Phone service (Raleigh: how much, maintenance, taxes)

[Gez137]

How much do you pay for basic local and long distance service, per month? (House phone).

[saturnfan]

Originally Posted by Gez137

How much do you pay for basic local and long distance service, per month? (House phone).

Bell South (AT&T) about $40 in Raleigh.

No calling features but the nickel per minute AT&T long distance plan and the $7.95 inside wire maintenance option.

[DanielChang]

I pay about $40 a month, just the basics, no long distance, no caller ID, no voicemail.

Saturnfan, does that $40 include the inside wire maintenance option? I think I might be paying too much.

[saturnfan]

# Monthly Service - Jun 17 thru Jul 16
#
#
#LOCAL LINE
------------
# Quantity
#
#
# 1.
# Community Caller Plus Ind Line
# 1
# 18.75
#
#
# 2.
# Inside Wire Protection
# 1
# 7.50
#
#
# Total Monthly Service
# 26.25

# Total Surcharges and Other Fees
# 7.23

# Total Government Fees and Taxes
# 3.32
#
# Total Plans and Services
# 36.80
#
#

LONG DISTANCE (AT&T)
-----------------------
# Monthly Service
#
# Item
#
# No.
# Date
# Description
#
# 4.
# 06-10
# One Rate Nationwide 5 Cents Preferred Mthly Fee
# 3.95

# Surcharges and Other Fees
#
# 9.
# Carrier Cost Recovery Fee
# 1.49
#
#
# 10.
# Federal Universal Service Fund Fee
# .50
#
#
# Total Surcharges and Other Fees
# 1.99
#
# Government Fees and Taxes
#
# 11.
# NC - State/Local Tax
# .42
#
#
#
# Total AT&T Long Distance Service
# 7.26
#

Total Amount Due $44.06 due by Jul 09, 2008

[lottamoxie]

I ditched my local telco as I was paying about $40/month to MCI (and that included only 200 min of LD) and I went with ViaTalk VoIP where I got a deal for 2 years @ $199 (plus tax). My monthly cost is approx. $9.25 and it includes all the LD I can use, plus a ton of other features that would have been extra from the telco.

[adlnc07]

About $42/month to AT&T for two numbers (distinctive ring for the 2nd) not including long distance. I use a calling card from Costco for long distance at 3 cents a minute because I don't make a lot of long distance calls.

[saturnfan]

Bad thing about VOIP is no service if power fails.

[dansdrive]

Use Vonage. $24.95 / month, with Taxes and other graph and corruption fees the true cost is $30.95. That is UNLIMITED long distance and short distances as well. It also comes with all the frills of caller ID and sender ID less if you so want and a whole host of other seldom/never used phone features. Had it for over 4 years now and the phone bill only went up once because a Federal tax rate went up.

However, you do need RoadRunner or other high speed INTERNET to take advantage of Vonage. It is VoIP service but is a cheap option if you already have a high speed INTERNET connection you are paying for.

May your IP Address by forever FREE!

[lottamoxie]

It's true that with any VoIP service you should have a cell phone just in case there's a power outage. Even a cheap prepaid/no contract cell phone will suffice. That's what I have as I don't use a cell phone very often and it made no sense for me to be paying $40/month for cell service I wasn't using.

[Gez137]

Thanks all. I am going to look into Vonage and other VOIP companies.

One last question: How much do you pay for a dry loop connection if you use VOIP?