Any info on long distance service for land lines?

[disneysteve]

I know this is a really outdated question but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

My mom has a landline with no long distance service at all. She can only make local calls.

She has a cell phone that she uses when she needs to make long distance calls, and that's fine. The problem is she lives 3 miles from us but calling us on our cell phones is a long distance call for her (different area codes) so if we drop our land line, as we're planning to do, she will only be able to call us with her cell phone. We talk to her every day, sometimes multiple times a day. We keep encouraging her to keep her cell phone on her at all times, but it's really not happening. For both convenience and emergency reasons, we want her to still be able to reach us with her land line phones.

Does anyone know the cheapest way for her to get long distance service? I know years ago there used to be a ton of options. I had one company through a medical source that was only 2 or 3 cents a minute. I suspect going through Verizon will be costly but we have to look into that.

Thanks for any ideas.

[HundredK]

Does she have television service? That's what we always used to do, bundle our landline with our cable, and it often made the cable cheaper to do so. Though if it's a cable company, it may not technically be a landline, it might be VOIP, but the long distance will be free, and she would be able to use her traditional phone and everything like she does now.

[disneysteve]

Does she have television service? That's what we always used to do, bundle our landline with our cable, and it often made the cable cheaper to do so. Though if it's a cable company, it may not technically be a landline, it might be VOIP, but the long distance will be free, and she would be able to use her traditional phone and everything like she does now.

Good idea. She does have Comcast TV. I'll have to have her check how much it would cost to add phone service. She could keep her phone number and her phones.

[JBinKC]

My suggestion is to first try a google phone which is totally free VOIP service and see if the hardware works on your mom's computer. Otherwise an Ooma box has a decent service for $5 and change a month for their basic service which includes caller ID and of course unlimited long distance calls.

[disneysteve]

My suggestion is to first try a google phone which is totally free VOIP service and see if the hardware works on your mom's computer. Otherwise an Ooma box has a decent service for $5 and change a month for their basic service which includes caller ID and of course unlimited long distance calls.

Thanks. I know nothing about either of those. I’ll check them out.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I use Magicjack $39 a year (not $39 a month), and ported my old number over from AT & T to Magicjack.

[HundredK]

I'm sure the likes of Ooma and Magicjack have gotten better over the years, but when I tried them long ago, they were awful with continual dropped calls, and then they nickel and dimed you to death for things like voicemail. That was a long time ago though, hopefully that's improved.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Magicjack has gotten light years better. I've had it since about 2012. To be honest though I'm not sure why I keep it. Having 2 numbers is not necessary, but old habits are hard to break. I'm working on the day to have only 1 number.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Use comcast. Sometimes you pay a premium like my parents for crap service because you are old and want things a certain way.

[JBinKC]

I'm sure the likes of Ooma and Magicjack have gotten better over the years, but when I tried them long ago, they were awful with continual dropped calls, and then they nickel and dimed you to death for things like voicemail. That was a long time ago though, hopefully that's improved.

The only time I would get a dropped call is under conditions when my internet service is offline or simply not working. In the past if your internet service was functional but your upload speed was below .15 the devices would not work. If my internet is working I now always can obtain at least a .15 upload speed. I blame the internet service not the product. As for add ons I always get the basic service and no more.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Magicjack doesn't nickel & dime, $35 for the device and includes 12 months of service. Thereafter it's $39 a year. Includes all these services.

[cypher1]

Use comcast. Sometimes you pay a premium like my parents for crap service because you are old and want things a certain way.

My parents as well since they don't want to change.

[disneysteve]

I use Magicjack $39 a year

It looks like with MagicJack you would need one for each phone. Is that correct? So if you have 3 phones in the house, you'd need 3 MagicJacks. Even so, at $40/year, that's still only $10/month which is cheaper than having a landline and includes long distance.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I’m not sure if 3 devices would be needed. But I think only 1 device is needed, you would just need a 1 to 3-way splitter connector

[QuarterMillionMan]