Phone Company for Calling Canada? (Oak Lawn: home, taxes, deal)

[Mrs.Zen]

I'm looking at the various bundle and non-bundled options for internet, tv and phone and I'm looking to have unlimited or very reasonable calling to Canada. I'd prefer not to have internet phone but any suggestions would help. Thanks! Also, RCN doesn't serve my area of Oak Lawn.

[Avengerfire]

I am pretty sure Comcast offers unlimited.

[Drover]

Any reason why you'd prefer not to have internet phone? They are by far more cost-effective than standard service, especially for international calls. They typically include unlimited free calls to Canada (and much of Western Europe) for that matter as part of their "top tier" package which is usually about $35/mo including all taxes and fees. Plus that includes all the goodies like call waiting, caller ID, call forwarding, three-way, etc. I have an entry-level plan that's $25/mo (taxes and fees included) where I can call Canada and much of western Europe for 2 cents a minute. (I use voip.com for my phone service. I can even make calls through my computer if I'm away from home.) If you have a standard land-line phone right now, you can even port your old number to the new service.

[Mrs.Zen]

Thanks for the info. I'm a bit wary of internet phone because I had Vonage previously and experienced bad sound quality. Sounds like you've both had good experiences with internet phone?!

[Avengerfire]

My experience for three years with RCN's phone service was pretty good.

You might want to look into ALLVOI Worldwide and Nationwide Voice Over Internet Home Phone Service with Free Destinations, Mobile Access and Low Rates

They have bargain basement rates. You have to have the internet through another carrier though. I do not have any personal experience with them however.

Which VOIP did you use in the past?

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Mrs.Zen

Thanks for the info. I'm a bit wary of internet phone because I had Vonage previously and experienced bad sound quality. Sounds like you've both had good experiences with internet phone?!

I have had good luck with it with no issues in sound quality. I have not used Vonage though, and I don't know how sensitive their service is to simultaneous surfing and phone use, or what your throughput is/was. I have had two different services that weren't Vonage and I've had virtually no complaints. WIth the first service, I had 384 up/1.5 down throughput, but it was configured to prioritize phone traffic if someone was netsurfing while the phone was in use. I don't believe my current phone service prioritizes phone traffic, but my current internet service is 768 up and 6.0 down. That is more than sufficient to handle simultaneous phone traffic and netsurfing without prioritizing phone traffic.

The only problem I've had is that obviously if your internet service goes down, so does your phone -- not that big a deal if you have a cell phone for backup and if you have stable internet service. I also have to reset my phone adapter about once a month. These are minor inconveniences considering how cheap the service is.