Phone Home
So, Kris and I were chatting with onefishclappin and krikwennavd last night and they mentioned that they were thinking of dumping their cable service. Like them, I'm currently using the bundled TW service (cable TV, internet, phone) and I'm really thinking the phone (in particular) is a Bad Deal.
Right now, they're charging $40/month (really $48 after taxes and misc. fees) for unlimited calling anywhere in the US. I suspect that Kris and I seldom go over 1000 minutes a month, so that comes out to $0.05/minute for calling. I suspect we're closer to about 200-300 minutes a month which puts us at $0.16 to $0.25 a minute - VERY expensive. Also, I tried to log on the TW site to view my usage, and it only works with IE or Safari, so I can't even use it!
So, I think it's time to go unbundled VOIP. I ordered a VOIP adapter from Amazon and created an account with CallCentric. I was even able to do a couple of test calls with twinkle (though the sound was a little funny). We'll see what happens - if it seems to work reasonably well with the real adapter, I'll transfer our existing phone number to the service and drop TW.
Right now, they're charging $40/month (really $48 after taxes and misc. fees) for unlimited calling anywhere in the US. I suspect that Kris and I seldom go over 1000 minutes a month, so that comes out to $0.05/minute for calling. I suspect we're closer to about 200-300 minutes a month which puts us at $0.16 to $0.25 a minute - VERY expensive. Also, I tried to log on the TW site to view my usage, and it only works with IE or Safari, so I can't even use it!
So, I think it's time to go unbundled VOIP. I ordered a VOIP adapter from Amazon and created an account with CallCentric. I was even able to do a couple of test calls with twinkle (though the sound was a little funny). We'll see what happens - if it seems to work reasonably well with the real adapter, I'll transfer our existing phone number to the service and drop TW.