What are the least expensive wallwired landline telephone services? [Telecom]

In what city, in what country, for what calling patterns?

Around here, Verizon will sell you metered service rather cheaply.  It's
either the least expensive or the most expensive option depending on how
much it's used.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra.  C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Similarly, if you've got documentation that you're
pretty low income, most telcos offer a "lifeline" service.

It's pretty cheap; in NYC it used to be about $5/month
(that's including taxes and non tax taxes and fees..)
but again, it's fully metered on all outgoing calls.



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_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
             dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

On Oct 20, 12:26 pm, klu...@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:


Unfortunately, all the taxes and "fees" are applied to all classes of
service so even the most basic service isn't that cheap.  (Thank you,
divesture!)

The competing carriers generally are looking for high-end customers so
their packages would be more expensive than the cheap ones.

If you are low income you may qualify for special service deals which
are pretty cheap, but you must document your status.  Offerings vary
by state and and area.

Since many people today also own cell phones,  they often simply don't
bother with a land line at all and use their cell phone for all
calls.  Of course, if their cell phone is mislaid, being charged,
broken, out of range, overloaded, they are out of luck.

***** Moderator's Note *****

Since cell phones can't be depended on in an emergency, communities
that abandon too many of their landlines face a hidden cost: the
insurance danger ratings for the area go up and so do the insurance
rates.

This is compounded by the fact that many municipalities have ripped
out their "old fashioned" Gamewell fire alarm boxes, favoring 911
centers to reduce false alarms. Without the Gamewell fire alarms, the
fire danger rating goes up more as landlines are abandoned.

Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator

hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:


It's got little to do with divestiture, but much more
to do with politicians (and their business friends) who
keep looking for sources of revenue, but don't want to
be honest and call them taxes.

Tell me again why the "911 surcharge" exists? Leaving aside
the games many localities play with that money, shouldn't
the local PSAP (911 center) be paid for out of general tax
revenue, just like the cops themselves?

Or the "Universal Service Fund" (which is about to go
up yet again). That money (and again, leaving the games
aside) goes into a federal pot and gets kicked over, in
part, to libraries and schools and rural hospitals to help
them with telecommunications.

Shouldn't that be general tax revenue? Or if you'd prefer
to use that as a "good idea", well, then why not have similar
surcharges for your home's heating fuel so as to pay
for the school's boiler?

--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
             dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

On Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:46:37 -0400 (EDT), danny burstein


Danny, Danny, Danny.  Don't be giving the politicians ideas.  How can
we begrudge the "poor and downtrodden" fees that your schools and
libraries fall into?  Geeze, next thing you know, with landlines
shrinking, they'll figure out that VoIP and cell phones should have to
pony up USF fees.

Boiler tax indeed :-)

Carl

 cnavarro@wcnet.org says...
    

      

Umm, my Vonage service does include an FUSF charge. My $24.95 a month
plan is more like $32 a month when all the taxes and fees are added in.

It's still cheaper than Verizon, if I had the same level of service with
them I'd be paying about $80 a month which is what I pay now for my net
and phone services.

My Verizon bill for the raft of features (CLID, VM, CW-CLID) was $47 a
month for unlimited local service, and then I had to PIC my long
distance service. I had it assigned to NetworkPlus. That bill came in at
an average of $20 per month so I was paying a total of $67 a month just
for voice services. Add to that the $40 a month I was paying for
broadband access to Cox and it was $107 a month.

I told Cox to change my broadband service to the top tier at $50 a month
and as I said my Vonage bill with taxes and all averages $32 per month.
So $82 a month vs. $107 a month.

Some of the fees, like the "FCC line charge" look like govt taxes but
actually are collected and kept by the carrier, and these fees aren't
cheap these days.

Those fees were developed to make up the money local exchanges lost
from long distance rebates and premium services.  They gave with one
hand (cheap long distance and equipment) and took with the other hand
(higher local line charge).



Actually, in the distant past some work of emergency call handling was
done by the Bell Operator at their expense.  In the old days we all
were instructed to dial Operator in case of emergency.  That is, in an
emergency you could dial the operator and say "I need police at 1234
Main Street Hurry!" then hang up and the operator would then call the
police and pass along the message.  There were of course direct
numbers to fire/police/rescue, but the operators were there as a last
resort.  Indeed, years back the Bell System boasted about operators
helping in such situations saving lives, etc.

But I agree that public safety money, not phone taxes, should be used
for 911 centers.  Do VOIP/cable  subscribers even get charged these
taxes?




That is directly from divesture.  Before divesture certain
organizations would get discounts, paid for by premium expenses.
Remember, many PUC members were against divesture since they
recognized the premiums paid by long distance and business subscribers
helped cross subsidize low rate public services.  PUCs were big on
averaging out high cost service (like a farmer with a long loop)
against low cost (like a multi-line business 3 blocks away from the CO
using high capacity lines to carry all the trunks).




Actually, a heck of a lot of commodities are taxed like that.  My
municipality takes on a "franchise fee" to cable TV service, for
instance.

hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

Years ago Los Angeles had a city wide emergency number; 116, they would
advertise it as If Your in a fix dial 116, that was many years before
911, it went to an emergency control center of some kind

My Cell bill comes with the High cost Tax on it.  Our city tried to add
a city utility tax to cell phones, it caused a fire storm and they
dropped it.  I don't use mioe in the city, at least at the time  they
wanted to add the tax I did not.

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