[Tanniker Smith]

My biggest complaint about the landline is that you can't get them to NOT charge a minimum fee for long distance calls every month. We don't make long distance calls -- and we rarely did before we had the cell phones.

So it's absolutely nuts that they will bill us 3 dollars per month for something we don't use. When we were able to choose a long distance provider, we always took none of the above (with the flat 28cent/minute fee).

It's not surprising that landlines are going the way of vinyl records and CDs.

[Westlander]

Here’s how I controlled unnecessary costs-local calls only on landline phone service. Buy a phone card for the rare long distance calls. (get a card with no expiration date)

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11175927&search=phone%20card&Mo=1&cm_re=1_en-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&lang=en-US&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Sp=S&N=0&whse=BC&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntk=Text_Search&Dr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ne=4000000&D=phone%20card&Ntt=phone%20card&No=0&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Nty=1&topnav=&s=1

[peggybac]

I refuse to use my phone service’s long distance - I use GTC at 3.8 cents per minute. If you pay via credit card, there’s no minimum monthly fee. They use to be my internet service when I was on dialup but now that I have DSL, I still use their long distance service.