12-02-2009, 02:15 PM
After a recent incident where my wife was stuck at home without her cell phone we decided to go ahead and get a landline again. (We've been without one for about 5 years). I also needed a phone line for the fax machine we just got. We have Verizon FiOS TV and Internet service so I went online to check out their "Triple Freedom" plan that would give us home phone service too. I was expecting to see some good package deal but was a bit surprised and confused to see that it would actually cost about $45/mo more for just a basic phone plan.
I pay $98 a month for 20/5 Internet and their "Extreme" HDTV service which is all very nice but I am not interested in a near 50% increase just to add a phone that will rarely if ever get used.
I tried chatting online with one of their representatives "Raymond" (I am not convinced he wasn't just a robot) who was mostly unsuccessful in helping me. He said it would be $119 for the plan, but I had to repeatedly ask if that included the two set top boxes I have, turns out the answer is no, it would be $25 more which is actually more than I am paying for them now. The only benefit would be upgrading to the 25/15 Internet service, but honestly 20/5 is pretty darn fast already. If it were a free upgrade then cool, but I would rather save a few bucks and leave it capped at that.
So anyway, I dismissed Raymond and decided to check out Vonage. $17.99/mo for a basic plan, works with FiOS no problem. It even comes with a handful of services that Verizon was ready to charge more for. Of course there are additional regulatory fees, taxes and such that you cannot avoid so it comes out to just under $25 a month which I am still happy with. I even get a free month of service because I know someone else with a Vonage phone number.
So hopefully it works as well as I expect it will. Need to dig out my old wired phone from the attic I guess.
I pay $98 a month for 20/5 Internet and their "Extreme" HDTV service which is all very nice but I am not interested in a near 50% increase just to add a phone that will rarely if ever get used.
I tried chatting online with one of their representatives "Raymond" (I am not convinced he wasn't just a robot) who was mostly unsuccessful in helping me. He said it would be $119 for the plan, but I had to repeatedly ask if that included the two set top boxes I have, turns out the answer is no, it would be $25 more which is actually more than I am paying for them now. The only benefit would be upgrading to the 25/15 Internet service, but honestly 20/5 is pretty darn fast already. If it were a free upgrade then cool, but I would rather save a few bucks and leave it capped at that.
So anyway, I dismissed Raymond and decided to check out Vonage. $17.99/mo for a basic plan, works with FiOS no problem. It even comes with a handful of services that Verizon was ready to charge more for. Of course there are additional regulatory fees, taxes and such that you cannot avoid so it comes out to just under $25 a month which I am still happy with. I even get a free month of service because I know someone else with a Vonage phone number.
So hopefully it works as well as I expect it will. Need to dig out my old wired phone from the attic I guess.