in search of cheap broadband; phone, TV optional

[jack-rp9/bkPP+cDYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org (Jack)]

I think you found the trick to a telco's success.  The never ending charge.

Find your local state regulatory agency and find out what the tarrifs you
can
request from the telco are.  Sometimes they 'can' sell you a service, but
they
don't want to.

If you have a monitored alarm system in your home, you might talk to the
provider if they have an 'alarm loop' to your house.  An 'alarm loop' is a
specially provisioned phone line that does go through the telco.  If it is a
mom&pop type alarm company they might be nice and let you know
how to get the right circuits. ... If there are third party ISPs in your
area
that provide DSL, they might be able to do DSL cheaper because they
get a special tarrif on provisioning phone lines.

Just some thoughts.

IHS ... Jack


On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 9:19 AM, Seth Gordon <sethg-Dp9fwfP21SfQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> After my wife and I got a cellphone plan with enough minutes to handle
> all the calls we make (which is not many), we figured we could drop our
> local phone service entirely.  Except, umm, we want to keep that
> Internet thing.
>
> So I called Verizon and said: "Hi, I'd like to cancel local phone
> service but keep DSL.  Is that possible?"
>
> And the CSR said: "Sure!  We call that 'dry loop DSL' and it costs
> $40/month."
>
> ...which is what we're paying now for DSL *and* local phone service.
> (If we cancelled our voice mail, we'd basically be paying $20/month for
> DSL, $10/month for the pay-by-the-minute local calling plan, and
> $10/month in taxes.)
>
> I checked out RCN and Comcast, but as far as I can tell, even their
> cheapest plans involve Internet access bundled with either landline
> phone service (plus doodads that we would never use) or cable TV (which
> we don't want badly enough to pay for).
>
> Are there any other options, or is $40/month really the lowest that we
> can go?
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