douglasmkelly's posterous

Thanks Sage Telecom For The Push Out The Door

This week, I killed the house land line. There's a little history: Had Sage Telecom for a home phone service. Their service was ok and all, but I under paid them by the giant sum of 1 dollar. They shut off the phone. I called them up - Spent probably about 25 minutes while the very nice lady looked up my account. I'm busy. A home phone was never a priority - not since the cell phone revolution. But there I was. Evidently Sage has this complete automated system that if you haven't paid the full amount, they disconnect you. I DON'T EVER USE THE HOME PHONE! So I went online and made a payment through my bank, whence I noticed it was off. Crazy, there had been less politicians after my vote for a couple days.

After making the payment, I didn't care that the line didn't get turned on right away - I assumed that some person had to "Touch" the account. See loud all caps statement above. However, when it didn't get turned back on for 4 days, I went to the Sage site - I noticed and paid a balance ($20), believing that maybe now they'd turn it back on. Turns out I was supposed to call them to let them know that I wanted to keep my home phone. I'm not exactly sure how I would have known that. So the lady from Sage apprises me that I now need to pay $86 to get the phone turned back on. All OVER A $1!! A dollar? Seriously? Good bye Sage and thanks for over charging me for 3 years for something I barely used. It was mostly a tool for politicians and marketers to call and bug me anyway.

Now for the rest of the story: Everyone, that matters, already has my cell digits so this is just to have something in the house - for the occasional sitter.  First I purchased a tracphone from AT and T. They call their pre-pays Go-Phones. I grabbed 250 minutes for $25 and have 3 months to use them. The cool thing is I set up a new local Google number so it can be given out to friends and family. Google rings my iphone with this new number as well as the "home" phone. Voice mail is emailed - and transcribed - so I can get it from anywhere.

The steps were pretty easy, you just go to Google.com/voice and set up an account (if you don't already have one). It does need to have a GMail account associated with it. Then you select a number or have Google do it for you. You can look up by Area Code or Zip Code. Finally you "point" that new number to an existing telephone - Google rings you up with a code and you're done. You give that number out and it can ring multiple lines. The first to pick up gets the call. The free part is that you go to ATT.com and put in the new telephone number as a free call (A-List). Then when anyone calls that number it comes across to your cell as your new number. With Google Voice you can opt to have everyone state their name prior to you answering. Do this as their number won't register (you want free don't you?).

Note: Outgoing calls from this new line will be charged. Incoming answered calls will go against your minutes too. So you just answer one of your other lines on the account. If you have less than 5 lines on your ATT account, just add a line and it will share the minutes and free goodness. I didn't have that option. This is just an emergency phone. And at $8/month it's worth it. Sorry Sage Telecom - The only way you'll get me back is to give me back my old telephone number, waive the fees and turn me back on. I'd pay the difference of $20, if I have to. The only other issue is that Dish will now charge me $5 for not having a telephone plugged in. Let's see... $48-$57 per month vs $13. The new phone was $20. That's a sum total of $500 per year for an emergency line.

I am not sure how long this particular scenario will last as I have a few other options, like porting my business line over to Google and just forwarding that to my iPhone, then dropping the track phone and switching SIM cards.