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Bill Henry-

Bill Henry-

Brussel Sprout Connoisseur
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Boondock Bowerbank, ME
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Retired from the grind
A few months ago, in an effort to reduce my outrageously high phone bills (ChoiceOneCom), I switched to a carrier who promised to greatly reduce my rates (Pioneer Telephone).

Pioneer did reduce my long distance rates, but either through ignorance on my part or deception on their web site, they are unable to provide lower rates or even provide service fir my local (intralata) calls, so I have not seen a significant reduction in my monthly bill.

Assuming that most of you guys are like me and do not make a whole lot of either local or long distance calls, do any of you know of any phone companies in New England (other than Verizon) who can provide local service as well as long distance?

I have searched the net, but the volume of information is too overwhelming to wrap my head around and too confusing for me to get a clear picture of the choices I may have.
 
Bill,

I use One Communications (which was called Conversant when signed up).

When competitors call and I say I have One Communications, they say "oh, then I probably can't help you."

I pay about $52 a month for two metered lines. Most of the cost is federal and state taxes.

One Communications has a program now that is $6.95 pwr line base cost if you sign up for 3 yrs. I am on a month to month and my base line charge is $9.95. There are a lot of plans, but these guys seem to have the most competitive rates. The real trick is to figure out which of the "plans" gives you the best price based on your calling patterns.

Good Luck
 
Bill...now might be a time to look at Vonage. I haven't switched yet simply because they can't keep my published number being in the huge thriving metroplis of Edwardsburg, MI. I'd have to either have a South Bend, IN number or Elkhart, IN number...both numbers out of state!

Amazingly they can give me my cell number and I've thought about dropping my ridiculously high Nextel phone now that I'm out of contract and just picking up a pay-as-you go phone (like the terroists use) for emergencies. In that case I would have a South Bend number, but no local number for Edwardsburg customers.

Dave Makielski
 
The local cable company is also a good alternative.

We have had Cox Communications here (cable company) for telelphone for exactly 5 years (this week), and it has been great. It's a cross between regular hardwired and voii. (It IS voice over ip but on a higher bandwidth channel dedicated to voice, which isnt shared with your internet). The sound quality is much better than vonage. In our plaza we are running 11 lines through Cox, and at my other job we have 26 through Cox.

Calls are 3 cents per minute for the whole state, and long distance is a few cents more.

If Cox doesn't serve your area, ask the local cable company. Most of them offer high speed internet and voice services.

Mike
 
It turns out that I had switched to Pioneer from OneCom (formerly known as Choice One, formerly known as Conversant, formerly known as Prince).

My months bills for local and long distance from OneCom averaged around $54 per line for two lines. Considering the number of calls and faxes I make, to me, paying $108/ month seems excessive.

Cliff, you mentioned you are paying around $52. Is that per line or for both lines?

Mike, Cox Communications is not available in New Hampshire, so those guys are out.

I found a company named SunRocket that seems to have the same kind of VOIP service as Vonage, but about $10.00/ month less expensive. Their web site isn’t as detailed as Vonage, and seems to be for Home Service and not business, but I might be able to finesse them if I can get more info about them.

Has anyone heard of or used SunRocket?

I looked into Vonage a while back, and the thing that disturbs me is that they state very clearly that “it takes a minimum of 20 days to complete your existing phone number transfer.” They give you a temporary number so that you can call out, but I cannot find out what happens to incoming calls who dial your number during that time. If you connect to their router, it would seem to me that you couldn’t use your existing phone lines unless it was redundant. If you don’t connect to their router during that transition, you have lost the benefits of unlimited and cheap rates. I guess that I still don’t know how that works.

I switched to Verizon Fiber Optic several months ago in an effort to dump Comcast (formerly Adelphia in this area). The cable company was not only more expensive than FiOS, but much more unreliable. The cable (thus my internet) was down in blocks of 4 hours or so almost every month. I couldn’t afford to have my phone lines to be hooked into a system that was down so often.

Since I now have their FiOS, I can always go back to Verizon and subscribe to their VOIP, but I left them initially because always felt I was getting fleeced and could never figure out how to get better rates from their bewildering array or programs.
 
Bill that is for TWO lines!

And, they have a deal that is LESS if you sign up for 3 years. Near as I can figure, it would be about $10 a month less for both lines. So, mid-40s
 
FIOS is better than any of the above, and the future. Dialup -> dsl -> cable -> fios (from slowest to fastest for internet) Fios can also do tv.

The way porting works is that your traditional copper wire lines would keep working until the port happens, so incoming calls would still come in on your existing phone line. The vonage or sunrocket equipment would work simultaneously, with a temporary number that you could use to dial out until the thing ported. After it ports, you just rewire the old line into the VOIP equipment, and it will put the new dial tone (and old #) to your old phones.

VOIP uses a box that plugs into your ethernet cable. It has phone jacks on it where the phones (or a line to the phones) goes.

Mike
 
Bill Henry- said:
I found a company named SunRocket that seems to have the same kind of VOIP service as Vonage, but about $10.00/ month less expensive. Their web site isn’t as detailed as Vonage, and seems to be for Home Service and not business, but I might be able to finesse them if I can get more info about them.

Has anyone heard of or used SunRocket?
Click to expand...


Bill,

Did you end up going with SunRocket? They went under today, and laid off all but 12 employees last week.

Another company is currently trying to buy the customer base and keep everything online seamlessly.

Mike
 
Yes. According to the forums, Packet8 is supposedly trying to buy out the customer base. The equipment has to be re-programmed by this Friday or it'll all go dark. link http://www.dslreports.com/overview?v=p&s=d&p=w

I'm also very happy with VIATALK ($199 for 2 years deal), which also rings my cell simultaneously with the house line. I love that feature :)

Vonage is #1 and theyre good too, but for more money and fewer features.

Mike
 
Mike Labbe @ GTP said:
Bill,

Did you end up going with SunRocket? They went under today, and laid off all but 12 employees last week.

Another company is currently trying to buy the customer base and keep everything online seamlessly.

Mike
Click to expand...

No. I was concerned with the reports that FiOS (from Verizon, Vonage and SunRocket) that stated that they could not guarantee clean, accurate transmission of data from my credit card terminal.

I was able to find a small company out of Vermont (SoVerNet) which is in the process of transferring my phone service from OneComm and Pioneer. Due to miscommunications and the contact person with whom I was dealing leaving the company, the process has been slower than I would like.

However, once I get the change over, my monthly bills should be less than $50 for both lines. I am now paying ~$115.
 
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