Another Hooray for Verizon

I visited the AT&T store this morning to order land-line service, having seen their website quoting unlimited local and long distance for $24.99, but it turned out that the cost to me would be $45, PLUS all the taxes, fees and service charges they add on. So I told them I would think about it, and drove across the street to the Verizon store.

It turns out that Verizon has a new offering - a small device that allows you to connect your land-line phone for unlimited local and long distance, but for $19.99 a month, plus the normal idiotic taxes, fees and service charges. I bought it on the spot and the salesperson even did whatever was needed to make it ready to work, and tested it to make sure it was ready to go. I came home and inserted all the batteries in my three new Uniden phones, plugged them in to charge, and connected the phone base station to the Verizon device. I called my new number from the cell phone and it worked! While I was at it I reduced the number of minutes in my Verizon cell phone plan. My intention is to make outgoing calls from the land phone, and to encourage frequent callers to use that one. I don't need all the cell phone minutes since I don't even use it all that much.

You may wonder why I have 3 Uniden phones; I wanted the Uniden brand, and they only came three phones to a box. I'm not even sure where I will put the 3rd one and I don't care to have a phone in my bedroom.

Verizon has the absolute best coverage across the country, the best customer service, and at least in the Sunrise Mall area, the best sales staff. I have never been disappointed with them. Now I will have my cell, land line, and Mifi in one bill which should make budgeting easier. They also include a printed user guide with their products, which has come in handy more than once. I like to get familiar with whatever device - cell phone, camera, etc., and then have the guide to look at to see if there is a feature I didn't realize was there. I would NEVER go to a website just to scroll through a guide for lack of something else to do, but I will pick up a booklet and give it a glance once in a while.

I just got back from the mobil home park where I signed all the paperwork, received a binder-full of information plus California civil codes that will take me a year to read, and got some questions answered. All in all it was much simpler than the apartment lease I had to deal with last year, and very much easier than the closing on a house. There are still a lot of things to do, such as transfer the DMV license to my name, notify the post office of my new address, etc.

I also received a call from a rep of the Sacramento Bee newspaper, offering me a 7-day delivery for $2 a week - that is the cost of just one Sunday paper! I agreed, mostly because the Bee has the New York Times crossword puzzle. I need to quit looking at the Sunday ads however.