After getting married my wife and I each had a cell phone but no home phone. It worked for the most part. We could always get in touch with our friends & family. Well, except when they were long distance. We had to do the old trick of call them, hang up, and have them call you back.
Plus, my wifes cell was with Bell Mobility and the bills were ridiculous! She had the absolutely cheapest plan we could find, made maybe 6 or 7 calls a month and about the same amount of texts and her bill vaired from $60 to upwards of $80. We needed to get rid of it!
Here is what we did:
We cancelled her cellphone with Bell (avg $70/mth)
We switched our Lite Plus cable internet with Cogeco (approx. $30/mth) to the basic analog cable tv package.
We then signed up for the Ultimate/Ultimate Cable plan with Distributel. We get unlimited DSL internet at about 5Mbps & a home phone with all the regular features. For an extra $10 we added unlimited long distance for Canada/US and $2 more to get the same plan on my cell phone. The package comes out to $75/mth ($65/mth for the 1st year).
With my cell phone @ Telus we upgraded to the iPhone 3G 8GB for $100 & a 3 year contract. We got the basic data plan with the My 5 Favs option ($55/mth).
The way long distance on the cell works with Distributel is they have a ton of access numbers. Your phone number is given access to the system. You call the access number for your area. After a quick moment you hear the dial tone. Then you dial the number you want you call without the 1. You will hear an automated voice say "Distributel" and then you will get connected to the call and hear the line ringing on the other end.
You will have to let your friends & family know that when they see Distributel on the ident-i-call that it's just you and not telemarketer. The biggest is hassle is having to remember phone numbers and dial them in manually.
My solution was the iPhone app IsaDial. It's meant for using calling cards because they also have access numbers. I programmed a few different access numbers as a 'profile'. When I want to make a call I launch IsaDial instead of Contacts. It asks me which profile I want to use. Then it takes me to my contacts. I choose the person and number I want to call. The program calls the access number, waits a few moments, and then dials the number I wanted.
So for the cost of one less cell phone we now have cable tv, high speed DSL internet, a home phone with unlimited long distance in US & Canada and a cell phone with the same plan. Sure it costed me $100 to upgrade to an iPhone. But my monthly plan was actully $10-15 cheaper per month on the iPhone. So the upgrade paid for itself after 10 months.
1 comment:
have you thought about going to a pay as you go cell phone for Chris when she is out (with a baby).
I have one and I use it exclusively for about $50 every other month or so.
If its a back up phone you can spend even less. $10 a month
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