Actual setup for home residential AND Google Voice
SteveInWA:
You're welcome. RE: confusion, I did find it a little confusing at first to understand Callcentric's prices and options, since I came from Vonage, where I paid one fee for an account that included inbound and outbound calling. Callcentric separates those services, allowing you to pick and choose, based on the amount of calling you use.
So, you pay one monthly fee for an inbound phone number (DID), plus the 911 fee, and then you pay a small per-minute or unlimited rate when people call that number. You separately decide on a per-minute or unlimited rate for OUTbound calling. Odd concept, but bottom line, this is attractive for our scenario: minimal use of the service, plus E911, fax, and all their included features. In my case, it's $1.95/month for the DID, plus $1.50 for E911, plus per-minute usage.
baxtr:
I am not sure I understand the rush to drop a landline in favor of VoIP with the hassle of implementing E911, obtaining a DID and transferring numbers around. For example, Verizon (in the Los Angeles area) has a plan called Sensible Minute with a Monthly Fee of $2.99 and local calls at $.08 per minute (within a 12 mi. radius).There are of course taxes and other fees. Two different Verizon reps were unable to tell me the added cost of these fees. In any event, there is no charge for incoming calls.
The overriding advantage of OBi ond GV is that you do not have to make out outbound calls on your landline. Buy several OBis, place them strategically and you have free calls everywhere (at least for a while). So, my thought is find the cheapest landline plan and only use it for 911 and have the peace of mind associated with its reliability. Or perhaps step down a notch in continuous service and use your cell phone. Do you really want to depend upon your router or broadband provider for 100% reliability? I certainly don't.
SteveInWA:
@baxtr: I bet you'll be flamed for your post, so let me instead try to pre-empt that with a friendly reply. :D
I agree that there is always a trade-off of reliability vs. cost, and some people are more risk-averse than others. Some on this forum will argue that land lines are no longer more reliable than VoIP, and I don't want to bait that argument, except to say that people will debate you.
Regarding the cost, I think you are misunderstanding the true cost of your land line. I am a former Verizon customer (Verizon sold their business here to Frontier, but the rates stayed the same, so it's still a valid comparison). I kept my PSTN/POTS land line. The base charge is $18.95/month, just for the local line connection. Add in a whopping $11.35/month in taxes and fees, and I pay $30.30/month. This is for flat-rate, unlimited local calling. I believe they have a metered (per-minute) plan for somewhat less per month, but not much less, and I'd still have to pay all those taxes and fees. I think you are just looking at the add-on price for the "Sensible Minute" plan, which gives you INTRA-LATA calling (numbers that are technically not local, but don't cross Verizon's tariffed area. This is sometimes paradoxically called "local long distance"). I actually got rid of that add-on, because I make those calls over VoIP, too. I won't debate or justify why I am keeping this service for now, except that if I did dump it, my bundled FiOS internet service bill would go up, so the true total cost to me is less.
By contrast, you can easily port that land line to a mature/reliable VoIP company that offers DID porting and E911, and pay just a few dollars a month for keeping that number alive.
Circling back to my original point, ~$30/month may be worth it for some people who have highly-reliable POTS service and value that reliability. Many of the people attracted to VoIP are looking for lowest cost, or even free calling. To each his/her own.
shap:
I always wounder why land line is so important ? We all have a cellphones that provide us a backup in case our regular phone at home is not working. In most families we have 4-5 cell phones.
My internet connection serves me well for:
1. Internet browsing
2. IPTV (I have no cable/satelite)
3. Phone
I do understand the need for reliable line for old people that can not deal with rebooting the device ...
However, it is not applicable for most of us ...
SomeDude:
To clarify my point and better yet my thread.
1) I have kids, so 911 is imperative. And no, my wife will not "just use her cell phone". So that's out.
2) My relatives are basically all local, with the exception of my parents, so I call them on my GV.
3) I don't need a landline per se, but having said 911 AND being able to keep my custom, rare and everyone-knows-it home number is equally important.
4) I wanted to find a way to have all 3 and be the least amount of cost - because I can, not because I can't afford 1-3. :)
And, my ISP where I live had about 14 minutes downtime in almost 3 years and everything I run is on UPS's at home.
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