Cutting the Cord?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 13:14:11 -0400, "David G."
<david_please_dont_email_me@i_hate_spam.com> chose to add this to the great
equation of life, the universe, and everything:

>David S wrote:
>> On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 10:27:04 -0400, "David G."
>> <david_please_dont_email_me@i_hate_spam.com> chose to add this to the
>> great equation of life, the universe, and everything:
>>
>>> keep your land line
>>> for $35/month.
>>
>> $35?!?!?!?!?!!!!
>>
>> My landline, with some usage, is around $20/month.
>
>I have voice mail and caller id/call waiting. I can't see how Verizon
>would sell me a line for $20 with all those features...
>
>Who do you use?

SBC, but I don't have any extras. In questioning the rate as high as $35, I
was assuming a bare bones account with no extras and little usage, since we
were talking about a backup to a cell phone.

My current SBC (originally Illinois Bell) bill:

Line charge: 9.00
Federal Access Charge: 4.49

Local calls:
0-8 miles:
35 at day rate 1.58
5 at evening rate .15
45 at night/wknd rate 1.35
over 8 miles:
24 at day rate 1.08 <mostly to my cell>
1 at evening rate .03
11 at night/wknd rate .33

[city] 9-1-1 fee: .50
State Infrastructure Maintenance Fee: .09
State Additional Charges: .01
Infrastructure Maintenance Credit: .79CR
Number portability surcharge: .18
Federal universal service fee: .41
IL universal service fee: .03
IL telecom relay svc and eqp: .07

Taxes:
Federal at 3%: .51
Illinois at 7%: 1.20
Municipal telecommunications tax: .86

Total SBC local service charges: 20.42

Long distance:
1 in-state call, 2 min.: .10
Taxes: .01 <breakdown shows it as municipal>
Monthly service charge FR promo: .00

Total amount due:

$20.53 if paid on or before Sep. 2, 2004
$20.82 if paid after Sep. 2, 2004

--
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http/home.att.net/~dwstreeter
Remove the naughty bit from my address to reply
Expect a train on ANY track at ANY time.
"We're all tired. But we WILL go on with Halloween, darn it. That's the
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[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

"IMHO" <nospam@nospam.net> wrote in message
news:_MWTc.20948$Yl.12362@okepread07...
> I told the CSR I wanted the NO $ per month & $0.10 per min plan.
> She asked if I was sure I wanted to change to that plan.
> Looked like a no brainer to me....

Or just switch to another long-distance company for even lower rates with no
monthly fee.

Wonder why we can't change international-call carrier on cellular plans.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

Buck Turgidson writes:
> I am curious to know how cutting the cord has worked out for those who've
> done it. We have 2 young children, and I am wondering if it would work for
> us.

My wife and I have three sons, all out of the house now. We went to cell
only in June (we each have our own number), and so far things have gone
very well. The nicest thing: no more telemarketers calling.

--
Theodore (Ted) Heise <theo@heise.nu> Bloomington, IN, USA

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

Theodore Heise wrote:
>
> Buck Turgidson writes:
> > I am curious to know how cutting the cord has worked out for those who've
> > done it. We have 2 young children, and I am wondering if it would work for
> > us.
>
> My wife and I have three sons, all out of the house now. We went to cell
> only in June (we each have our own number), and so far things have gone
> very well. The nicest thing: no more telemarketers calling.

While I'm not sure where things stand, as of late, there's been much
discussion concerning cellular providers selling their customer data-
bases to third parties.

Notan

 

[Joseph]

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 04:12:16 GMT, Louise <none@nospam.com> wrote:

>They regularly fax prescriptions, test results etc., to me. When I am
>asked to fax things (I have to deal with managed care companies for
>work), I use a flatbed and Winfax Pro.
>
>If one didn't have a landline, it seems you simply wouldn't be able to
>send and receive faxes. Is there another way to do this?

There are email to fax gateways. There used to be a few free ones,
but I'm not sure if they're available these days. To receive there
are several companies some (such as efax) you can get for free in
exchange for receiving periodic advertising and provided you don't
receive a whole lot of faxes or many multi-page faxes.

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[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

When using your digital VZW phone as a modem, the modem emulation software
in the phone initiates a data connection, and the digital data from the
computer/PDA is sent as digital data over the air to the VZW switch. When
your computer issues the "dial" modem command, the equipment at VZW will
either pass the command to modems to make an ordinary landline phone
call to your ISP, or, if the magic #777 number is used, it puts the data
directly onto the Internet. In the former case, the digital data is only
then converted to tones and sent over the landline system. Tones cannot be
sent over the ordinary voice air protocol, since, as has been mentioned,
lossy compression techniques are used. Besides, you are using a digital
air interface, why use kludgy tones to send digital data?

The phone can also emulate a FAX modem, so you can send FAXes from your
computer. Same idea.

Now, if you have a device which allows you to hook ordinary phones to your
cell phone, the device is generally going to tell the phone to set up a
voice call. The problem with doing FAX is that the FAX machine is going
to dial like an ordinary phone, and after the connection is made, is it
going to send the FAX tones. Too late for the device to convert the FAX
tones back to digital and tell the phone to set up a FAX-type data call.

The key point is that data (computer dialup or FAX) using a digital phone
is set up differently, starting with the phone initiating a different
kind of call, and not converting to tones, if necessary, until the data
is in the VZW network.

BTW, this is why dialing #777 from your phone's keypad gives an error
message. #777 is a pseudo-number valid only for data calls.