I have been waffling over switching to Rogers “Home Phone” service for more than a year now. Under the current offer, we stand to save about $45 per month for the first two years, and about $20 per month thereafter, which would be pretty sweet. But what I am really coveting is the bonus offer of $10 extra per month for (be still my heart) unlimited Internet bandwidth.
(We upped our Internet plan once already this summer and we’re still hitting our limit a couple of days before the end of the month. Between my day job, my various part time jobs, and the kids’ recent discovery of Minecraft tutorials on YouTube, we need ALL THE INTERNET. Sigh.)
Anyway, it’s a good deal, no doubt. Except here’s the thing. I may be an early adopter in many areas of technology and an outright evangelist in others, but I’m a little old lady when it comes to this. I am very, very nervous about giving up our landline Bell service. Old skool, right? Even though we have not one but two cell numbers in addition to our landline (heck, three if you count my work blackberry), I just can’t imagine cutting that cord.
I have two disaster scenarios that play out in my head every time I even start considering this issue. The first is some sort of epic disaster along the lines of the ice storm of 1998 or even the mass blackout of 2003. With my luck, something like that would happen when I’m already at 10% battery power on my iPhone, and we’d be cut off entirely.
The second is more pedestrian but more annoying. I suspect that our Internet access here is sporadic, and having sporadic telephone access makes me uneasy. Opinions vary as to whether this would actually affect the phone portion of the service, and the interruptions are usually on the order of minutes rather than hours of inconvenience, but still. We’ve only been completely without Internet a few times since we moved here, but still.
And, there may be a latch-key child in our not-so-distant future. Now, he’ll probably have yet another cell phone of his own, but… well, sigh. Maybe I’m just making things up to worry about?
So here’s my question: do you have Internet-based home phone and do you love it or hate it? Have you had access problems? Am I inventing problems to obsess over? I like the cash savings, I really do, but the unlimited Internet access practically makes me drool with covetousness. Any other alternatives you can think of? (First person to say “spend less time on the Internet” gets a raspberry!)
Also, could someone please send me a list of the scheduled upcoming apocalypses so I can appropriately plan for them?
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