1 Hour Call to Friend 3 Miles Away $150

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Our office switched to a VOIP phone system a couple of years ago.
One issue: Whenever the internet connection went down, no phones.
Also, strangely, it would not connect to my VOIP home phone.

.

A good VOIP provider will automatically route calls to a backup line when the internet is down. In my case, that's my cell phone.

 

[clifffaith]

I can't imagine using a land line for a small business.

Um, did I mention we still have flip phones? My phone sits in the bottom of my purse, off, until I dig it out to make a call. And that call is usually to the answering machine sitting on my desk at home.

 

[easyrider]

We switch all of our landlines to cell phones for 5 business lines and one personal. We all ready had cell phones and just ported our numbers to the cell phones. We were using voip fax from ring central but dropped that last year as we hardly anyone uses fax anymore.

Regarding cruising, our phones worked on deck if we were close enough to land most of the time. We left instructions to call our cabin if there was an emergency otherwise just sit tight and we would get back to them. No one had an emergency and we really didn't call home because we were both on the boat.

Bill

 

[isisdave]

Clifffaith, if you have no local-long-distance plan, why aren't ALL of your local-long-distance (intraLATA) calls (farther than 12 miles) attracting similar ridiculous charges? Be sure to ask them that.

This should have nothing to do with the fact that he was on a boat.

If you really don't have such a plan and want to keep AT&T, look into a long distance provider at http://www.phonedog.com/long-distance or similar. I used to have one when I had land-lines. You can also use "dial-around" or "10-10 numbers" but you have to remember to use these every time you call.

Ooma works well and you can have it running in a day. You can port your number in, too.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Um, did I mention we still have flip phones? My phone sits in the bottom of my purse, off, until I dig it out to make a call. And that call is usually to the answering machine sitting on my desk at home.

So why not switch to something that costs less and provides better service? And you can keep your existing phone numbers.

 

[clifffaith]

Talk about easy peasy lemon squeezy!! And I didn't have to wait more than a minute to be connected to the AT&T rep on a Monday morning! Started out asking if he could help me understand the $148 charge. Put me on hold and came back a few minutes later saying he'd removed it without me even asking! Then he says, I see you pay $10-$20 month for other short local long distance calls, how about signing up for Unlimited Long Distance for $15/month? Heck, sign me up! Then I called the residential department, again was immediately connected, and removed the long distance from that line (we had just added it to that line two weeks ago when we gave up our fax/long distance phone line as part of winding our way down to full retirement). Then I gave myself an early retirement gift -- had been planning to add caller ID to the home phone in the next year or two when we are done with work for good, but added it today. $9.99 for stand alone caller ID, or only $8 with call waiting. So now we have call waiting though I don't see me ever picking up another call when I'm already on a personal call -- you'd know it will be the "you've qualified for an extra vacation" people that we hang up on anyway. So all and all a very productive morning. Then Cliff went out to the truck we are trying to baby along and found it completely dead. AAA is out there putting a new battery in as I type. It's always somethin'!

 

[pedro47]

Clifffaith thanks for sharing your very, very positive results.

 

[bogey21]

So why not switch to something that costs less and provides better service? And you can keep your existing phone numbers.

I, too, use a flip phone as my only phone. Cost with ATT is something like $30 per month including taxes for 300 minutes which roll over if I don't use them all. Also get free nights and weekends and free calls to other ATT cell phones. My first flip phone died after about 10 years of use. I have had this one for over 10 years now. And its cost? It was free, ATT gave it to me.

george

 

[taffy19]

Talk about easy peasy lemon squeezy!! And I didn't have to wait more than a minute to be connected to the AT&T rep on a Monday morning! Started out asking if he could help me understand the $148 charge. Put me on hold and came back a few minutes later saying he'd removed it without me even asking! Then he says, I see you pay $10-$20 month for other short local long distance calls, how about signing up for Unlimited Long Distance for $15/month? Heck, sign me up! Then I called the residential department, again was immediately connected, and removed the long distance from that line (we had just added it to that line two weeks ago when we gave up our fax/long distance phone line as part of winding our way down to full retirement).

Glad that it worked out so well for you. We find AT&T service also always very fast and obliging even abroad but we have a foundation account. Did you keep your old phone so may not have data?

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

I, too, use a flip phone as my only phone. Cost with ATT is something like $30 per month including taxes for 300 minutes which roll over if I don't use them all. Also get free nights and weekends and free calls to other ATT cell phones. My first flip phone died after about 10 years of use. I have had this one for over 10 years now. And its cost? It was free, ATT gave it to me.

george

I'm talking about using VOIP to replace a landline, not a cell phone.

I use Vonage for my business phone. No other business phone plan can come even close. Unlimited calling US and Canada. Voice mail with e-mail alert that I've received a message. Plus ability to actually save the voice mail as documentation. The e-mail alert is essential because I need to know when someone left a message.

I also have separate cell phone service. If I weren't running a business, I wouldn't have the Vonage. No need at that point.