Interesting Money

Since I finally broke down and bought a cell phone, I’m seriously considering ditching my landline. I’ve had a POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) in usage through AT&T for the last five years, and I confess that I haven’t thought much about it. It’s just… kind of been there.

Yesterday I actually examined my latest bill. It’s a sight to behold, and it makes me sick.

Get this – I only have two services through AT&T:

1. Basic telephone service (no long distance or any other features – just local calling)
2. “Pro” level DSL (3.0 Mbps downstream – not the fastest, but definitely not the slowest)

Guess which one costs more? That’s right, my seldom-used, run-of-the-mill, boring LANDLINE costs more every months than my freakin’ broadband internet! Wow!

The Breakdown

Depressing as it may be, if you have a landline, I encourage you to take a look at your latest bill to see just how badly taxes and other fees are eating into your wallet.

Here’s a snapshot of just the landline aspect of my latest bill:

Sickening, isn’t it? The landline itself costs only $15.70 each month, but that does not count the $11.56 in required fees, making the total $27.26. Ouch! My internet only costs $25 a month!

This leaves me bound and determined to somehow cancel my landline. Has anyone had any luck negotiating with AT&T over dropping the landline and retaining DSL?