Anyone NOT have a long distance provider?

[Deb in IA]

OK, so now DH is on a TELECOMMUNICATIONS kick.

Our bill from MCI last month was $280.00!!!! This is with a $34 monthly charge, plus various calls, both from our home phone and on our calling card.

One call DH made to Indianapolis cost $58 for 62 minutes. That's almost a dollar a minute!! (Whatever happened to 10 cents a minute?)

Anyway, we are switching to a Verizon cell phone "holiday special" plan that will give us UNLIMITED long distance during the evenings (9 pm to 6 am) and on weekends, and 400 anytime long distance minutes.

So, with that plan, and with the use of pre-paid long distance calling cards for anything else, we are thinking of giving up our regular long distance provider (MCI). Has anyone else done this?

 

[helenabear]

Wow! Last time I had a phone bill like that was when I was in college and I was calling my then-bf (now DH) daily long distance... I think it was a $300 bill for 3 weeks (and this was at $.10/minute). Now I use my cell phone for all my long distance calling. We do have Sprint at $.07/minute on our phone in case someone needs to make a call from home (but we also get some free amount of calling time there too) and I also have a calling card at about $.035/minute that I use for international calling. So we no longer use Ameritech or MCI (who we've both had in the past) and don't miss them at all

 

[Disney845]

SO and I both only have cell phones. We don't even have a house phone line. We saw no need for it. We both have unlimited long distance on our plans (good thing b/c we call FL all the time). He also uses his for work (calls to Canada, Europe and Australia can get pretty hefty), so they reimburse his cell phone bill. We have cable modem at home, so a home phone wouldn't be worth the money for us.

 

[Dan Murphy]

We have LD carrier access, Sprint, at home, just for emergency purpose, if for some reason someone needed to make a LD call and could not find (or use) the Sam's Club prepaid AT&T calling card. The prepaid rate is 3.47 cents per minute, and with a reputable carrier, and no surcharges. We all carry one with us also, even though we have cell phones. For home, I reload with 1,000 minutes at a time.

I know of folks who only use cell phones (I certainly use mine a lot and that's about all I use at home also) but do not want to limit ourselves at home to cell only. It is easier, and very low cost, to maintain the convenience of a land line LD also.

 

[Sonya]

We have tried to give up ours but SW Bell told us that is impossible. Of course we don't believe them but them they told us THEY could be our carrier and there would be no monthly service charge. Since we don't make long distance calls this works for us. How lucky we were that SW Bell just happened to have a plan for us!

 

[DonnaS]

We've thought of dumping our long distance-- we really don't make that many calls long distance. We probably should go ahead and do it.

 

[grinningghost]

My mom recently dropped her long distance service. When she makes a long distance call (very rarely), she just uses one of those 10-10 numbers. It's billed on her regular Verizon bill.

 

[TigH]

http://www.onesuite.com

IT IS THE BEST! We cancelled our long distance last month. FIL is the one who told us about his (his BIL told him about it) My father signed up, then we signed up, then my brother signed up. My sister is going to sign up for it next week. It is absolutely wonderful!!!! There is a feature called zip dial or something like that. Basically you just have to call the 800 number and it remembers your PIN and you can also add the numbers you call most frequently, so all you do is push a two digit code and your call goes through.

Love it!

 

[adamak]

I may dump my Sprint too. My regular service is Verizon (which is charging me $30 each month for nothing). But like others, I'm using my cell as my LD. Much better. There is really no need anymore for home phone.

 

[Robinrs]

Originally posted by Dan Murphy
We have LD carrier access, Sprint, at home, just for emergency purpose, if for some reason someone needed to make a LD call and could not find (or use) the Sam's Club prepaid AT&T calling card. The prepaid rate is 3.47 cents per minute, and with a reputable carrier, and no surcharges. We all carry one with us also, even though we have cell phones. For home, I reload with 1,000 minutes at a time.

I know of folks who only use cell phones (I certainly use mine a lot and that's about all I use at home also) but do not want to limit ourselves at home to cell only. It is easier, and very low cost, to maintain the convenience of a land line LD also.

What Dan said...

The AT&T card is the way to go! When I moved in October I asked for NO long distance provider and use the card exclusively. We do alot of long distance and this way it's prepaid and CHEAP with no surcharges.

 

[pumba]

and a half ago and we use the ten ten eight one one.....it is fantastic.....we use it for long distance out of state as well as in state.....it is five cents a minute anytime .....it is billed on our verizon telephone bill.......a lady from AT and T called us one day to see if we would change back and was trying to give us a good rate....and my husband told her that we get a five minute charge now.....and she wanted to know about it ......so she could get a good rate too.....

 

[leahannpen]

We do not have a LD carrier. It works just fine for us. When we do need to call LD, we either use 10-10-220 or our cell phone. When we used to have a carrier for LD we had nothing but problems and questions regarding our bill. No thank you! LOL!

 

[Pin Wizard]

Originally posted by Deb in IA
One call DH made to Indianapolis cost $58 for 62 minutes. That's almost a dollar a minute!! (Whatever happened to 10 cents a minute?)

I don't feel quite so bad now. I just paid AT&T $12.09 for a 62 minute call from FL to NJ.

 

[kinlaw6450]

I gave up my long distance provider when my cell phone went national. No use paying for long distance when its included in the wireless plan!

 

[kinlaw6450]

I gave up my long distance provider when my cell phone went national. No use paying for long distance when its included in the wireless plan!

 

[RUDisney]

We stopped paying for the "privilege" of having a LD carrier about a year ago. We have a Penny Talk calling card. There is a $.49 connect charge and then it is $.01 per minute in the US and $.02 internationally. To look into this for yourself, click on http://www.net2phone.com and then click on Net2phone Direct Card, and select the PennyTalk calling card. It will automatically replenish your account balance with a preauthorized credit card number when the balance falls below a specific amount.

For local long distance, we use our cell phones.

 

[dmfuru]

We have no long distance carrier on our home phone. We have Cingular cellular service with free long distance and roaming. We also have calling cards from Sam's Club--we got 1250 minutes for about 40 bucks. The card can be used anytime of day. There is a "usage fee" if you call from a public phone (6 minutes is removed from the remaining minutes regardless of the length of the call).

 

[Galahad]

Verizon forces us to name a provider, but we chose one (them) that doens't charge a monthly fee if you don't use it. We only use our cell phones for long distance and it has saved us a ton! We are moving next summer and seriously looking into not having ANY land line at all at the house and just use our cell phones.

 

[worm761]

i have MCI neighborhood as my phone company. for about $50/month it includes everything you need. including unlimited long distance with in the united states. so far i love it. we make a ton of long distance calls. so this really saves us a lot. and i like not having to keep track of how much i have spent in long distance.

 

[Wagamama]

we use calling cards and my mom's cell phone....the cards are great! Ours is called "The Time".