[TriLUG] wired telephone service

[Jeremy Portzer]

James Jones wrote:
> I am not ready to completely divorce myself
> of a wired telephone, but I would like to reduce my costs as much as
> possible on a plain old telephone service for my home.
> 
> I am in Wendell. Other than AT&T/Bellsouth, what other options are
> there for me. Ones that are much less in cost?????
> 

I'm guessing you've moved from somewhere else that has deregulated local 
phone (PSTN) service for residential customers?  This isn't available in 
North Carolina yet as far as I know.  Residential customers are still 
pretty much stuck with the ILEC (Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier).  If 
you are a business there are plenty of providers available when you get 
into the realm of digital multi-line service, but for single-line analog 
service there's no competition yet.  This lack of competition is part of 
the whole reason people are so gung-ho about VoIP options.

It's worth checking to be sure you're on AT&T's cheapest plan however. 
BellSouth used to offer an extra-cheap plan that had very little local 
calling area, but charged per minute for most calls.  I'm not sure if 
this is available any longer but it's worth digging for, if you're not 
going to use the phone much.

--Jeremy