Beginning today, customers within Verizon's landline service area can bundle home and wireless calling in a simple package and get cool calling features and unlimited calling between their home and their Verizon Wireless phone - all on a single bill at prices starting at $59.99 a month.
***** Moderator's Note *****
The Verizon web site says this is one of their "Double Play" options, and there's a "Triple Play" as well, so the war of words between Verizon and Comcast is heating up.
My first question is: does unlimited calling between your home and cell phone attract you? Unless you're running a business from your home, I don't see why it'd be a desirable feature.
Note that Verizon recently DISCONTINUED its discount for bundling cell and DSL on the landline bill. IMOH, that's a contract violation to its cell phone customers who were promised a certain rate over the life of the contract, it amounts to a rate increase. Of course you can fight it if you have the time and patience to call and sit on hold forever...
I will have to call them and ascertain what kind of packages they have. I might even save some money over now. (But I plan to get DSL and want to order it all at once.)
Families with kids make lots of calls between home and the cell phones. I know some extended families (cousins) that take advantage of their bigger packages so the unit cost per cell phone is very low.
Like it or not, it seems that every kid over 12 has their own cell phone and they're on it constantly. I personally don't think kids so young need their own phones but parents feel better. Unfortunately, the once ubiquitious pay phones are gone. When I was a kid every public building, office building, gas station, restaurant, and large store had a pay phone, plus they were on many street corners, so there was always one nearby whereever we were. (The shopping mall had a zillion of them-- multi-phone kiosks in the mall concourse itself, plus numerous pay phones within the large stores). Today pay phones are rare and given that I can't blame parents for giving their kid a cell phone.
(Although I do see people still using pay phones here and there; last year in Penna Station NYC I counted nine people simultaneously using pay phones in the phone alcove.)
I wonder what the peak number of pay phone lines were under the Bell System and Independents, before COCOTS and cell phones came out. I remember many places with whole batteries of pay phones and I wondered if they really needed that many.
FWIW In my own immediate neighborhood, pay phones changed as such:
Train station--still there, used. Convenience store--two--still there, used regularly. Open phone on street near shopping center entrance--gone Open phone on side street near shopping center--gone Restaurant--gone Public library--gone Public pool--still there Town hall outside--still there Mason Hall interior--gone My own employer lobby phone (one in each building) gone
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