service. If I want to upgrade to 3Mbit it would cost
$36.95 instead. I had 3Mbit for a few months after a couple years at
768Kbit, and while it was clearly faster than that, I went for this package
price and don't notice much difference now. So many web sites are on slow
connections or overloaded anyway.
And 1.5 Mbit still beats the 3.5Mbit+ cable modem much of the time - we had
Comcast broadband for the past 3 months and when it was fast it was great,
but when it slowed down (demand in the neighborhood ?) it was glacial. DSL
is pretty much all one speed. And cable modem costs $43.95 per month on top
of our basic cable that's already almost $50. Comcast is the one I'd like
to dump now - 60 channels of commercials and nothing to watch.
Bottom line, while I once would have jumped at any chance to ditch SBC and
try VOIP, the big phone companies must see the competition and at least SBC
has more than met them. I really like making a long distance call any time
I want, crystal clear. No worry about using the cell phone after 9 or on
weekends, etc.
And none of the "It works pretty well" that people seem to be saying about
VOIP. It's a real phone, with all the bells and whistles, at a competitive
price.
YMMV, but it'd be a shame not to check one last time before investing time
and $$ jumping ship.
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