Long distance landline phone services?

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slownsteady, I believe that my phonelines run underground, although there is a "box" down the road just across the street from the nearest neighbor. I caught my neighbor tampering with it before and after that my phonelines were so bad I couldn't get dialup. Phone company did not give a rat's *** when I told them about it either.

The nearest neighbor is about 1/2 mile away.. next nearest is a mile away.. It's spread pretty far apart out here and we're out in a forest -- part of which belongs to a timber company.

The closest neighbors are criminals and I want absolutely nothing to do with them. There are only a handful of people out here, which is why the US Postal Services won't deliver (they say there aren't enough people to warrant wasting the time and gas to come all the way out here). Even if there were more people out here, I still couldn't trust most of the ones that are out here to actually pay. They would probably actually try to hook themselves up to stuff illegally (like they were doing with the phoneline box when I caught them).

I do appreciate the suggestion though.
 
I have not had a land line in at least 15 years. Before that, I was stubborn and wasted money on a cell phone AND line line until I finally learned.

I carry it with me always and my wife does the same. We even use it for daily calls from upstairs to downstairs. (no intercom necessary) - Family plan and it is great and a predictable cost.

I know of very few people that still have a LL.

Long distance is not a problem and international calls are fast and cheap - the only problem is when you call someone in Europe or Russia at 9:00 PM and do not shift gears in your head and wonder why the other person is upset when you wake them up in the middle of their night.

I traveled internationally and our company would issue a cell phone to make communications easier and more economical because the European and Japanese phone systems were more advanced.

A fax is a thing of the past, but there are easy ways around the hindrance.

Dick
 
Yeah, I have crap signal on my cellphone and it constantly drops calls. It won't work inside the house without a micro-cell tower but that only works when the internet is working and since our internet is satellite, there is an upload delay and sometimes its impossible to communicate because stuff gets cut out and it just is a total pain.

Even when I stand outside on the porch to get signal, its still pretty weak. Tried the amplifier and antenna (as I mentioned before) and it didn't work at all.

I still like having a landline-- especially when the power goes out and a tree is down on the road so we are stranded and the only way to get through is the landline because cell reception has gone to crap.

I did have a problem a few years back when hurricane Rita hit. Lost power and had a tree down over the road on top of the powerlines. The phonelines were working during and after the storm but then they cut out. When I finally got in touch with the phone company it turns out that they turned my lines off deliberately because they claimed they wanted to limit usage so that the lines were not clogged up for people in areas where they really needed the lines.

I was pretty livid and I explained that at that time I lived out in the middle of nowhere with no cell signal (because back then I had zero cell signal at the house) with two senior citizens who had health problems that meant they needed the phone in case of a medical emergency. They told me I might get my lines turned back on in 2 or 3 weeks. I told them I was going to be reporting their asses to multiple agencies. They hung up on me and within a couple of days they turned my lines back on.
 
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Check with your local phone company on a wats line, for most of us that's a 1-800 number but some companies here offer thing like 30 mins of calls to a certain exchange for resonable rate. I used that when I had a partner in another town, they charged my $4, a month and my bill went down by about $30. a month
 
a wats line?

I'll have to see. The only thing I can get is AT&T. They bought the lines from Bell South.
 
Thanks. I asked AT&T about it and they said they don't have that type of service for U-verse (which is what they call their landlines now). They gave me a link but its not loading for me.
Yick.

I checked out your second link. Yick. $25 a month...
 
Well, the good news is that when I asked on Twitter about the WATS line, I was invited to send a DM to customer service. They called me on the landline to discuss the options and were surprised at how crappy our current plan is. We currently pay nearly $50 for a single line. I forget what the base price is but they added stuff on for the caller ID and other crap. Apparently they have a plan that is all inclusive that has all of the features we pay extra for and it has unlimited long distance and the whole thing is $45. Unfortunately the office to call and set it up in our area was closed already so we'll have to try tomorrow.

He said something about charging per minute had not been done in quite awhile. We were trying to look up the plan he mentioned, but our internet went out.
 
The bottom line is without compitition they are all ruthless. I had bills like that until the cable company offered a phone too. Now it is $29 including local long distance and anywhere in North America for $.04 a minute. Before that we also had a another company for long distance for $.07 but I don't know if that's available for you. Watch out if this knew deal requires a contract that usually means something is about to change and they want to lock you in for so many years.
 
Thanks, neal. They said it would be about $45 per month but I saw an article online about a discount if the customer had another AT&T service-- such as a cellular plan, but you have to ask specifically about the plans to get any discounts. The article was from 2013 so I don't know if they have the same offer. I'm having a bit of trouble finding current info on the plans and any discounts. The price for the online version said it is $46.

They didn't give us a phone number so now I need to find the appropriate phone number for landline services. He said to call and ask about retention something or other.. its written down....
 
As an update, I did something where I bundled my cellular and landline and right now neither of them are working.
Please excuse the following gripe-fest.
The recent flooding covered the box with the lines to my area. It was briefly fixed yesterday but then it stopped working again when there was no more rain. Now, this has happened in the past and when I finally got an answer from AT&T they explained that they shut my service off to allow more bandwidth for customers in larger areas. Because I'm in a rural area and there are only 9 customers affected, they think it justifies cutting off the service of paying customers who have never missed or been late on a payment ever. My mother is elderly, diabetic, and has mobility issues. She also needs to sleep with a CPAP. Cellular service out here is spotty. If our power goes out, we have no running water. There have been times in the past where a tree fell on our powerlines and blocked the road so we were stranded. If not for our landline, we would have had no way to contact anyone for help. So, when I called AT&T to complain last night, my cell service died. I can't text or call anyone. I have no phone service at all. I tweeted and they gave me some "thank you for your patience" line of BS. I'm pretty sure the landline service was just switched off again like they did in the past because there is no other reason for my landline to be out. Today when I was trying to contact people, my internet went out.
I suspect that it is actually illegal for them to cut my service off.
Does anyone know?
Who do I contact to report them for this? It is really starting to piss me off. If I had another option for landline service, I would find another company, but AT&T has a monopoly here. Magicjack and internet phone service are not options. The guy who came to try to repair the lines a few days ago had to drive 10 miles back into town to be able to get enough signal to call AT&T.
 
My land line is a Straight Talk. It uses wireless phone technology, on your home based phone. Cost me $15 a month for calls anywhere in the US.
 
The problem is, if the physical landline isn't good, then all the calling plans in the world can't help. And it sounds like that is a big part of the problem here. Your cell phone is basically a radio and cell towers are just big antennas. if you can see a cell tower, find out whose service is on it and get that company.
 
The only company that has a celltower within 30 miles of me is AT&T-- their tower is 10 miles away. As of Thursday there has been no signal at all at my house. I don't know what went wrong.

Oh, and get this, AT&T contacted me on Twitter in a private message to ask for my cellphone number so they can call me. Nevermind I have given them the number 5 times and all they have to do is scroll back to see it.

All they do is thank me for contacting them and thank me for my patience. I have lost my patience. If it was still flooded and if my phone hadn't come back on and worked fine for a couple of hours on Thursday, I wouldn't be this pissed off. I threatened to report them to the BBB and the Louisiana Public Service Commission if they don't resolve this quickly.

I'm locked in to a two-year contract for cellular but there are no other services that work here anyway.

I hope they invent something soon that will allow for more reliable service without costing an arm and a leg.

I really wish I had another option for landline service. I would ditch AT&T in a hearbeat.
 
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