Friday afternoon when I got home from work my telephone died - no dial tone, nothing.  I unplugged everything, and then plugged in the one hardwired phone.  Still DOA.  

So I took out my cell phone and called Qwest for a service call.

After negotiating for five minutes through the maze of automated customer support I was told in that halting machine-voice:  "Your.  Service. Will. Be.  Restored. No. Later. Than. SEVEN. PM. August. Sixteen."

Five freaking days to get a service tech out?

Boy, it sure was a good thing that Congress broke up Bell Telephone, wasn't it?  All that competition really helps the consumer!

For once I'm glad I HAVE a cellphone.

You have a "Home" Phone? I havent found a need for one since I ot my Cell

I switched my home phone to VoIP. Now instead of line quality or line issues, I have to worry about cable modem interruption or cable line quality. But I save over $12 a month by switching to VoIP.

I keep a cell phone as well, but AT&T/Cingular service is spotty. They're cheap tho at $8/month ($25/90 days prepaid). As you can see, I don't use the phone much. The cell is for me when I'm on the go.

My long-distance needs amount to about $12 per YEAR, so hardwired phone service is a little less expensive than cell service.  

And usually bullet-proof reliable.

Quoted: And usually bullet-proof reliable.

when that big north east power outage hit a couple summers ago I saw a lot of reports of cell phones not working. my land line with non-cordless phone worked fine
also, around here most phone lines are buried, so even if we get a storm that knocks down "telephone"poles the phones don't go down

If you're in the east valley, Qwest has been having numerous problems resulting from the heavy rain last Tuesday (08/09/05).  I know they spent all of Wednesday night looking for the source of a problem in the area of Gilbert and University and found most of their manholes had from several inches to two feet of water in them.  The manholes are supposed to stay relatively dry.  The cables (and splices) closest to the floor of the hole were under water.

Hopefully they get your problem fixed soon.  They are talking about going out on strike if they don't get a new contract soon.

Quoted: Quoted: And usually bullet-proof reliable. when that big north east power outage hit a couple summers ago I saw a lot of reports of cell phones not working. my land line with non-cordless phone worked fine also, around here most phone lines are buried, so even if we get a storm that knocks down "telephone"poles the phones don't go down

Thats what radios are for.

Yeap, thats why I pay the $15/mo to have a landline in addition to my cell.

Kharn

Part of the problem is the phone companies have cut their work forces down to the bare minimum. I work for Verizon in Texas and right now we have 16 guys taking care of 26 towns spread out over four mostly rural counties. We are averaging 55-65 hours a week and working six days most weeks. There is more to do than we can keep up with. They will not do any maintenance on the existing cables so we patch and run. Getting anything new placed takes an act of congress. On top of that they have spent their budget for the rest of the year trying to finish a fiber job in the Dallas area just like they did last year.

If you don't like the repair times put in a call to your state public utilities commission. It works wonders here in Texas.

Quoted: Part of the problem is the phone companies have cut their work forces down to the bare minimum

Tell me about it  We went from 28 switchmen here in Michigan to cover 65 exchanges, now we're down to 12 with one guy ready to retire in two weeks.

Back to KBaker's 5 day out of service....

Man that is beyond ridiculous.  File a complaint with your public utilities commision.  Qworst has been doing biz that way for a several years & they need to be kick in the balls.  

Were I work our goal is to have a customer back in service in FOUR HOURS & usually more like two hours.

Phone service was finally restored about noon, Tuesday.

What stellar service!

My land line runs $26/month. that is why I switched to $12/month VoIP. SBC is a total rip off. When I had Verizon landline service in NJ, it was $16/month - FREE LOCAL calls. Anything else was a toll call. I found a LD carrier that charged 4 cents a minute.

My VoIP is FREE unlimited in-state calling. that means I can phone up someone in Da UP from Deeeetroit w/o incuring any fees. Best part? I can bring the VoIP router with me and have "local" service anywhere that has Internet access. They now have a WiFi VoIP phone that lets you use it anywhere that has WiFi... so you can call home for free if you're at an airport that has WiFi.

VoIP is the future of landline replacement. It may not dent cell service, but I sure as heck won't go back to a true landline unless SBC cuts it down to $10/month for local service. SBC's $26/month gets you free local calling, but in-state long distance and out of state long distance still cost extra. SBC's $26/month also does not have call waiting, caller ID, or anything.

my $12/month VoIP gives you caller ID, voice mail, call waiting, unlimited in state long distance, etc...
For $22/month VoIP gives you unlimited long distance in the US and 21 countries. Bring the router with you on trips that have Ethernet jacks and you essentially have free phone service anywhere in the US.

We used to use qwest to provide dialup customers with national access numbers while travelling. I received multiple outage reports EVERY day.

THey were a PITA to deal with.

Even worse trying to deal with customers in east buttF wherever who needed an internet connection.

Reminds me why I hate day traders so much.