Glenn Fleishman published a complete explanation of his effort to consolidate the telecommunications services he uses. His intent was to minimize his costs. He takes advantage of several Cingular Wireless services (FastForward call forwarding services and the FamilyTalk 850 billing plan), Vonage’s $25 per month Premium Unimited VOIP service, and Skype’s SkypeOut long distance service to save himself and his family about $130 per month. He also published a detailed breakdown of his future telecom bills.
Kathleen and I have been talking about doing a telecom consolidation like this for several weeks now. The reasons I haven’t proceeded yet are:
- I want to figure out how to connect VOIP to our Panasonic Digital Super Hybrid Phone System. Ed Anuff says he’s done this at his home in California, so I need to get the details from him.
- I am waiting for the U.S. GSM carriers to announce the availability of the Treo 650
on their network. Once that is done, I will decide whether to consolidate our mobile service on Cingular or T-Mobile.
I’d like to look at ditching Comcast cable service as well, and moving to DirecTV or the Dish Network. However, that will probably have to wait until January or February, when I will have more money and time available.