"rickman" wrote in message
...
On 12/4/2015 4:29 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
"jta" wrote in message
...

Usenet has been in decline since the Internet came upon the scene, many
years ago. It's not being "pushed aside by Yahoo groups", which are
much worse than Usenet has become; Yahoo is clunky and veerrryyyy SLOW!

Yahoo was fine up to about 2 years ago and then they did something and I
only get the mail from the user groups. Never try to go to the group
sites
unless there is a file I want to down load.

A big issue I have with Yahoo is that they now require you to verify a new
account with a mobile cell number. That's ridiculous.

Especially for we old fogies who, to all intents and purposes, do not
have a mobile phone. I do have one, but only switch it on for
emergency-style outgoing calls. 15 years ago I got a £50
pay-as-you-go card upon which I still have baout £7 left.

(And that is despite that in my last 10 years of gainful employment
I was designing test eqpt for mobile phone development!)

"gareth" wrote in message
...

Especially for we old fogies who, to all intents and purposes, do not
have a mobile phone. I do have one, but only switch it on for
emergency-style outgoing calls. 15 years ago I got a £50
pay-as-you-go card upon which I still have baout £7 left.


In the states I don't know of any pay plan that will let you buy a plan that
lasts more than 1 year. I usually buy my wife a 1 year plan for about $ 100
and she probably has $ 90 left at the end of the year. We still have a
regular land line and it gets more in comming calls than out going.

I have a $ 10 per month plan for a smart phone and it is good for cell phone
service as much as I want and data when around a wifi system.

I wish we could get a plan that would actually last for the minuits we pay
for.

On 12/4/2015 6:32 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
"gareth" wrote in message
...

Especially for we old fogies who, to all intents and purposes, do not
have a mobile phone. I do have one, but only switch it on for
emergency-style outgoing calls. 15 years ago I got a £50
pay-as-you-go card upon which I still have baout £7 left.


In the states I don't know of any pay plan that will let you buy a plan that
lasts more than 1 year. I usually buy my wife a 1 year plan for about $ 100
and she probably has $ 90 left at the end of the year. We still have a
regular land line and it gets more in comming calls than out going.

I have a $ 10 per month plan for a smart phone and it is good for cell phone
service as much as I want and data when around a wifi system.

I wish we could get a plan that would actually last for the minuits we pay
for.

I used to shop for the absolute cheapest plans I could find ending up
with Net10 and $60 900 minute cards that only last 3 months, but I had
two years of days on my phone, so I got to use all the minutes. Trouble
was, the Net10 phones get very poor quality connections (Verizon was the
carrier) and their customer support was the worst!

More recently I got on a friend's AT&T account as a second phone and pay
$20 a month with unlimited voice and text. Now I just don't give it a
thought and the thing works pretty well. Much less hassle than buying
the PITA phone cards.

You don't pay for minutes with your land line do you? You may be in the
UK where I think all usage is metered. In the US most people pay
$20-$25 a month for unlimited local use. Think of your $100 a year in
that light.

--

Rick

"rickman" wrote in message
...

More recently I got on a friend's AT&T account as a second phone and pay
$20 a month with unlimited voice and text. Now I just don't give it a
thought and the thing works pretty well. Much less hassle than buying the
PITA phone cards.

You don't pay for minutes with your land line do you? You may be in the
UK where I think all usage is metered. In the US most people pay $20-$25
a month for unlimited local use. Think of your $100 a year in that light.


No I am in the US, North Carolina. Landline is about $ 20 per month, but
they add tax and a bunch of other things to almost double that. That is for
local service. It is 10 cents per minuit for long distance. We usually use
the cell phones for long distance.

My Republic plan is interisting. For $ 10 (12 after tax) I get unlimiated
phone and text. Most of the time the phone will attach to a wifi if close,
but will go to the cell tower if it has to. I also get unlimiated data by
going through wifi only. I don't ever need the data, but do play with it
alot around the house on my wifi and in waiting rooms at doctors. If I get
into a bind and really need data without wifi I can tell the phone to
activate a data plan for about $ 20 per month and when done, go back to
wifi.

I wish the land line was charged by the minuit, I could save a bundle no
more that we use it.
The land line is about 4 times the price of my cellphone service and there
is an added charge for long distance.

On 12/4/2015 7:11 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
"rickman" wrote in message
...

More recently I got on a friend's AT&T account as a second phone and pay
$20 a month with unlimited voice and text. Now I just don't give it a
thought and the thing works pretty well. Much less hassle than buying the
PITA phone cards.

You don't pay for minutes with your land line do you? You may be in the
UK where I think all usage is metered. In the US most people pay $20-$25
a month for unlimited local use. Think of your $100 a year in that light.


No I am in the US, North Carolina. Landline is about $ 20 per month, but
they add tax and a bunch of other things to almost double that. That is for
local service. It is 10 cents per minuit for long distance. We usually use
the cell phones for long distance.

Are you sure about your phone rates? My land line is $15 a month total
with more than half being various add ons the phone company would like
you to think are taxes, but aren't. In fact, AT&T once lied to me that
the universal service fee was a tax they were required to collect from
consumers by the government. I contacted the FCC who said it was just a
tax on the phone companies.


My Republic plan is interisting. For $ 10 (12 after tax) I get unlimiated
phone and text. Most of the time the phone will attach to a wifi if close,
but will go to the cell tower if it has to. I also get unlimiated data by
going through wifi only. I don't ever need the data, but do play with it
alot around the house on my wifi and in waiting rooms at doctors. If I get
into a bind and really need data without wifi I can tell the phone to
activate a data plan for about $ 20 per month and when done, go back to
wifi.

I may look into that. Seems they use Sprint for phone calls which not a
good one for coverage. Can you make calls through your Internet
connection?

--

Rick

"rickman" wrote in message
...
.

Are you sure about your phone rates? My land line is $15 a month total
with more than half being various add ons the phone company would like you
to think are taxes, but aren't. In fact, AT&T once lied to me that the
universal service fee was a tax they were required to collect from
consumers by the government. I contacted the FCC who said it was just a
tax on the phone companies.


My Republic plan is interisting. For $ 10 (12 after tax) I get
unlimiated
phone and text. Most of the time the phone will attach to a wifi if
close,
but will go to the cell tower if it has to. I also get unlimiated data
by
going through wifi only. I don't ever need the data, but do play with it
alot around the house on my wifi and in waiting rooms at doctors. If I
get
into a bind and really need data without wifi I can tell the phone to
activate a data plan for about $ 20 per month and when done, go back to
wifi.

I may look into that. Seems they use Sprint for phone calls which not a
good one for coverage. Can you make calls through your Internet
connection?


My land line phone rate is close to $ 40 per month. The basic service runs
just under $ 20, then 911, long distance line connect, 10 cents per minuit
long distance and a bunch of other taxes and such run it to about $ 40 per
month.

Republic works by mostly connecting by what ever wifi system it is near. If
no wifi then it will use a cell tower.

The one bad thing is they require you to use one of their smart phones. It
is like any common smart phone using the Android system, but it uses some of
their special software. You buy their phone, I think one is about $ 100
another about $ 200 and another that costs much more. They seem to bepriced
by the ammount of memory and the meg of camera pixals.

I can sit in my house (or anywhere there is wifi) and look at most anything
on the internet. With the cable tv or direct tv I can even watch much of
what I subscribe to. Not sure if that is over the internet or from the
device hooked to the tv. I think it is over the internet.

I don't know what phone service they use. I seldom make phone calls. Just
mostly want it for emergencies.