in search of cheap broadband; phone, TV optional

[jay-R5TnC2l8y5lBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org]

I'd check out a few sites like dslreports and see what comes up.  Also most telcos won't tell you about their lowest plans even if you call.  You basically have to demand them.  Such as the local cable plans that all cable providers carry. They cost about $15 per month for broadcast stations, and they can be bundled with internet.

However most telcos don't want to sell just internet because they are afraid of voip & iptv services eating into their core business.  That whole hunker down and avoid change at all costs, corporate mentality.  Course if you go with the smaller companies that piggy back, you run into the problem of relying on the larger companies service anyway.

------Original Message------
From: Seth Gordon
Sender: discuss-bounces-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org
To: BLU
Subject: in search of cheap broadband; phone, TV optional
Sent: Jul 29, 2009 10:19 AM

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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