In my never-ending quest to find the best deals on products and services we use, I may have struck gold and found a way to save hundreds of $ per year on our telephone bill.
A couple of weeks ago, our former home telephone provider, SunRocket, suddenly closed it's doors without telling anyone. (Sunrocket is exactly like Vonage, except cheaper with an annual plan) As if this isn't bad enough, most of their subscribers (including me) had pre-paid $200 per year for unlimited local and long distance calling and we would not get a refund for months left in our annual plan. This was originally a great deal as it basically comes to $16.66 per month without any other taxes or fees. Well, depending on how many months left in your contract, it turned out to not be such a great deal. I wasn't hit so hard since I was more than half way though my 2nd year, bringing my overall cost to $19 per month over the entire time I was with them. This is still way cheaper than anything else out there. I have, however, learned to not go into prepaid annual plans again in the future.
So, for the last 2 weeks I have been researching online different options, and man, there are plenty of them. I have since become an official home telephone option expert, and I would write a book if the options didn't change so often. (Feel free to contact me if you need a telephone provider consultation) In then end, I decided to go with a brand new company whose product is still in beta testing. Their telephone service is only $20 per YEAR, plus another $20 one time cost for the hardware. So for the first year, the cost is $3.33 per month. Now I know that I said I would not prepay an annual deal again, but I had been paying $20 month before, so what's the risk if they close their doors next month. The name of the company, and their product, is
magicjack. I ordered mine last weekend and have been using it for a couple of days. Before you all go order it, know that you must have high speed broadband Internet and a computer for it to work. Now, the sound quality sounds just like a land line, but there have been a few glitches so far. For example, I was talking on the phone this morning with my dad, and after about 10 minutes, the call was dropped and I had to call him back. I'm not yet sure if this is an indication of the service for the long run, or of the fact that they are still in beta. But for $3.33 per month, it still seems like a great deal.
So who would I recommend this to? Now we have cell phones with free night and weekend, so we are primarily going to be using this as a secondary line so Amy can talk for hours on end with all the other women in her life while I am at work (as if that's what a mother of 2 does all day). I don't think I would recommend this line for business or a primary line without either another land line or cell phones. It does have E911, but due to the limitations of having the Internet up and running, with electricity, and your computer on, that is too many dependencies that miss the requirement of a reliable primary service in my opinion. However, I know plenty of you that live or travel overseas. I think this is a perfect way to talk to loved ones (me) in the States for FREE after paying the aformentioned prices. Since you get an American number assigned to you, you can call to or receive calls from the US for free. For others of you, perhaps this is a cheaper way to get free long distance service than going through your traditional land line's long distance service.
Anyway, I promise, I don't work for them, I just got excited about saving so much money and I thought I'd spread the wealth.
PS. If you have been trying to call us on our old phone number and have been getting a busy signal, try our cell phones or email us to send you our numbers.
