Bell's telephone monopoly crumbling fast (Thank God)

[Fred Zed]

The growing popularity of VoIP is a formidable challenge for Bell and other former phone monopolies. Bell, the country's largest phone carrier, lost 324,000 local phone lines last year to cable companies Rogers Communications Inc. and Vidéotron Ltée, along with such smaller rivals as Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc.:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...nology/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20060404.wvoipp0404

Mountain Cablevision, based in Hamilton, is an example of the new rivals that Bell faces. Subscriber additions for its VoIP service are currently running at twice the pace that Mountain Cablevision had expected....

 

[MojoRisin']

and Cobster does his happy dance

 

[Papi Chulo]

The cable companies are overpriced compared to Primus / Vonage VOIP

Shaw wants $55 / month.. Primus & Vonage are less than $30 for the same service

If you think Bell is bad.. Telus is much worse to deal with

 

[Fred Zed]

More households are cancelling land-line telephone service and just using cellphones to make calls, a Statistics Canada study showed yesterday:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...ogy/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20060406.gtrticker06-1

 

[mrpolarbear]

More households are cancelling land-line telephone service and just using cellphones to make calls, a Statistics Canada study showed yesterday:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...ogy/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20060406.gtrticker06-1

Thats me.

 

[tarasbulba]

I've used Vonage for almost a year now. Been happy with it except the linksys device that I paid $100 for is locked to vonage. There are OTHER online voip services I could use with way better rates for International calls... but now I'm stick with vonage (still better than Bell).

If youre technically apt, you could use Asterisk on Linux and buy a PCI card and use the online services for the deal. Otherwise Vonage is cool with great service and a kickass online service system.

 

[Fred Zed]

Thats me.

Makes sense. The only reason I had my home phone reinstalled ( I am now with Vonage) is my bank
wrote me a letter saying that it was " a bit strange" I did not have a home phone. I think most Credit companies require home phones as well. I maybe make 4 calls a month from my home phone and could easily get by without it.

 

[The Bandit]

If youre technically apt, you could use Asterisk on Linux and buy a PCI card and use the online services for the deal.

We sell Asterisk/Digium cards at work.

 

[DATYdude]

Want to use your cellphone at home?

Check this out, you can dock your cellphone and have cordless handsets which run through your cell number, i.e. you don't have to carry your cell with you in the house:

http://communications.rca.com/en-US/ModelDetail.html?MN=23200RE3

It was MY idea, I'm just a little bit busy chasing the 'tang to produce a prototype right now...

 

[SilentLeviathan]

The breaking up of Bell's monopoly was supposed to lower rates, yet I find I'm being charged for more and more now. Service calls used to be free, so did installing extra jacks. Now I get charged for all these things.

 

[Cobster]

and Cobster does his happy dance

damn right, i worked at their head office, they intentionally have "grey areas" so as to confuse the customer and make it a LOT harder for them to reach anyone in a position of authority, ie - supervisors, managers, etc.
they deserve this

 

[Cobster]

If you think Bell is bad.. Telus is much worse to deal with

I've been with Telus since before they bought ClearNet, ZERO problems with them. Phenomenal customer service, reasonable rates, competitive with everyone else.
I am a Telus person for life. I've switched about 8 people from Hell to Telus and they have had nothing but good experiences with them.
Maybe you're the only unlucky one...Telus-4-Life