Dump Your Old Phone Service & Save

I’ve been thinking about dumping my traditional landline. There are so many options now, keeping it feels like a waste of money.

I have a home line and a business line and because I live in the boonies, I have to have a long-distance package on both. It’s costing me a pretty penny. So I’ve been thinking about switching to one of the alternative services to save some money.

The first thing I looked at came on the recommendation of a co-worker. She blew out her traditional landline in favour of a “magicJack”. I’ve seen these advertised on TV, and always thought, “too good to be true.” Not according to my co-worker. So I did some research. Seems magicJack offers you unlimited local and long-distance calling in North America for about $50 a year. Yah, that’s “year”, not “month.”

A small electronic device, the magicJack has a USB connector on one end and a standard telephone port on the other, and takes advantage of voice over internet protocol (VoIP) technology. You just plug it into your computer and it installs itself.

You get voicemail, caller ID (just the number, not the name) call waiting, call forwarding, and conference calling for your annual $50, saving yourself about $500 a year on a traditional landline with unlimited long distance.

Of course, you could drop your long-distance package on your landline and go with Skype, which will give you both an audio and visual signal so you can see who you’re talking to. Skype is so clear that my radio buddies prefer it to traditional land lines for interviews. On my last interview with Ryan and John on Friendly Fire on NewsTalk1010, Ryan said, “It sounds like you’re right in here with us.”

You can use Gmail telephone to call anywhere in the U.S. for free and make cheap international calls. Or how about freephoneline.ca, which not only gives you a landline option, but offers free long distance on your smartphone.

Make sure you do your research before you jump at the savings. Know the pros and cons of the services you’re comparing to your traditional phone service so you don’t jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.

48 Responses to “Dump Your Old Phone Service & Save”

  1. Linda Pearson Says:
    September 20, 2012 at 5:23 am

    Hi Gail

    The only caveat might be about 911 service. Sometimes, though not always, access to 911 isn’t just through a straight-forward dialling of the numbers. So, one would have to be entirely certain that ALL users in own’s household understand and can use a different protocol in emergency situations.

  2. We dumped our landline a year and a half ago. That’s 30 off our cable/ internet bill. We have awesome cell plans and barely used the house phone.
    Also just dumped our premium portion of cable and of felt awesome. If you have not used Netflix before I reccomend it!
    There is basically no reason to spend a tonne of money each month anymore!

  3. Sounds too good to be true here in the middle os SW Ontario – our provider is “throttling” Skpe (it’s not part of their package) so we can only use the voice part, no video. (Yeah it’s illegal but theyive been in dispute with SRTC about this for several years) And the 911 issue here is also huge.

  4. The 911 issue is a big one. VOIP does not support 911 and VOIP will not work during a power outage. I would love to dump my land line but will not because of 911.

  5. I live in the boonies too – by Gail – and we still have a landline. Our cell service is hit and miss. I wouldn’t want to depend on it in an emergency. We are often in “roam”. We are moving houses soon and my husband thinks VOIP would be the way to go. I am concerned about the lack of phone service if the power were to go out – although I suppose we would have cell phones as a back-up. (We will be high on the hill at the new place and signal should not be an issue up there.)

  6. We were paying over 1000/yr. for Bell Canada. We had unlimited long-distance in Ontario and most features such as call answer- just wanted call answer, but cheaper to get more in package. Looked around and because we live in country we cannot get any other provider (Rogers said if you can see cows then you can’t get cable – we can see cows). Ended up keeping basic Bell service and going with Yak Long Distance – 3.5 cents a minute, and buying a good quality answering machine (free with Options MasterCard Points ) Just in process of seeing how much I save but figure we will save at around 50/month which I am putting in our early retirement fund. Ended up buying prepaid phone card as well for cell phone (use only in emergencies etc.) and dumped Rogers and saved also.

  7. My father-in-law keeps telling us that if we have children, we must have a landline for 911. He says it’s illegal not to. Anyone know if this is true?

  8. Skype is amazing, I live in the country, and use it to take riding lessons – on a horse. My intsructor is in the desert in Arizona and I live north of Toronto. I ride, and she can see me and directs the lesson. I save on lesson fees, she is extremely talented but only charges $20 per hour. If I had someone come to my farm to give me a lesson it would be $75 an hour minimum.

    The world is changing!

  9. We don’t have a landline, just our cell phone’s. My old neighbors have Majic Jack and love it. I would only consider ever getting a landline if we had kids that were too young to have cell phones.

  10. Illegal to not have a landline for 911? I doubt it. There are plenty of people who don’t have a phone at all, children or not.

  11. Check out Ooma. We have been using it for a year and love it. It is a VOIP service that is basically plug and play. They allow you to keep your old phone number, and it has proper 911 service. The basic service is under $4/month, which is the CRTC licensing fees/911 service. I think they have the unit at Costco right now for $99. It is super easy to use (no computer, just plug it into the wasll and your regular phone) and the sound quality is really good.

  12. My husband works for the Ontario Provincial Police as a Communications Operator – he’s one of the ones you reach when you dial 9-1-1 (almost anywhere in Ontario not having their own police service). When you dial 9-1-1 from a landline, the operator can see your address – you pay a small price for that service to come up on their system. If no one can say where they are (a small child for instance), the police will STILL know where you are because of the address showing. If you dial 9-1-1 by accident – don’t hang up! The operator will have control over your line until a police officer actually comes and verifies that it isn’t an emergency!!
    With cell phones, VoIP, Internet – that doesn’t happen. My husband has had some scary incidents, such as when they get “pocket dials” calling 9-1-1 from a cell phone – and no response. They HAVE TO try to verify there is no emergency. They have to call back the caller, and if no response, they can’t see where you are (no address showing). Triangulation is by cell towers, and isn’t very accurate here in Canada. If they call the cell service – they may or may not have your address. There are sometimes BIG delays in finding out where the call is from. If you can talk, and tell them your address, you will be fine – but, what if you can’t??? We are also in an area where cell coverage is spotty (Northern Ontario), and we can’t rely on service. Therefore, we have a landline here at home, but use Yak as our long distance provider (doesn’t have to be Bell). So when our hydro is out, or our internet doesn’t work, and no cell service we still have a land line.
    Be very careful when deciding to switch – your life might depend on it!
    Also, it’s not illegal to not have a landline for 9-1-1 service – but as a mom with two younger kids, it is my insurance to having access to an emergency service.

  13. I think having a landline is important, and not just for 911. In the event of a lengthy power outage, when it would not be possible to charge my cell phone, I still can use my landline. Although two of my phones require electricity my other two don’t so I can always make a call.
    Many places have “snow” phone – a simple landline phone to use when the electricity fails and the fancy phones and computers no longer work.

  14. I dumped traditional landline service over 10 years ago. I tried Magic Jack briefly but it didn’t work well at all for me (I believe because of my ISP). I’ve been using Vonage for years now and I”m loving it. Every calling feature known to man (and many I’d never heard of), plus unlimited long distance…. It’s perfect for us. I don’t like leaving my computer on all the time for Skype and Magic Jack (and because of the cost of electricity during the daytime) and I find the cable telephone offerings to be just as outrageously priced as Bell. I have a cell phone and the service (even here in the boonies where I am) is good, so if there’s an emergency or no electricity, then I can just use that. 911 and 411 both work fine for me, and if not, I tend to use 411.ca more anyway… Good luck for those looking to save money – shop around the services available and find one that’s right for you.

  15. We’re traditionalists when it comes to the phone…we have a cell phone for emergencies only at $11. and change a month. It rarely gets used. The land line is with Bell…we used to have a North American plan for an additional $17 and change a month for unlimited calling but since our families have passed on we have dropped that service. Now we just have the basics. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

  16. Brenda, thank you for posting such detailed information about the safety aspects of keeping your land line. I’ve had that conversation with a neighbour that does dispatch for our local police and she told me all the same stuff you said. I don’t think most people consider that aspect when they decide to dump their land line. Maybe some day emergency personnel will be able to know with pinpoint accuracy where you’ve called from on your cell, but that day isn’t here yet. We have basic, bare bones, no frill traditional phone service for that reason and so that it’ll work with no power.

  17. AT least with Primus Voip, you set your 911 address in their system that’s displayed to the operator. This means that if you pick up the router and take it someplace else and plug it in, it would show your old address; but we don’t do that. So 911 not an issue.

    As for the power going out issue, well: (1) if you have cordless phones and forget to charge them you are still exposed to the power issue; and (2) a $100 ups backup can run your modem+voip router+phonebase for hours and hours.

    We’ve had primus since 2005 and though in the beginning the connections were staticky, I’d say since 2007 they’ve been crystal clear with only the occasional glitch. OH and the features are good too; I get voicemails emailed to my personal email (very useful when job hunting while employed) and my favourite feature is the concierge – I can tell it to send certain numbers to do directly to voicemail, or ring busy on their end, etc. My favourite thing is to send rogers telemarketer calls to forward automatically to bell telemarkers. I’ve always wondered how that conversation would go…

  18. We have a $10/month emergency cellphone (rarely used) and an internet landline phone with our local cable company (I’m paying $10/month for that for 2 years and I’ll renegotiate when that runs out). 911 works with this internet phone (I just looked it up on the company website and the modem is registered with our address and all of that is available to the service if we call 911). Our son pays $50/year for long distance in all of Canada and can register several other numbers to use the service so he registered ours. We don’t make many long-distance calls so this works well for us (free for us, cheap for them). I’m happy paying $20/month (plus tax) in total for my cellphone and a great internet landline. The quality of the landline is as good as our old landline with Bell (though it does go out if internet goes out–but we have the cellphone for backup then if needed).

  19. I’ve been using magicJack for years now and have been pretty happy with it. I first used it primarily for outgoing calls at first because no VoIP provider anywhere could offer local numbers to my region until just the beginning of this year. Now I finally have a local number with magicJack and use it for both incoming and outgoing calls.

    I upgraded to magicJack+ when that came out so I no longer have to tie it to a computer. If you know what you’re doing you can even hook it up to the internal wiring of your house. I just use a cordless phone system though.

    I wrote a detailed review about the original magicJack that has been extremely popular if you want more information. The only problem I still have with it is a small delay right when the caller picks up for outgoing calls. Sometimes I miss the initial “hello” but after that the delay goes away instantly and the call is almost always perfect.

    My MagicJack Review

    Of course I combine this with cheap prepaid cell phones for emergencies. You can also set up your magicJack for 911 so they get your address when you use it to call 911. I would only use it as an absolute last resort for 911 though. Also makes a great 2nd line for kids.

  20. ER 911 service on a landline is not something anyone should be without. And before you pick up your cell in your home when you have a landline – think. The cell – very little idea where you are. Landline – know exactly where you are.

    I called Bell – on a Gail rant – about 2 years ago and asked to be disconnected – we were going with Primus. They dropped the basic line WITH 911 service down to $15.00 / mth for a year. When the year was up, I called and tried to cancel again – they extended it another year. They keep giving us a landline with 911 service for $15, I’ll stay with Bell. We’ve disabled long distance on the line and use Skype or a long distance package that costs us $5.00/mth for 200 minutes that we never exceed. 5 cents per minute after that in NA.

    Mostly we’re talking to Australia and the UK so Skype works a treat. I really appreciate all the suggestions for other companies – most of which I didn’t know anything about. Great topic!

  21. Long time reader, first time poster. This is a great topic that’s near and dear to our household — we’re recent VoIP converts (MJ+).

    It’s a great alternative to a landline, but our experience has been interesting and at times stressful. We’re saving a bundle and at this point it works extremely well (on TekSavvy DSL, an ISP I highly recommend), but we had a lot of growing pains with it.

    After a month or so, it dropped incoming calls randomly, and I spent a good 3-4 weeks troubleshooting the device. (If you do decide to buy it, the MJ support forum @ http://magicjacksupport.com/ is your friend.) I finally got it to work by “downgrading” the firmware (long story short).

    In short, it’s a potentially great alternative to a landline (all the perks, such as voicemail, call display, and likely works with your existing phones/headsets). But I wouldn’t call it an “easy” solution. It touts itself as easy/plug-n-play/works-out-of-the-box, but I’d definitely call it a DIY project. Overall, though, I’d recommend it. The savings have made the minor up-start headaches worthwhile.

  22. Hey Gail. Christi posted on twitter about this. My home security is connected to my land line so this doesn’t work for me. Having said that, my security contract is up, the world is changing so maybe it is time to shop around.

  23. I also use Yak for my long distance services. I have a Yak calling card, and have programmed the toll-free number and the access number into my cell phone. It takes an extra few seconds to make a long-distance call this way, but I save so much money calling family and friends who live out of town. Yak is 3.5 cents/minute anywhere in North America, anytime. MTS’ long distance rates are much more expensive…

  24. I called Telus 2 years ago and asked them to give me one good reason to not cancel my landline as it would be cheaper to just go with our cell phones and they cut the price to $53.00/month for high speed internet and home phone with call/number display. It was $93/month before I called. We have the highest speed internet as my kids are online gamers.

    It’s highly competitive in our area (southern Alberta) and the providers are scrambling to keep their customers.

  25. I’ve seen a few people mention Yak and long distance calling cards in the comments. You can actually get per minute rates a fair bit cheaper than 3.5 to 5 cents per minute.

    I wrote a guide to calling cards a while back that compares some of the best calling cards for North America calling.

    My favourite all-purpose calling card is Cici, which has rates of 2.5c/minute. Other, more restrictive cards, can get your rates down below 1c/minute.

  26. I had a friend who used Voip but because they could not get a number for the city that they lived in so they had to get a Calgary number. It always bothered me phoning them because it cost me long distance to phone them when they lived in the same city. But now that i know that there are so many options I will check some of them out.

  27. I ditched my home phone landline last year. Best decision ever! After visiting Europe to see lots of my friends there, I found out none of them had a home phone–all mobile. And my landline cost was becoming ridiculous!

    I found out that for $29.99/month I could sign up for a cell plan through work using a company called Bakka), and they would also transfer my old landline number (which I’d had for 11 years) to the cell. Perfect!! No need to even inform friends of a number change.

    At first, letting go of a landline feels like a really big step, like you’re taking away the saftey net, but now that it’s gone I don’t miss it a single bit. …And I don’t have to check the answering machine when I get home. :)

    (And don’t sign up for any data plan! They’re a ripoff! So many cafes, hotels, libraries, and restaurants have free wi-fi. You really don’t need to surf the Internet when you’re driving or walking around.)

  28. I prefer to keep the landline for the above-mentioned 911, and power issues, and also for my telephone banking to be more secure.

  29. @ Liana – our alarm company had no problems hooking up to our voip line. They said they couldn’t guarantee 100% it would work 100% of the time, but in 3 years it’s passed every test I’ve thrown at it.

  30. Even if you decide to keep a landline, there are other ways to save money. With our provider we dropped the invisible answering machine and opted for a real machine (which we bought on points) and we also dropped call waiting. Both me and the hubby have cell phones, so if we can’t be reached on the landline the caller will usually call there.

    Also, we were paying $20 per month for unlimited long distance on our land line (included in the price, but didn’t know we could actually drop that feature until we asked). Doesn’t sound like too much as we have a lot of out of town family, but both cell phones have good long distance features (My5’s and such) and the rate per minute on the landline was only 3 cents per minute. To add up to $20 we had to talk over 11 hours per month to reach that amount!! I still budget for the entire bill, in case we have a crazy calling month (hasn’t happened), then get a little bonus when the bill comes in and I can funnel the extra few dollars to something else (savings anyone?).

  31. Regarding the 911 thing, I don’t know about magic jack, but Primus and Net Talk both have E911, and my understanding is that your address will be transmitted if you call 911. You should definitely have a cell phone as well though, in case the power is out and you need to phone 911. I’ve been on voip for years…initially with Primus and now with Net Talk.

    My only complaint is that if there is a power failure or even a power blip, you may lose service, so I have installed a UPS battery backup that solves the problem.

  32. Where are people finding the $10 and $11 cell phone plans? I use mine only for emergencies but the cheapest I could get was $16.95. Iwould like to pay less as some months I don’t use it even once.

  33. Sheila Reynolds Says:
    September 20, 2012 at 3:21 pm

    I have grumbled about the price of our Bell landline, but I use a 10 10 number for overseas calls, so it is not too bad. I would not give it up because of the 911 service, which works through power outages. My sister switched to cable phone/internet service and has already been out of service for three days at a time. That is a concern when we are usually emailing once a day, or phone, if email is unavailable. This is aside from the issue of 911. Who do we call? Her neighbours, to make sure she is ok? And, as other posters have said, cell phones don’t work unless they are charged.

  34. Katie, I’ve never heard that before. I seriously doubt it is illegal – until recently there were still areas in the country that didn’t have individual land line service (party lines only), and it isn’t mandatory to have phone service at all.

  35. I see a lot of people have an issue with 911. I would just buy the CHEAPEST telephone plan on a landline and still get that magicjack or voip or whatever. Might still save some bucks!

    I dont have a landline and my work pays for my cell phone. I get off easy there!

    You can also negotiate with the telephone company. My dad called to cancel his landline, since he never uses it, and Bell offered him to keep the line for FREE if he switched his internet to them (matching his Rogers package for internet).

  36. Also I think I read somewhere that when you call 911 on a cell, they can pinpoint within 100 metres or something. but obviously if you live in an apartment think of all the apartments within 100 metres (up and down too!) and you can see the issue

  37. @Linda try a pay as you go plan if you don’t talk a lot. I’m with 711 speakout. Min 25 top up but it lasts a whole year. I spend about 10 dollars per month on voice plus an extra 10 per month for unlimited data. Every few months they have a sale, like an extra 25 dollars credit when you get a 100 dollar top up.

  38. Gail, here’s what we do:

    -We have Voip for our business lines which is like magicjack, but a true professional service. I use unlimitel as the phone company, but there are others that are similiar. As long as you have high speed internet it works great. Our service is $5 a month – for !!!5 business lines!!!!. Calls inbound our outbound or toll free are 1 cent a minute. Yep, 5 toll free business lines, only $5 perm month and a penny per minute anywhere in north america. And all the features you could want, IVR, call forwarding, ID, messages, etc. No costs for rollovers, multiple lines, toll free and on and on.

    if you want to get real fancy and avoid long distance on your cell, you can with a voip business line. You can call your local business line from your cell, enter some codes, and then dial back out again long distance through your business voip line. Local call from your cell to your business, no long distance fees, only the cent a minute on your business (I don’t do this because I rarely use cell, and when I do I’m normally calling my wife and on Koodo that’s free anyway).

    if you want to get really really fancy, you can set up a phone extension from anywhere. i.e. you could plug a headset into your laptop in your hotel room and have it connect as an extension to your business line back home. Then your headset is just calling out or answering calls right from your hotel room! If someone calls your business phone, you’re answering it on your headset in the hotel.

    But wait! There’s more! :) . Because a business voip system like that is tied to a computer not your hardline physical address, then where ever that computer is located is where the phones ring. When we moved our office phone system a few years ago, I turned the computer off, drove to the new location and plugged the computer back into the internet at our new location. 5 minutes, done at my convenience, and at zero cost. What would it cost to move 5 business lines with the old phone networks? Plus probably down for a day or two.

    In terms of costs, I just got a friend moved over from business on Bell to voip. His bills went from $500 to $50 per month.

    Going VOIP phone for your small business is a lightbulb moment and can likely save hundreds or thousands per year.

  39. Back to the 9-1-1 issue (from my husband the 9-1-1 Operator).
    VoIP 9-1-1 or E9-1-1 is NOT traditional 9-1-1 service. What a land line does is when you call 9-1-1, your address is computer generated to the operator and they actually see the address on the screen. With VoIP or other call-centre type systems (Magic Jack, Oohm, etc.) your address is NOT produced on a screen – it is NOT AUTOMATIC! It is VERBALLY read to the operator from the call centre which your company is from. If your information is NOT up to date, they will NOT have your proper information. You are relying on a person from a call centre telling the emergency responder where you are.
    The only REAL 9-1-1 service is done through land-lines.
    Also, as to how close a cell phone can tell them where you are depends on how close the cell phone towers are. There is a big difference here in Canada as opposed to the US. You see on TV shows that someone is following someones cell phone – well, that only happens in the US. Here in Canada, that doesn’t happen – our cell phone coverage is not that up to date. If you are within range of a lot of towers (cities, southern Ontario), your cell phone will be able to be “found” easier by emergency personnel as opposed to central and Northern Ontario where there are few cell phone towers. One instance, my husband had to find where a cell phone was located – it “narrowed” it down to an area of 13 km. Well, if you are having an emergency, an area that large is TOO big.
    I’ll stick to my basic land line plan.

  40. I haven’t had a land line since 1999. I don’t miss it.

    My cell phone costs me just $30/month. It gives me everything I need and it’s always with me.

  41. After reading ALL of these posts I feel a bit confused about all of the options and also feel A LOT ripped off. Keeping the land line because we are very rural but definitely checking into some of this long distance information.

  42. If I were a single person, or didn’t have kids, I would just have a cell phone. It just seems complicated to me to not have a home phone at this point in our lives. I am thinking about down-grading my cell phone when this package is done.

    I agree the expenses are rediculous. In Nova Scotia we don’t have as many options for service providers.

  43. We have a land line for emergencies and older family members. We have cogeco its cost for a basic line 21.99 + HST. We have a answering machine attached to our cordless phones and when we call long distance we do it during off hours or with a calling card. Cellphones are great but they don’t always work and drop calls. Most plans don’t cover long distance so that is extra. I think its more important to save your pennies on the bigger expenses cable, mortgage and keeping out of debt. If it works for you great but i don’t think its for everyone and not just for saving 20 or so a month. See if it fits your lifestyle first.

  44. Does anyone know where you can purchase an old plug into the “bell line” phone? Our last one has bit the dust, so in an emerg, if our cells were down, we wouldn’t be able to phone 911.

    THX

  45. My son is a teen but very technology savvy with a frugal side. He recently picked up a Magic Jack on sale and insisted it would be a cheaper way to get our phone service. I am going to look into it now as I just got a significant increase for the same service.

  46. I agree with the above posters who have noted that only landlines 1) offer genuine 911 assistance and 2) will function in an (extended) power outtage.

    Anyone who has had to call 911 with a choking child or a parent having a stroke will know that even the slightest delay — whether due to poor cellphone coverage or because you don’t know your precise address — is an unacceptable tradeoff for saving $25/month. (Thank you to Brenda above for her detailed insights into what technology is available to 911 phone operators – this was new information for me.)

    Similarly, anyone who has lived through an extended power outtage — the Ice Storm of 1998 comes to mind, as does the extended blackout of 2003 — knows that cell phones won’t be of much use when the power is out for several days, especially smart phones that require a lot of juice to power their large screens. Again, wouldn’t you want to be able to call an ambulance during an extended blackout?

    Yes, of course, people who only own cordless landline phones will be similarly “stuck” during a blackout, since only corded phones can function without electricity. (They obtain their electricity from the phone line itself.) But that in itself isn’t a reason to switch to VoiP. It’s a reason to buy a cheap corded landline phone.

    Incidentally, like one of the posters above I was able to reduce my landline bill (in Toronto, with Bell) to $15/month after tax, by calling and asking to cancel. The second cheapest landline option available in the GTA is with Teksavvy, $25/mth after tax. (Teksavvy is a Bell reseller — ie. they use Bell’s landlines, so the quality and reliability is identical to Bell subscribers, but you are billed by Teksavvy. Even the technicians who come to your home to repair the line are Bell technicians.)

  47. The importance of staying in touch through a phone network is a top priority for almost all Aussies. The landline or fixed line service is the traditional method of communication and fixed line service is available throughout the country. A landline is the most popular form of phone service because of the excellent voice quality and an outlet for a landline phone is already installed in most homes.

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