O Canada! > Canadian > Canadian Chat > Inexpensive Home Phone Plan

Inexpensive Home Phone Plan

I use teksavvy for home phone.Long distance rates are 2.9 cents without any plan

reply to MissSherlock
why not bundle with either Rogers or Teksavvy?...both offer both services.

reply to MissSherlock

reply to dirtyjeffer
VoIP will save you a lot of cash as long as you've got a decent Internet connection and if you're with TSI, chances are you do. If you're not familiar with VoIP, Tek Talk is not a bad starter service.

I've been using a MagicJackPlus for the past two months along with a minimal Bell service for 911 emergency service.

The MagicJackPlus sells for about $60 USD and the service is $30 per year for unlimited North American Long Distance, $10 for a Canadian # for incoming and an additional 2.4 cents per minute for European LD prepaid. The MagicJackPlus plugs directly into your router and doesn't need a computer after you've set it up once.

Compared to what we were spending on Bell LD we're saving about $35 a month.

Magicjack quality compared to Bell is quite good. I'm on a 4 Mbit DSL profile. I've been told it's a little scratchy at the other end but overall quality is good.

I wouldn't use it as a total Bell replacement though, because it has locked up once already. Imagine if you had to deal with a lockup and reset your router during a 911 emergency!

Otherwise though, for casual regular long distance calling I'd have to say it's hard to beat.

I highly recommend it.

reply to MissSherlock
I ported my Roger's number over to FPL (FreePhoneLine) - it was about $75 up front, for the port, ATA activation, etc - but I haven't had a phonebill in the 4 or 5 months since, so am well to the good...

I used my own ATA, and just activated it on the FPL system - however, for $99, they'll sell you one preconfigured - if you're not comfortable with setting one up yourself...

I've been with VoIP.ms in the past, and still have a line with them, as well, but at the time, they couldn't port my number... FPL was the only one that could.

My wife and I mostly use our cell's - but wanted to keep the "landline" for several reasons - mainly to preserve the #, more then anything else... Service has been reliable, quality has been fine, and the LD is exceedingly cheap (they do free LD to most cities they service, and other places are in the $0.02/min range...) The $5 of LD credit I bought when I signed up is still going strong.

reply to lugnut

Yeah, the original Majicjack required a computer to plug into. The Plus works directly off of a router. I've made literally a couple of hundred calls with it in the past 2 months and overall very few complaints about call quality. Your nephew may be using a cheap handset or be having network issues.

One thing I have noticed is that the MagicJack is sensitive to your upstream bandwidth. Forget about seeding any torrents while you're making a call and on my piddly 4 Mbit DSL even heavy surfing during a conversation can seriously infringe on call quality.

Otherwise though, I'm a fairly light internet user and when we make a LD call I'm not usually using the net too heavily.

reply to dillyhammer

reply to lugnut

reply to MissSherlock
I just switched to TekTalk Basic. It was pretty painless, just plugged the adapter into my network and the phone into the adapter on the day of the switch and it was good to go. Bit expensive to get started (especially since I took the easy way and paid teksavvy for voip adapter) but after 8 months or so the saving should still start adding up ($12/mo savings and ~$90 start-up cost). Bonus: not giving Bell money for that service anymore and it also has caller ID.

My current network setup doesn't have QoS but I'm the only user here and I always limit my trafffic from killing the connection anyways.

Good Morning All,

Many thanks for all the information.

Rogers' prices have gone up since last year even with the $10.00 discount for the first year. On the other hand Bell has dropped prices for their home phone but with many additional costs.

The discount for my Rogers home service will expire in the next few months. I was considering Teksavvy since I have their Extreme Internet.

I'm also looking for my Aunt who's a senior. Therefore, she wouldn't be able to handle the techy stuff.

Cheers, MS

TekTalk comes with an ATA (analogue telephone adapter) that plugs in ahead of your router and does its own QoS. If you have 7Mbps or less, it's the perfect tool for you.

reply to MissSherlock

reply to MissSherlock
Since I have yet to see a VOIP phone that doesn't fail unpredictably and require resetting the router or modem I'd have to say your aunt would be best off retaining a Bell POTS service. Sure Bell's the devil, but they do have the most reliable product.

Imagine this scenario.

Your aunt sits down to a lovely fish dinner, a bone catches in her throat, she picks up her VOIP phone to dial 911 and discovers no dial tone! While precious seconds are slipping away she's hunting around a mess of cables trying to figure out how to reset her router and meanwhile expires on top of the pile.

Like I said earlier, VOIP is great for saving on long distance, but it's no substitute for POTS when it comes to reliability and 911 service.