Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Let's talk PHONES

We are going on 2 weeks without a home phone. We've had Vonage for years and it suddenly stopped working 2 Fridays ago. Jimmy has spent 2 or 3 hours on the phone with them and one time they decided it was our phone (whatever!) and then the next guy said they would send us a new box... only it's been almost a week since they said it would take 3-5 days.

Vonage has done okay for us and we like that it is only $25/month for unlimited local and long distance. And we can have our voicemail forwarded to our email which makes it quick to check. Generally we don't have many problems with it. If the power or internet goes out we don't have phone though because it runs through your computer.

But I'm about fed up with the service.

So here's the debate:


Jimmy already has a blackberry for work. I have a dinky cell phone that costs $0.25 a minute and is really for emergencies or 'I'm here to pick you up' situations.

Should I just get a cell phone and we'll have no home phone? Has anyone done that and what did you think?

I remember years ago I decided to get a cell phone for long distance but it was frustrating because I didn't want all my conversations to echo or be fuzzy. But perhaps technology is better these days.

I'm plum tired of not being able to call my fam or companies for our move. What to do!!??!!??

5 comments:

Marne said...

Glad you brought this up, because I am in the same boat. We are wanting to swtich our internet and found a deal through Clearwire where you get home phone (like Vonage) with long distance, 40 DISH channels, and wireless internet for $70 a month. Screaming deal! But I just don't know if I can live without a land line....ahhhh! We still haven't decided. Right now we are spending $83 a month for phone and internet alone.

Anonymous said...

for 3 years now we have both had cell phones and no home phone. it works great and totally makes sense. there's no need for a home phone if you have your cell phone with you at home. right?

Alisa said...

I have had my cell phone as the home phone a number of times in different places we have lived. I like it for a lot of reasons. It is just so easy and it seemed like I didn't get as many telemarketers. It was nice because I could see who was calling and if I didn't know the number, I just wouldn't answer.
Now we have a home phone but really the only people that call on it are people from the ward or neighbors because the cell is long distance. We are getting rid of the home phone because it just isn't worth paying for it, for such few calls. So I would say, go for the cell phone!! There you have it, my two cents.

katie and co. said...

Hmmmm...this is a hard one. We have done the whole vonage thing (we tried it once in Utah and for several months here) and it really didn't work out for us either. I got completely fed up with it. I think we just got the best deal we could through Qwest or AT & T and just bit the bullet. We considered doing just the cell phone thing, but I decided that there's something about having a "family phone" and my husband agreed. Don't know if it helps or not...it's just our experience. Good luck figuring it out!

Anonymous said...

My fam currently is just using cell phones and it really stinks!! It seems like whenever a call comes in I can never hear the phone because it's always in a different room than the one I am in or whenever i have to make a call I can't find the phone because i've lost it somewhere in the house... just a thought. I think a family phone is the way to go!!!