Any one stuck in the Land of North Pittsburgh Telephone? (house, school)

[Copanut]

or as I liked to call it, Fred's Fone Company.

Friendly people, lousy rates. I just jumped from Consolidated to Comcast, what a difference in price and quality. Cut my 3 line phone bill with Dsl by over 100 bucks.

Just a little free advice to anyone out in the Great White North.

[greg42]

Phone lines? How quaint. ;-) Cell only, internet from Comcast is what I have here. When I first moved here I couldn't even get DSL; I think it's here now but I wouldn't want to. If someday there is FIOS, then maybe I would look at Verizon again. But surprisingly my service with Comcast has been solid for years, even at my prior location. Verizon or Comcast is a big lesser of two evils question I have to say. My interaction with Verizon for business is generally less than stellar.

[Copanut]

We have a security system that needs to hard wired. And when my aging mother-in-law stays we like to make sure she can contact EMS if necessary. I have a dedicated fax line that, I know, seems so 80's, but some of my clients still use fax over pdf. It's 10 bucks for the extra line vs 8 bucks for MyFax.com. I can eat the two bucks.

I'll probably always have at least 1 hard wired line, old school, what can I say?

[greg42]

Yeah, I hear ya, although I think more and more we'll need it less and less. Pretty soon those security systems are going to have to figure out something different. Fax sometimes you just can't get away from. At work we tend to be the ones behind the times, preferring in some cases to fax rather than email, although we have a nifty scanner that makes PDFs. (The real cringe is when something just printed gets scanned to make it a PDF instead of remaining electronic, argh!)

Although even my dad ditched his landline, sometimes I think that wasn't the best idea for him. For me, I'm mainly concerned with visitors, fairly infrequent. Which reminds me, to that end I was meaning to post something on the wall in the kitchen that has the address and which county and municipality it's in and so on.

Just do keep in mind, how the Comcast stuff works isn't quite as bulletproof as the telephone network, at least not how I understand it. You're now relying on a battery backup they install at your house as opposed to the phone lines powered from the other end. Should be fine though unless you have power outage measured in days.

[Tallysmom]

The whole 911 thing scares the bejeezus out of me. I am a first class panicker, and I need a landline so 911 knows where I am calling from. I've called 911 in the past in an utter panic twice and, TWICE couldn't tell them my address....

And it's very hard to control a panic.

Copa -- I grew up with the North Pittsburgh Telephone Company. When I met my husband in 1979, we still had to dial "150" to get a toll line. So when ever he would call his parents he'd pick up our phone and say sweetly "Sarah? Oh, Sarah -- connect me up with Floyd the Barber...."

(I still have and use a rotary dial phone, too.... I love it)

[Benzman66]

Originally Posted by greg42

Just do keep in mind, how the Comcast stuff works isn't quite as bulletproof as the telephone network, at least not how I understand it. You're now relying on a battery backup they install at your house as opposed to the phone lines powered from the other end. Should be fine though unless you have power outage measured in days.

Not sure how Comcast is since they are slowly switching to fiber on phone/tv/internet, etc, but if they are using the system installed in homes like Verizon FIOS does, the battery backup only powers the phone line for I think 3 hours, but as far as internet/tv, you're out of luck until normal power comes on.

We use to have Comcast for years, but switched to FIOS a few days after it became available. So much more to offer on FIOS for less price.

[Copanut]

Originally Posted by Tallysmom

Copa -- I grew up with the North Pittsburgh Telephone Company. When I met my husband in 1979, we still had to dial "150" to get a toll line. So when ever he would call his parents he'd pick up our phone and say sweetly "Sarah? Oh, Sarah -- connect me up with Floyd the Barber...."

When we moved here in 97 we had friends call us from a pay phone 4 miles away looking for our house. Cost them $2.50.

[JRTurner]

I presently have 3 hard-wired phone lines (one for dedicated FAX) through Verizon. I also have Verizon's DSL through one of those lines.

My phone bills have jumped to a little over $300 !!!

I have been seriously thinking of switching to Comcast for my internet (I already have Comcast HD TV) and then signing-up for Vonage for my telephone using the cable internet.

I'm just not sure about VOIP's compatibility with FAXing.

Anyone have any experience with VOIP?

[PghREA]

I've been in the North Pittsburgh - now Consolidated Communications for over 30 years. I've been happy. I must admit, the early years with North Pittsburgh was the pits!

I have the phone, internet, TV bundle and it is less expensive than Comcast.

[Johnny C]

I havn't had a regular phone line in 6 years. The phone lines on my house got so old they actually fell off the house lol.

I think I had a Verizon regular phone back in the day and the service was OK.