Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with dsl and phone

Undercharged for DSL and land line. Now what?

Anonymous — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 10:42:29 -0800

Telecom has undercharged me for DSL and land line service the past couple months. Is this going to bite me in the butt? If so, when and how severely? Back in December last year, I signed up for DSL internet service from my local telecom on a "first six months free with two-year commitment" promotion for longtime residential phone service customers. In the spring of this year, before the six months were up, they mistakenly started charging me for DSL, and I had to call them several times to get them to adjust my bill.

They rectified it and then some: since then, they've been crediting me on every billing cycle for more than the amount of the DSL charges, so that my total bill, including land line phone service, has been ridiculously low. The six month free period ended in late June, and I should now be paying around $70.00 per month for the two services. My July bill came last week: the erroneous credit is on it again, and my total amount due is about a dollar.

How likely is it that they'll discover their mistake? If they do, are they likely to bill me for all of the charges I should have been paying during the time they've been crediting me incorrectly? If they do that, do I have any recourse, since it was their error? Should I a) notify them of their error, b) simply start paying what I think I actually owe without comment, or c) continue paying the exact amount they're billing me? Thanks.

What's the downside to VOIP?

middleclasstool — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:07:11 -0800

What is the current state of VOIP? VOIP was never an option for us in the past, as it requires an internet connection, and we're on DSL, which until recently required a phone line.

But now AT&T is selling DSL without requiring phone service. Looking at it, I can get our current level of DSL service plus unlimited Vonage phone service (including call waiting/forwarding/id and voicemail) for what we're paying now for just basic phone service (no long distance, we've been using cards since getting burned by a crooked long distance company) + DSL.

But I'm thinking there's a catch. Like bittorrent will kill my phone service (or vice versa), for instance. What are the ugly trade-off realities of going to VOIP for your home phone line?

Everybody provides every service now.

Acari — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 11:22:13 -0800

Canadian phone/cable/internetfilter: what combo of services are cheapest? The scenario:
Two people moving into a new place in Edmonton, mostly calling each other [or not, neither have cell phones right now] and local calls almost exclusively. Cable TV is not a requirement, although even the phone company provides that service now.

Is it best to go with a dsl/landline package from Telus?
A cable internet/digital phone package from Shaw?
Internet from [somebody] and VOIP [with Vonage? somebody better?]

Having two cellphones on a family plan and [magical internet from whoever] sounds like it provide the most convenience for us, but there are also a zillion cell phone providers to sift through to figure out what the best deal would be there.

Our total phone usage is currently quite low [maybe 20 minutes/month each?] but that might creep up with cell phone ownership. The kind of calls we make are mostly of the this-is-my-current-location-i-will-see-you-at-X-o'clock type, and would be served equally well by text messages, but voice calls are necessary for contacting older relatives.

What I'm looking for is someone who has been down this road and can point to the glaringly obvious solution that I haven't even considered yet.

My DSL woes, in verse. Hopefully I won't have to progress to haiku.

EmpressCallipygos — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 08:17:03 -0800

An appeal to you all so I don't run up the wall/Or beat on my desk with my forehead./For when my DSL is good, the connection's very good -- But when I use the phone, it is horrid. ....In other words.

I have a DSL account with AT&T which I can confirm is properly set up (a friend who was the head of IT for Bloomberg.com for ten years saw to that), and I also have my phone -- an old-ish cordless phone -- plugged into it, and yes, I am using a filter for that. No other electronic device is plugged into this DSL box.

Now. Whenever I use the phone, the DSL box drops its connection to the Internet, and the only way to get the internet connection BACK is to do a hard reset of the DSL box by unplugging and replugging the power cord into the DSL box. Sometimes, even so, it takes up to a half hour. Everything else is fine -- the DSL, LAN, and other lights are on, just the Internet craps out.

Now, I thought that that was the whole point of DSL, that you could use phone and internet simultaneously. We've tried calling AT&T, but all the tech support said is that "sometimes cordless phones interrupt the service". She did not say why, nor have any idea how to rectify that.

...Suggestions? Thoughts? I do have a newer phone I just haven't broken out of the box yet, might that help? (The phone I have now is about 4 years old.)

DSL works, but I can't get a dial tone. Why?

aws17576 — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:16:42 -0800

No dial tone inside my house, but the DSL is working. When I plug a phone directly into the grey box (a.k.a. Network Interface Device) on the outside wall of the house, at the same time disconnecting the link from the phone company's incoming line to the wiring inside the house, I get a dial tone! It seems that the phone company is still providing service. The evidence is exactly what I'd expect if there were a phone off the hook inside the house... but there isn't. What else could be going on? For those who enjoy a good troubleshooting puzzle, here's the rest of what I know.

There are two wall phone outlets inside the house. Service to both originates in the same Network Interface Device. I can get DSL to work from either outlet, but I can't pick up a dial tone with a phone at either outlet. Calling my home phone number from a cell, I get a busy signal, again as though there were a phone off the hook. This remains true when any or all appliances (phones, DSL hub, and filters) are disconnected from the wall outlets. That seems to indicate that there isn't a problem with any of those appliances. Also, as I said above the jump, the phones in question work just fine when I connect them to the Network Interface Device.

When I break the link at the Network Interface Device, cutting off all service downstream (i.e. along the wall and into the house), I can call my home phone number from a cell and not get a busy signal -- I get an endless series of rings instead. More evidence that the trouble is somewhere downstream.

We have had a problem with mice, so it's possible that a wire was gnawed through. But this doesn't explain why our DSL is still working -- from both wall jacks I know about.

I feel like my experiments have ruled out every reasonable explanation for what's going on. Kind linemen and -women of MetaFilter, what have I not tried?

Is magicjack VoIP worth getting?

exlotuseater — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:42:56 -0800

Anyone familiar with MagicJack? I've just recently seen ads for Magicjack, another new VoIP service. It's ~$40 USD to purchase the jack which includes a year of free local and long-distance, and then $20 USD/ year for continuing service. The "jack" plugs into pc usb on one end and has an analog phone jack on the other end. The reviews have been generally positive, but I'm skeptical.

Anyone have any experience with this particular service? Will it work over DSL, or does VoIP only work with cable?

Thanks for your help.

Can I get reimbursed for being put on hold?

nasreddin — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 20:18:00 -0800

What do I do to contest an unfair cell phone bill? I don't have my own home phone, and I just moved into a new apartment where the phone jack wiring is very messed up. I decided to get DSL anyway (from Verizon). It didn't work at all, and I spent hours being put on hold by Verizon DSL's technical support (a supposedly toll-free number).

Now, I just got my cell phone bill, and it's $250, about $150 more than I expected. I checked the number log and, sure enough, my hours on hold constitute $120 of that number. The trick is, Verizon is my wireless provider as well. Is there any way to get them to remove the charges, or send me a check for the amount?

How Can We Break Ties with SBC?

fenriq — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 15:14:33 -0800

BadServiceFilter: My wife has been getting truly atrocious customer service from SBC recently and has decided that she wants to explore other options for phone, dsl and cellular service. What happened is they disconnected her business phone without sending a notice first, the disconnect notice arrived five days after the disconnect. They give her the runaround on the phone support (telling her it will take 2 days for a supervisor to call back) and basically treating her like dirt. Yesterday she got a "courtesy call" from the billing department letting her know that her bill was due (it wasn't due until today).

So, the question is: How can we extract our phone, DSL and cellular from SBC without paying their ridiculous disconnect fees (which amount to more than the year of service would cost) and what are our other options for phone, internet connectivity and cell?

Or, alternatively, does anyone have a better route to getting decent customer service from SBC?

Shared DSL and Vonage

subpixel — Tue, 19 Oct 2004 15:31:48 -0800

I'm thinking of getting Vonage voip but I share my dsl with another business. Is that an issue? Any advice based on experience?