I just got $20 knocked off my phone and internet bill

[Crazy Dave]

It took two calls. I think I interrupted the first person while she was eating a donut or something. All she wanted to do was transfer me to get disconnected. The second time I called the person on the other end of the line that time about had a heart attack as they're losing customers left and right to Vonage and other voip companies. I told him I wanted to save money and bundling was not an option and ten minutes later I'm now saving $20 off monthly for the same phone and internet services I currently have.

Give it a try with your phone company :hi:

[Dappleganger]

1. Did the same thing about two weeks ago.

Did it with AT&T (telephone and internet) as well as DirectTV. Just tell them that you're going to have to cut back or change services because of the economy.

Every little bit helps, but if dh gets laid off we'll probably suspend DTV for awhile.

[Crazy Dave]

2. I'd like to get rid of our expanded channel crap we pay $70 a month for

But the rest of the family don't want to give up their movie channels and all the other 200 with nothing on them.

Just give me the basic as long as MSNBC is on it. Not watching Olbermann and Maddow isn't an option for me.

[hippywife]

3. I did the same a couple of weeks ago.

We don't want to bundle because we don't want cable at all. :hi:

[Crazy Dave]

4. They do the bundling with the phone company too

Say you already have basic phone service and caller ID for $35 a month and you want to save about five bucks. You call the phone company and tell them you want to save $5 off your phone and caller ID service, they tell you, "We have just what your looking for, we can put you on our super saver plus program which gives you your phone service, caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, call blocking and voice mail for only $120 a month". But I'm only paying $35 right now. "Yes under your current plan you are paying $27 for your phone and $8 for your caller ID. With the super saver plus program you only pay $25 for your phone service and only $5 for the caller ID".

Bundling is what created their own competition in my opinion.

Now if only I could retire off that extra $20....or maybe put it in the stock-market eh? :hi:

[hippywife]

6. Part of the deal with ours was

that we have only our phone and high speed internet. On the phone we have call waiting and when we first went to voice mail we also had to have call forwarding for it to work. That was fine because we needed call forwarding anyway at the time. We no longer need it for our purposes and they no longer need it to make voice mail work. Got that taken off, too.

We have a very small town phone service that is trying to expand too quickly because the little bedroom community it mostly serves is growing by leaps and bounds. We live 8 miles south of there in the boons but have to use them for our service, too.

[sister taoist]

5. I have no Internets nor cell, and am very, very dissatisfied with my landline co.

Do you need a highspeed Internets connection and how much is Vonage per month?

[suninvited]

7. you have to have highspeed for Vonage and for

magic jack.

I have magic jack gives a much better quality phone call, and is a lot cheaper. Haven't tried either myself.

[Crazy Dave]

8. I've read that MagicJack is like a spyware program

The low price is true but the fine print agreement that nobody reads supposedly tells you that they have total access to your computer and all it's files and monitors all your of your phone calls and online activities to do whatever it is they do with it.

http://broadband-nation.blogspot.com/2008/10/real-problems-with-magic-jack-is-majic.html
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/04/14/magicjacks-eula-says.html
http://digg.com/security/Little_Unknown_Facts_about_the_MagicJack_Spyware

[Sebastian Doyle]

14. I have to question the credibility of those links

because they all contain advertisements for a competing phone service, so there's an obvious conflict of interest with whomever is providing the info on the site.

On the other hand, it's possible to use the Magic Jack phone service without the USB device. It's a SIP account just like Vonage, or the late and lamented SunRocket. If you have one of the adapters used for those other VOIP services, it can be programmed just as easily for Magic Jack.

My biggest problem with MJ is, despite all their recent nationwide media blitzing, and now even selling the device in big retail chains like Best Buy and Radio Shack, and yet they are still missing a lot of area codes. And I don't exactly live in Bumfuck Egypt, vast open space Red State. Doesn't matter on outgoing calls (to the US) because they don't cost any extra. But incoming calls might be problematic for others who get stuck with long distance charges (at least for those still stuck with old fashioned landlines.)

[Crazy Dave]

16. Yeah...mostly on message board forums too

It's enough to get my attention and read their terms of service should I ever consider something like that. I've only heard a few bad things about Vonage when they first started but now I hear everyone is pretty happy with them.

[Sebastian Doyle]

19. Vonage has the advantage of being the "last man standing" so to speak.

There are dozens of upstart VOIP companies out there, but only SunRocket ever came close to competing with Vonage for the market share. And SunRocket was great while it lasted, but they fell victim to what many start up companies do, trying to do too much, too soon with no financial backing to keep the bills paid. Magic Jack has said in the past that they would officially offer an option for people with their own VOIP devices, but they never have set a date for such a thing. Fortunately, I was able to pull the old SunRocket ATA out of the closet and reconfigure it for the Magic Jack service on my own. Magic Jack might take away some business from Vonage, and especially that horribly overpriced Comcast "Digital Voice" if they made it easier for their customers to use their own hardware, and not forced to leave the computer on 24/7 to power the USB adapter.

[Mugu]

9. When I called my phone company I only got $5 off a month.

But, I tripled my Internet speed.

[Jamastiene]

10. Who'd you have to ice to make that happen?

Details. I want more details. :P

[Crazy Dave]

11. Well it was pretty much like I said...

The first person could have cared less that a 26 year customer was about to start using Vonage and was ready to disconnect me immediately and get back to her donut or email or whatever as fast as she could. The second person realized that the more people they send to Vonage, the more people the phone company will lay-off or outsource so that person was willing to do everything in their power so that they could get me the same thing I could get with Vonage at the same price I would pay for Vonage.

By saving me $20 a month it will keep me as a customer for a few more years and might even save his and his unhelpful co-worker's jobs for a few more months...maybe

[Jamastiene]

12. Hmm... Hmm...

I like they way your survivor (not the reality show, but real survival) instincts work. I salute you for making it work out. We all need to be doing that. Prices are way too high in the grocery stores right now too. Have you seen some of those prices? I wonder what we could do there. Hmm... I like they way you think. :hi:

[Crazy Dave]

15. That will be for another post

Since I lost my business, what work I do get is seldom and my wife works full time, she's getting me very domesticated and she's loving it. I can now spend $100 less at the grocery store than she used to and what I get is good and last us two weeks longer. I'm even collecting recipes :)

[LynneSin]

13. If you have Verizon DSL and paying more than $20/month for it call & complain

They have an offer for new subscribers that you can get $17.99 a month for Verizon DSL FOR LIFE.

That's what I'm paying now after I had a hissy fit with them

[Crazy Dave]

17. I've tried to get that but they're not available with my phone service

The total I pay now for phone service with the features I use and their DSL is $45 a month.

[Redstone]

18. That works every time. "Customer retention" is a BIG priority for them.

Redstone