$7.50 mo. telephone inside wire protection

M

modhatter

Full time employment: Posting here.
Joined
Aug 8, 2005
Messages
945
Hi All,

Would like your opinion. I live in an older 1972 house with older phone wiring. At&t charges me 7.50 a month for inside wire protection. In other words if my phone lines go out or get messed up, there is no service call fee for repairs. That amounts to $90 a year. Coincidently a service call for the first hour with At&t is either $90 or $99.

I have been here two years so far with no service calls, so $180.00 down the tubes. Do you all carry this on your home phones? Do you think it is a waste?
 
I don't carry any service contracts on anything in my home. I keep getting mailings trying to woo me for various things, most recently from the gas company, but articles I have read pooh-pooh these contracts as not worth the money.
 
I think it is a waste of money, myself. But then, I am inclined to be very stingy with repeating monthly charges, since they add up to a lot over time. Besides, if the wiring went out, wouldn't you prefer to have the new wiring installed, instead? I would, anyway.

A friend moved into a 1960's house with an original built-in wall phone. Rent had been paid on the phone for almost half a century. He told AT&T to come get it and they said not to worry about it. The rent no longer appears on his bill. The phone still works.
 
It's a big waste of money. I'd only consider it for the first month I lived in a house, just until you're sure all the phone jacks work consistently (it's possible the previous owners have done something unconventional that you wouldn't want to have to troubleshoot). Then dump it. Phone wiring is simple, there's nothing to wear out, and there's nothing dangerous about trying to fix it yourself in the very unlikely event something does go wrong.
 
I don't pay for this protection and in general I don't pay for any type of "extended warranty" or purchase protection. I figure that to make this type of service useful, I'd have to know which thing was going to go bad (the phone wiring? the refrigerator? my laptop computer? ... you get the idea). If I tried to guess, I'm sure I'd guess wrong so I buy none of it. Plus, I adhere to the policy that I don't pay for insurance for something I could afford to repair or replace if necessary.
 
It is a rip off. In 30 years of home ownership the only internal wiring problems I've ever had were caused by ME. :LOL:
 
This is a typical upsell that phone companies push to make free money. I live in an 80 year old house with four phone lines. On several occasions the phone has died and in every case the cause has been outside the house. Usually it's squirrels chewing on the wires, or a fallen tree branch stretching them after a storm. Every single time when I called the phone company, they tried to sell me inside wiring protection. I always say no.
 
Waste of money. Last time I paid for any wiring, I figured the phone company had some magic ways of running the wires through the walls. Instead he just ran the wire along the outside wall, and drilled a hole into the house. "Heck, I could do that." I realized.
 
BTW, it's usually very easy to tell if a phone problem is inside the house or outside. In most current installations, at the point where the phone wires enter the house there is a plastic box. Open the box and you'll find a few things, including a regular phone jack. Plug a regular phone into the jack--if you can hear a dial tone and the sound quality is good, then the phone lines coming to the house are probably fine and your problem is somewhere inside wiring in your house. (And maybe then you go sign up for insurance:))
When you call for service, this is exactly what the phone repair person is going to do. It's how they decide whether the repair is one you have to pay for (wiring inside your house) or something they'll fix for free (wiring coming to your house).
 
This sometimes works:

1. unplug all the phones
2. wait 5 minutes
3. plug in one phone
4. check to see if there is a connection
If yes, then plug the other phones in and you're done!
If no, repeat steps 3 and 4 until all phones are connected.
If there is no response, call the phone company (using your cell phone!).
 
REWahoo said:
You can skip all the other steps and go directly to this last one. Tell them you no longer want your land line - we ditched ours three years ago and never looked back.
Click to expand...

I can't ditch my land line because I am a physician, I do call, and I am required to have one.
 
When this fee was a dollar or two a month, I had it. When I was working from home and had two phone lines (pre-DSL), I felt it was worth it. But once this fee started rising more and more, I had enough of it and dropped it a few years ago.

I actually did have a problem with one of my phone lines years ago when I was working from home but the problem was with the line outside, not inside.

I think it is too costly to keep now and is simply more of a money-maker for the phone company.
 
+1 with it being a waste. The fix is easy, and there are plenty of handypeople out there to help if you need it (probably for a much lower price).
 
The fee is a waste. Phone wiring is not rocket science - I suspect that anyone on this board could wire, troubleshoot, and repair a home phone wiring system with a little research.
 
Didn't the phone company also use to rent the handsets to customers for decades and decades for a dollar or so a month?
 
My experience with this service is unusual. My house is built 1982 and I purchased in 1990. When I first cancelled my wire pro service, a month later my phone went dead. Thank goodness att gave us break and fix it. This was 1 year after we purchased the house. We kept the service since its only $3 at the time. When they raised it again we cancelled it and sure enough a month later our phone went dead. Always busy signal and no dial tone. We then purchased the wirepro and have them come out to fix our phone. Not one time did they go in the house to fix the wire. All they did when in the house was plugged in their service phone to see if we have dial tone. This time they fix it again after a few minutes messing with the box and working outside. Last november we noticed that they raised the wirepro service again so we decided to cancel it. Sure enough a month later same problem. We called att and they said the problem is inside the house. All this problem we have they claim is inside our house. I am glad that someone started this thread and I believe att is messing with us.
 
travelover said:
Didn't the phone company also use to rent the handsets to customers for decades and decades for a dollar or so a month?
Click to expand...

Yes - and they used to charge to install phone jacks - UNLESS you also ordered a phone for each one. We ordered 8 phones, free installation of all the jacks, and cancelled most of the phones after a month or two. My one battle with ATT that I won! :D
 
modhatter said:
Hi All,
I have been here two years so far with no service calls, so $180.00 down the tubes. Do you all carry this on your home phones? Do you think it is a waste?
Click to expand...

Yes, it's a total waste of money. Phone wires are amazingly reliable and as someone else said, you can run them yourself.
 
We had a bad rural service so we kept one rental phone to prove that the problem was theirs. It used to fail every time there was a serious rainstorm. this was 30 years ago.

As long as you can isolate the house wiring from their network, they will repair wires outside your home for free. Unplug the modular jack from the line at the entrance to the house.

(Back in the day, cheap $5 phones used to build up static and eventually cause the line to fail temporarily. In this situation, do what meadbh suggested.)
 
Wire protection is a ripoff. Great money maker for telcos. Wires don't wear out. If they break you usually know 'cause you did some drilling or other hacking that damaged it.

Most houses nowadays have a nice gray box outside where the Telco line is connected to the house wiring. Called the "demark".

To isolate house problems open this box, inside is one or more short cable(s) with a phone jack on it. Unplug. Connect your phone to the now empty socket. If you get dialtone here and not in the house then problem is inside. Occainally the protectors in this box short to ground. They are on the telco's side of the box thus it is their problem.

Sometimes a dead line is caused by telco working in the neighborhood. Wait a while it will be back on.
 
modhatter said:
Hi All,

Would like your opinion. I live in an older 1972 house with older phone wiring. At&t charges me 7.50 a month for inside wire protection. In other words if my phone lines go out or get messed up, there is no service call fee for repairs. That amounts to $90 a year. Coincidently a service call for the first hour with At&t is either $90 or $99.

I have been here two years so far with no service calls, so $180.00 down the tubes. Do you all carry this on your home phones? Do you think it is a waste?
Click to expand...

May I relate this story: A client of mine in Houston had a huge house and a big wedding in two days. Her phone lines broke during the two days before her only child's big hoopla of a wedding. She did not take the insurance. She had to have it fixed, obviously, so AT&T came out and repaired the lines inside the house. Took an entire day. Cost her $450 around 23 years ago!!!:nonono: Can you imagine how they would sock it to you now:confused:? Yikes!

Moral of this story: I ALWAYS take the insurance now. I have had the lines chewed around the house by squirrels in Houston, but also I HAVE had inside wiring problems before. I think it's well worth it if even you just have them come out one time in a number of years. Seems I have several visits within my last 7 years for inside wiring in Houston as I remember for my 1939 bungalow. And, just like any insurance, you pays yo' money and takes yo' chances...but I'm not chancing it IF the lines were to go inside the house. Just IMHO.

Not sure if I will do that when I get a newer home when I move, tho, this time. Might go mostly cell, anyway.

Is99 knows more about this than I do I'm sure. I'd try that suggestion for sure if I didn't have the insurance.
 
I've had AT&T come in and repair the inside wiring before. At that time I had the insurance so no charge. Since I've FIRE'd I decided to not keep the insurance as I figure at $7.50 a month, if the wire doesn't mess up until several years, I've already been ahead.

Insurance - feels like a ripoff when you don't need it, but when you do, it sure is handy.
 
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