Introduction

Many people, especially non-"power users," are paying too much for their home phone service. Most are unaware of the inexpensive alternatives, and are continuing to pay for expensive cellular or home ("landline") service. The purpose of this blog is to make folks aware of their options -- and, especially, the options that my family and I have chosen.

For the purpose of this blog, home phones are split into two main categories, cellular and "landline." Landline is in quotes because I now consider home VoIP phones "landline" in that they are not cellular, even though "landline" has traditionally referred to POTS (plain old telephone service) that comes over the wire or "land line."

As POTS service is replaced by cell phones and VoIP phones, higher and higher usage fees and taxes are added to the bill. In this area, local-only POTS phone service costs over $30 (with fees and taxes). No long distance is included. No features, not even Caller ID is included in that price. VoIP phone service can be bundled with Cable or DSL, but runs about $30 to $40 a month, plus over $14 in fees and taxes -- but at least this usually includes unlimited long distance. But you have to buy either cable or high-speed Internet (or both) to get these prices.

There are cheaper alternatives. In my next blog I will go over the process our family used in finding cheaper (much cheaper) landline service -- later blogs will go into alternative cellular services. Feel free to send questions, but there are better sources on this subject -- the VoIP forum at DSLReports, for example, has many qualified techs who quickly answer questions.

Next blog soon.