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Frontier Offers $20 DSL...
If You Bundle That Phone Line You Didn't Want
New Frontier customers can now order DSL services for $20 a month -- with a catch. According to a company statement, users can get that price locked in for three years with no contract or installation fees -- if users sign up for a traditional copper landline phone account that's surely to add $30 to $40 in over-priced voice services (and fees) on top of that original price tag. Such "price lock" promises traditionally aren't worth it, as you can usually get a lower rate through negotiations over time. The deal fine print (pdf) notes the speed you get is 6 Mbps, but they fail to note the upstream speed. Users can double that speed for $10 more -- though you have to be in an area where Frontier has upgraded to offer those speeds.
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hamburglar
join:2002-04-29
united state

hamburglar

Member

Hmm...

30/5Mb from Time Warner w/ Obi/GV/Anveo or 1Mb (max speed for my address) and an overpriced landline from Frontier. This is a tough one for me.
Joe12345678
join:2003-07-22
Des Plaines, IL

Joe12345678

Member

6 Mbps is about the max for DSL1 and upload should be about

6 Mbps is about the max for DSL1 and upload should be about 512 or less.
kem09030
join:2004-11-29
Rushville, IL

kem09030

Member

Re: 6 Mbps is about the max for DSL1 and upload should be about

I complained enough about the slow speeds that they bumped up the speed to 3712 Kbps / 448 Kbps. Now I get about .75 down...most of the time. The pings are all over the place topping out at 3000 ms but generally around 1000-1500 ms. The jitter is also all over the place from 100 ms to 300 ms. They really need to push a bit more fiber out to the COs.

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

I'll never ditch the landline

I have Comcast for my home phone.

Cell phones are good but they do have their problems, one being dropped calls and the other being E911 issues. Even though cell phones are able to transmit their location to 911, not all 911 dispatch centers have been upgraded to receive location signals from cell phones. If you call 911 on a Cell Phone from Springfield, MA the call goes to the state police dispatch in Northampton and then has to be routed to Springfield police dispatch. I have the direct number to Springfield police dispatch in my contacts and call that number instead of 911 if I witness a car accident or a suspicious person.

Being disabled with health issues I keep a landline with Comcast and I know for a fact that CDV transmits location info to 911 because it is considered a landline.

The other issue with cell phones is dropped calls. If I call a number that I know has long queue lines to talk to a CSR or is going to be a lengthy call, I call from a landline is nothing is more aggravating than waiting a half hour on hold and have the call drop (due to signal fluctuations) after the CSR comes on the line.

Also, I have an alarm system and that requires a phone line.
clone (banned)
join:2000-12-11
Portage, IN

clone (banned)

Member

Re: I'll never ditch the landline

Everyone always bellyaches about E911. But please, FFS, how many times do you people call the cops in a day?

I can count on one hand with 3 fingers left over the number of times I've dialed the emergency services in 15 years of having a cell phone. Both times the call was routed correctly. The first time was before location services even existed on cell phones!

I just can't imagine being the type of person that has to call the police that often. It must be an exhausting existence.

hamburglar
join:2002-04-29
united state

hamburglar

Member

Re: I'll never ditch the landline

With an Obi (»www.amazon.com/OBi100-Te ··· ords=obi) and Google Voice/Anveo for 80c/month, you can still have E911.

cdru
Go Colts
MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN

cdru

MVM

Re: I'll never ditch the landline

This is what I've done for a year now. Don't regret it one bit. With their free subscription, you get 40 minutes a day incoming and $.01 outgoing. Aside from the $15 porting fee, it's cost me an average of $2.31 a month (.99 DID fee, .80 E911, the rest for outgoing)
alfnoid
MVM
join:2002-02-18

alfnoid to IowaCowboy

MVM

to IowaCowboy
said by IowaCowboy:

...I keep a landline with Comcast ...

I hate to be "that guy", but comcast isn't a landline.
You could get any voip service these days and get E911 where you program your address into the service.
If all you want it for is the 911 location reporting then that is fine, but I would NOT trust the cable co over the phone co for reliability.
I have worked for both over the years. Trust me on that one.

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

Re: I'll never ditch the landline

said by alfnoid:

said by IowaCowboy:

...I keep a landline with Comcast ...

I hate to be "that guy", but comcast isn't a landline.
You could get any voip service these days and get E911 where you program your address into the service.
If all you want it for is the 911 location reporting then that is fine, but I would NOT trust the cable co over the phone co for reliability.
I have worked for both over the years. Trust me on that one.

In the alarm industry, Comcast is considered a facilities based VoIP provider (where they use their private network as opposed to the public Internet) and the modem has a battery so it is certainly more reliable than Vonage or Skype. My alarm company says Comcast and Charter (dominant cable providers in the area) meets industry accepted reliability standards for alarm signals but they will require the installation of an AES radio box ($$$expensive) if a customer uses any other VoIP provider.

FYI: I deal with a local alarm company.
alfnoid
MVM
join:2002-02-18

1 recommendation

alfnoid

MVM

Re: I'll never ditch the landline

said by IowaCowboy:

Comcast is considered a facilities based VoIP provider (where they use their private network as opposed to the public Internet)

Herein lies the difference that I was pointing out....their private network Supplies the internet in this case.

The cable network is far less reliable than a telco network.

That is all I was saying.
I could tell you horror stories about cable phone not working that simply wouldn't have happened with a telco line.
Like I said, I have worked for both (and done alarms too for that matter) and I promise you cable sucks when directly compared to telco for reliability.

They may have a million other bullet points over telco in other ways, but this is the one way they are inferior.
So call me old fashioned, but cable phone is not a landline in the traditional sense. Or at all in my mind.
kem09030
join:2004-11-29
Rushville, IL

kem09030 to IowaCowboy

Member

to IowaCowboy
911 via cell doesn't get routed correctly in this area. 911 on landline is about as useless as they don't get any location information for rural callers. If you can't tell them where you are and how to get there you are out of luck. There were plans for upgrades a few years back but they never took place. They were also suppose to give actual addresses to everyone but that hasn't happened yet.

Frontier is fairly safe with the offer as a lot of the areas they serve have little competition and spotty cell service. Sprint works the best for where I am thanks to the airave. If it wasn't for that device service would be crap from all of them. I live at a license boundary for 800 so service is very spotty by those carriers.

I actually had to call 911 last week for an abandoned car on the highway during the blizzard. Couldn't see the car until you were almost in its back seat.

MertJen
@ut.us

MertJen to IowaCowboy

Anon

to IowaCowboy
Comcast phone service is not the same as a traditional copper land line.
ssavoy
Premium Member
join:2007-08-16
Dallas, PA

ssavoy

Premium Member

Their network sucks

This is mostly to sucker uninformed customers that have no idea how bad Frontier DSL really is. I can't imagine how badly they're losing to Comcast now. They've had an insane number of region-wide outages in Northeast Pennsylvania over the past few months it's ridiculous.

This is also the same company that tried pushing 768kbps DSL for $39.95/month just 2 years ago in my area.
Crookshanks
join:2008-02-04
Binghamton, NY

Crookshanks

Member

Re: Their network sucks

said by ssavoy:

They've had an insane number of region-wide outages in Northeast Pennsylvania over the past few months it's ridiculous.

I've experienced one outage in seven months, which is one too many IMHO, but not an "insane number". PTD has also had an outage in that timeframe....
ssavoy
Premium Member
join:2007-08-16
Dallas, PA

ssavoy

Premium Member

Re: Their network sucks

Maybe it depends on the central office. There are two around here that have been nothing but problems recently.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

Landline is fine by me, I need it

In addition to my VoCABLE service I have VoIP for my voyipe service (for international LD calls) but voyipe it wasn't reliable enough to fax with and my alarm system threw trouble codes, even after being "optimized" for data.

WHT
join:2010-03-26
Rosston, TX

WHT

Member

Price Locking

Scare tactics trying to imply the prices will dramatically increase within three years. More like a anti-chun tactic.

Lock them in place and you don't have to spend money on infrastructure improvements to keep them from churning to a better service.

cork1958
Cork
Premium Member
join:2000-02-26

cork1958

Premium Member

I'll never do a major phone company again!

I'll never go back to Frontier, who would be my provider in my area, or any other major phone carrier again with the way they rip you off in various ways!

That $30-$40 basic phone line usually turns into about $60 with all the fees and other ignorant crap put in there!

I'm quite happy with my $9.99 for life plan with Vonage, although even that turns into $18.16 a month with fees, etc. Still, much better than even $30!

I did try Verizon/Frontier DSL for a 2 year period about 2 years ago, and it was reliable and steady. I was on the 7.1/768 plan and got every bit of that.
wasvznowftr
join:2010-07-13
00000

wasvznowftr

Member

Frontier Offers $20 FiOS

Now that's a headline that would have been a little more attractive.

»www.frontierforhome.com/fios/

Frontier did a disservice to themselves by not mentioning that 15/5 fios service is also part of that promotion.

$50 total for both fios internet and unlimited phone service. Maybe not such a bad deal?

Miles
@comcast.net

Miles

Anon

But 29.99 without.

The phone isn't a requirement though. The pricing for standalone DSL in that same promo, still with the 3 year price lock and all that jazz, is 29.99. They don't note the upload speed and in most Frontier areas it's around or less than 1m. But most Frontier areas are rural and are competing against expensive measured satellite plans.