thinking of dropping my long distance service, ?s for those who have dropped it

[BWVDenise]

I have free nights and weekends on my cell phone, and I have a calling card that I pay 3 cents a minute on, so I'm wondering if I really NEED to have long distance on my house phone. It seems I am paying for a service that I don't use, so I'm thinking that I should cancel it. Here is my reservation.... if someone should be in my house babysitting, etc., and needs to get a hold of my dh (who works in another area code), they couldn't just pick up the phone and call. This would be a highly unlikely scenario, but I'm a "what iffer," so I try to think of all the possibilities.
Are there any other reasons why this might not be a good idea?

 

[RUDisney]

We dropped our long distance service 2 years ago without any looking back.

If your sitter really needed to get in touch with your DH, she/he could dial 10-10-220, or one of the other extensions to get him and it'll be billed to your phone bill.

 

[catsrule]

We dropped ours a couple of years ago. I have a prepaid long distance phone card that I bought for vacations with lots of minutes on it. I just use that at home, too. But it is very rare for me to make a long distance call.

 

[KatelynnsAuntie]

I dropped my long distance several years ago too. I couldn't stand all the charges on there - even if I didn't use it!! Like Catsrule, I use a calling card too. I actually make a lot of long distance calls, but the calling card is great. It's prepaid and there's no hidden charges. I try to get them when they're on sale at Target. Sometimes I can get them for as little as 5 cents a minutes or less. Sometimes it's a pain that I can't just pick up the phone and dial the number without having to find the calling card first, but it's worth it, not getting a big ol' phone bill once a month.

I like the 10 10 220 idea. Does your DH have a cell phone with the same area code as your home phone? Maybe your sitter could just call that instead if she needed to.

 

[BWVDenise]

The cell phone is a different area code, and my cell phone is also a different area code, which brings me to another question.... (this is probably going to sound stupid, so brace yourself)... if I don't have long distance on my house phone, will I be able to dial cell phones? I never did quite understand that about cell phones, because I don't believe the cell numbers come up on my long distance bill.

 

[Otto's Doll]

We dropped our long distance service when we moved into this house 2.5 years ago. I have not regretted it at all. I bought a prepaid phone card from Sam's Club for 3.7 a minute (rechargable by phone) and have used the same one ever since. It is amazing how fast you will memorize that number!
I keep the numbers that you dial (phone # and pin #) written in my phone book where my dh can find it, and you could post it on your fridge if you wanted.

 

[RUDisney]

Actually, I didn't think about this before, but on our last kitchen phone, I programmed one of the speed dial buttons with my PennyTalk card number so I wouldn't have to pull it out when I wanted to use it. I haven't done this with my new phone since I usually use my cell phone for long distance now.

That's another alternative for the babysitter without giving out your calling card number.

 

[my3kids]

Look into switching to Qwest. There is no monthly fee, no minimums, and my state to state is $.05 a minute. I got fed up with the larger companies years ago and have never had a moment's problem with Qwest. I don't have to dial any access number, by the way. Just pick up the phone and dial the number.

 

[Robinrs]

I dropped my long distance and have found their charges BACK on my bill twice... so be careful. I think they have tapes of my railing them and notes on how not to talk to me...

I use a calling card I got from Sam's. It's about 3 cents a minute with no charges whatsoever. We can add minutes over the phone and my whole family uses it.

Other than that I use my cell phone. Long distance at home is soon going to be a dinosaur and like AOL they're fightng for their lives.

 

[BWVDenise]

UPDATE: I've been researching and I think the only thing that would be a pain for us would be the "toll" calls. I rarely make long distance calls and usually use my cell phone for that. But if I pick up my house phone to call the next town over for something and there is no service, that could be annoying (even though I only made 4 toll calls last month). I checked Qwest and didn't find the .05 state-to-state with no other charges, but I'm still looking. I'm also trying to figure out all the terms. Is "toll" the same as state-to-state, or is state-to-state considered long distance?

 

[DMickey28]

I didn't have a house phone for the last year and half in MA. Now that I moved to Indy we got a house number. We have unlimited local and long distance for $50 a month. It works for us because all of our friends and family are in MA and I get sick of using my cell phone, it's too small!!!! Besides if I ever go over the cell phone minutes which I would being out here the overcharge would probally be more than the whole phone bill for the house!!!

 

[thinkerbell]

Another alternative could be to keep your long distance but go to a plan that doesn't charge a monthly fee. We have AT&T and we also have the cell phone long distance thing and the Sam's 3cents a min. cards. We called AT&T and they put us on a plan that never charges anything(not even those hidden charges) unless we actually make a long distance call. The charge per minute is pretty high- around 25 cents a minute I think- but we make sure to never use it. That way it would still be there if there was an emergency.

 

[jipsy]

Well I went the opposite route. I have Verizon on my home phone. I was paying them 5 cents a minute and my phone bills were averaging $125-$150/month. Now, for $53.95/month I get everything - regular phone service, all the calling services they offer on my home phone (caller ID, call waiting, etc) PLUS I get unlimited long distance anywhere in the US, day or night. Since our families live far away from us, we are constantly calling long distance and my oldest sister and I love to talk (we sometimes have 2-3 hour conversations and we live 1600 miles apart), so this was by far the cheapest option for us. I even told her about it and she checked with her local phone company and switched over to the same type of program and she loves it!

 

[LadyAurora]

We do not have a long distance service on our home phone, we wait until 9:00 pm to make our long distance calls, and use the cell-phone, which is free on nights and weekends. If there was a emergency we will use a "10-10" number. We don't miss it at all.

 

[ByTheSea]

We use a Sam's club calling card - even works for international calls - and we have it programmed into one of our phones. But we also have cell phones with free long distance and unlimited nights and weekends. Our carrier is Sprint and we did sign up for the Sprint long distrance with our cell phone - no monthly service charge and 50 minutes free each month - so if someone does need to make a long distance call from home and forgets about the calling card it's no biggie - but we've never used it.

We did have a different long distance carrier for 1 year with a $5 monthly fee. DH signed up for it when they offered one free round trip airline ticket for a one year contract - so we essentially paid $60 for a flight and then cancelled the service when the 12 months were up.

 

[momof2inPA]

If you do not have long distance on your home phone, can people call you long distance from their phones or do they have to call your cell phone? Does 911 still work?

 

[Otto's Doll]

yes to both questions.

 

[geffric]

we don't have LD service on the land line but we do on the cells phones..We just give baby sitters the cell number.. no need for a LD for us..

 

[powellrj]

We dropped our long distance and picked up McLeodUSA. they only charge you when you make a call without all the fees. Our bill last month was .49. Its a little pricey per minute at .22, but they only charge you when you use it and we usually use our cell phones to make longdistance calls, I like knowing its there. I also like that we get a free #800. Thats what the kids use when they need to call us from a payphone. DS has a cell, but the places he is in service is not always good, and DS#2 is in lots of church and music and chess events, so he will just call us from a pay phone using the #800 and its only .22 minute which is much cheaper than the .50 the payphone charges, plus there is no need for change!!