In the north shore area my neighbor was paying >$125 per month to AT&T. Basic service only included calls in a 5 mile radius. Her husband was in a nursing home 12 miles away, all the calls were charged long distance rates, and they refused to offer her any kind of calling plan, saying it was against state law. When I spoke with them, they said the same to me. I helped her get a cell phone and service from Consumer Cellular, then cancel AT&T.
Wow again...... No doubt, if you need to make a bunch of outgoing calls, especially long distance or inter-region, choosing a LL over a cell phone could be a big mistake. OTOH, retaining a LL on a low cost plan as a supplement to your cell phone might be OK.
DW just retrieved our latest ATT landline bill for me. (Yep, still get paper bills via snailmail!
)
We have "Call Plan 30" which is $13.50 p/m plus a lovely "federal access charge" of $7.29 is added to that for a total of $20.79.
Then it gets confusing. There are some other taxes and fees which aren't specifically attached to either the phone bill portion or the copper line DSL portion (which together comprise my total ATT bill). I've assumed these charges would be there if I dropped the LL and had only the DSL. But who knows for sure? (This is, after all, Illinois: Land of the Mystery Fee.)
Billed for DuPage County 1.50
State Infrastructure Maintenance Fee 0.12
State Additional Charges 0.02
Federal Universal Service Fee 1.77
IL Universal Service Fee 0.25
IL Telecom Relay Svc and Eqp 0.02
Cost Assessment Charge 0.49
Total Surcharges and Other Fees 4.17
My favorite is the "Cost Assessment Fee" where they charge me half a buck p/m to figure out how much they're going to charge me....... !
I understand your neighbor's plight since these lower cost plans are very restricted in the outgoing calls you're allowed and they get pricey if you exceed the plan. We don't make outgoing calls on the LL. We use our cell phones. And, of course, in this world of email and texts, don't use very many cell minutes.
We keep the LL because:
1. It served as a back-up to DW's cell phone while DW's DM was in the NH.
2. It's handy to have a number to give folks such as vendors, delivery people and other commercial interests so they don't have our cell numbers.
3. 911
4. Power outages or other possible disruptions to cell service.
5. I've been too lazy and scatter-brained to get around to getting it canceled.
As mentioned, we don't make outgoing calls on the LL and, in fact, never pick it up unless on very rare occasion the person leaving the message on the answering machine is someone we actually want to talk to real time. It's mostly a place for people we don't want to bother with real time to leave messages.
You're a good man for helping your neighbor figure things out! Are you familiar with a not-for-profit in Illinois called Citizens Utility Board (CUB)? They help in these kind of situations and I donate to them annually.
