You guys all totally rock! This is why I love this place so much.

dbrashear: I'm very very sorry, I wasn't clear. Only Verizon Wireless is good, the rest is horrible! I've known techs on the inside at Verizon and the can attest to just how horrible their phone and DSL service is.

PaulWay: Amen!

hybrid8: That is totally my Plan B. Vonage seems great, but I'm not entirely comfortable with having a set number of minutes on my "land line". That, and my neighborhood (and entire state; NJ, the most densly populated state) is, well, densly populated. I worry that cable speeds would be slow compaired to the steadfast "guaranteed" DSL rates.

I'm also considering replacing my fax system with a computer containing a modem. Let the computer take the fax, turn it into PDF, and e-mail it (via home network) to everyone that needs it. Send faxes by e-mailing them to the machine, or something. I haven't looked TOO hard, but that software must exist somewhere. And it saves trees too! If the fax # wasn't printed on business cards, I'd ditch the phone line and get some kind of eFax (but security issues worry me there).

andy: Yes, text messages are the epitome of "sell phone" technology. Why would someone take minutes to type out a sentence (or unreadable acronyms) using 9 buttons when they can take half the time to just CALL. And "push to talk" "walkie talkie" is even worse. Why would you carry on a half duplex conversation when you could have full duplex if you just CALL. Oh, then there's ring tones, games, camera phones, and all those other sales tricks. Forget it; StarTac 7868W forever!

Yes, phone companies in America are dying too. They are just outdated. VoIP, wireless, chat, e-mail, etc have taken over. But, those internet services are prone to security problems. However, there's those convenient government regulations that allow all phone lines to be tapped. Pah, I'm going back to smoke signals.