Don..., very funny although I'm not even hip enough to use it personally. mwheel, the 2 centses are adding up; perhaps getting me closer to what I'm groping about for and definitely amusing me along the way! Andie, some time ago we ditched the home landline. After considering all the angles, I've decided to use my cell for personal and business. It's a little tricky, but that's why we humans invented Systems. Satisfies the urge to tinker with something. lol Linda, I agree. These days pretty much everyone (who would be calling me) knows what voice mail is, and to leave enough identifying information to move the relationship or interaction along. I have seen several comments of people with really, really short messages getting a lot of hangups, presumably because callers (even though possibly prepared for it) still needed a moment or two to compose their message. In my case, I need to give out certain information. After introducing myself to confirm the caller has the right number, I say how to bypass the rest of the message and go straight to the beep. Maybe I could come up with a phrase that ties back into the company's mission. Hmm...

As an add on to this conversation regarding emergencies. Make sure your cell has reverse 911 (if available) for city/county emergencies. We lost many in fires who did not have this and got caught in fire storms and mud slides/flash floods. In these situations the danger was known, news reports gave information that the location was far enough away to give them some time for getting out, albeit a very short time. Emergency personnel going to so many homes was burdening the ability to get to all and in some cases not possible to do so. You need to sign up for reverse 911, registration should be for each phone. The use is for more than just natural devastations. Once the call/message is answered it won't repeat the information. Our city just started this last year due to the floods and fires. Most land lines already had the option. Check to see if you have this available, many cities are still working on activation. Also, somewhere in the last few years I remember having mobile phones connected to a main unit inhouse. Nothing worked when electric went out, so yes to the battery backup or the wonderful phone you found. I also took out the kitchen unit for tiling and it shut down the other connections. So make sure you don't mess with the main line, perhaps just cover it up with something that matches the backsplash and can be removed. Landlines are not available in my neighborhood area either, connections are strictly for electronic use. I never considered this until mentioned here. And now remember when my kids told me it was time to just go cell and get rid of the landline. But I'm not good at knowing where the cell is most of the time and unless it rings couldn't tell you on a moments notice. Doesn't bear well for emergencies either way since I'm the only one here. Tethered is not going to happen, out of reach does me little good if there were an emergency. How do others handle this one?

There's many different Verizon coverages. Well actually, the same is true with all providers. Verizon cut back their area significantly for all accounts activated after February. For example, there's America's Choice version 1 & 2, InPulse, etc. And for some reason, the prepaid is always a more restricted coverage. They don't want to give the tightwads the same coverage as the more profitable areas, I guess. Probably think they'll hook people with prepaid and then opt for the postpaid to increase coverage. Doubt that'll happen. So far it doesn't seem to be happening either. And interesting too since the prepaid market is where their future is for adding customers since the postpaid market is virtually saturated and people can't change too often because of the cancellation fees in the contracts. It's irritating, but that's the way it is. The coverage map for PagePlus shows essentially the Twin Cities metro area is covered and St. Louis County in northern MN. Technically the rest of the state has "coverage", however, it's at the $1.99/min roaming rate. Way too rich for my blood! I don't mind some roaming charges for traveling since I don't use the phone much, but I'm not about to spend $2/min. Additionally you have to tack on the cost of a decent tri-band phone and PagePlus is out of my budget. SimpleFreedom has cheaper (about 50¢/min) roaming but they're discontinuing a lot of their service with no credit back to the customer. They have the option to sign up with another carrier. So I wouldn't mess with them at this point. At least without more research. Although the Sprint PCS coverage isn't great around here, I'm finding that it's not all that bad compared to the others. At least they cover the major freeways and some highways where PP, Cingular and others don't. And I do tend to stay on the major highways. And since I like the phone I got for Virgin, I might just hang on to it. But I'm still tempted to try out USA1rate and see if their coverage is what they claim. The prepaid coverage leader overall would have to be TracFone, unless the maps are accurate for USA1, but TracFone's rates are pretty high unless you play games with transferring back and forth between a couple of phones and/or beg people to sign up to get referrals. I can justify what I'm spending for a phone. Could justify a bit more to have better coverage even at roaming rates. But I'm not crazy. Argh! I've been looking around again. Head's spinning again. Why don't I simply slam my hand in the car door? Be more enjoyable than trying to interpret their websites!

I guess it all depends on how much you call from home versus away from home or on the road. We use pre-paid cellular. The new phones were free after rebate and my wife and I each spend about $5-$7/month for the STI Mobile/Sprint service. We only make quick 1-2 minute calls for necessary reasons and it works fine anywhere in the country that Sprint covers. Voice mail and text messaging are turned off on both cellular phones. Other cellular providers are now joining the pre-paid game with good deals. We are still stuck with the old telephone company for home and home office lines. I must have the reliability and quality of a landline for my business. I do pay too much for long distance, toll-free, and local service for my business compared to the low rates available today. Bills are typically $35-$50/month for relatively low volume usage. The last time I switched was from MCI to Ameritech(i.e. SBC/AT&T/who knows?) It was a pain to switch, but the new lower rates were good for a year before they went up again. Our home phone line just went up to $22/month for local phone service. It started at $18 several years ago. Pre-paid long distance service is $.025/minute using cards from companies like Cheap Phonecards. The latest cards don't require you to enter the pin every time from home and you can program the 800 access number into speed dial. The long distance cards are great from hotels too. We are seriously considering the switch to broadband phone service, but our local numbers are not yet portable for Vonage or the others. We are just outside of their large markets. Broadband cable internet is $30/month and speed is around 300K or 10 times faster than dial-up. It is fast enough for our needs. The total bill (excluding my business) is around $67/month for all phones and broadband for my wife and I. Here is a link that might be useful: Cheap Phone Cards