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LANDLINES FADE AS PRICE, OPTIONS INCREASE Phone companies have been trying to write the obituaries for their own landline services for years. To wit, when you try to sign up for a voice line
at a typical rural operator — such as Consolidated Communications, which does business in more than 20 states — you’ll automatically be routed to a page offering VoIP service even though
the company still supports plain old telephone service accounts. ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND. If you search for the best landline service on the web, you’ll be presented with a long list of
services from the likes of AT&T, Cox, Spectrum and Verizon Fios — all turn out to be VoIP services. And some companies that claim to offer landline services designed for older adults,
such as Boston-based Community Phone, are not landline operators but wireless service providers. And they’re not cheap. An eight-step online application process on the Community Phone
website reveals that the monthly fee is $66.54. PRICES RISE FASTER THAN INFLATION. In October 1995, the national average for a residential phone bill, including a premium for touch-tone
service, was $19.98 a month, according to the FCC. Adjusting for inflation, that’s $39.91 in November 2023 dollars. The lowest generally available rate without touch-tone or unlimited local
calling was $11.79, $23.55 adjusted for inflation. The moral of the story: Landlines are going the way of the dodo and pay phones, either from customers abandoning them to save money or
phone companies making them scarce. If you haven’t already, you can ditch your POTS line and select a VoIP service that combines cellular service, internet access and a battery backup. In
the process, you’ll save around $50 a month, $560 a year or more. HIGH-SPEED INTERNET ALLOWS CLEAR CALLS WITHOUT WIRES If you like having a phone that stays at your house, voice over
internet protocol services use your home’s high-speed internet connection to place digital phone calls. Vonage, based in Holmdel, New Jersey, is well known thanks to advertising, and the
company offers a long-distance international unlimited calling plan for $27.99 a month plus taxes and fees. Other options: 1-VoIP, AXvoice, Phone Power, Voiply, VOIPo. AN OPTION TO BUNDLE.
Most cable-television providers also will package a VoIP service with your TV channels. The cable company can save you money by giving you a discount on your cable bill, but the voice
service generally is not as sharp as a dedicated VoIP service. Sunnyvale, California-based Ooma offers several VoIP options designed to allay worries about service disruptions. One typical
package is Ooma’s Telo LTE with Battery Backup. It uses a cellular connection to place residential phone calls instead of piggybacking on your internet service. The bundle comes with a
cellular antenna about the size of a liquid soap dispenser, a base station that looks like an answering machine, and — critically important — a rechargeable backup battery. The whole thing
costs $129.99 up front for the hardware, about the same price as two months of landline service. Then the service is $19.99 a month for unlimited nationwide calling plus unlimited calls to
Canada and Mexico. An international calling plan that includes other countries is an additional $17.99. Plus you’ll pay taxes of $2 to $8 a month depending on your location. In addition to
saving money, Telo LTE automatically gives first responders your home address in a 911 call, part of Enhanced 911 and Next Generation 911 services rolling out nationwide. If power goes out
in a storm, the backup battery will keep the phone running for up to 10 hours. INFORMATION FOR DECISIONS. That can be a godsend when you want to find out what caused the outage and whether
you should stay home or evacuate. Conversely, if your home internet goes out, you can use Telo LTE as a backup internet connection. But if you use more than 1 gigabyte of data, you’ll be
charged $8.99 for each additional gigabyte. Over several weeks of testing, Ooma’s call quality was solid for domestic and international calls. Audio quality is better than typical cellphone
calls, primarily because the antenna is stationary. Using a smartphone when you’re moving from place to place affects sound quality. If you want to keep your home phone number, you can
transfer it to the Ooma service for a one-time fee of $39.95, and Ooma typically does this within a couple of days. Moreover, you’ll get all the advantages of digital phone service: caller
ID, call waiting, follow-me call forwarding, an online call log and voicemail access online. Telo LTE also works with your existing handset. Just plug it into the Ooma box. And it works with
Amazon’s Alexa — “Use Ooma to call my daughter.”