The downside of cheap phone/internet

When the hubby and I were cutting back on expenses last year, we decided to switch internet service providers. There was a company who advertised particularly low rates, and we wanted to try them out. We looked into it and found out you had to sign up for a year, and their rate of 39.95$/month for home phone and high-speed internet would go up after the first three months (to 56.90$), but it still wouldn't be as high as our previous rate (75$). So we went for it.

I can't remember the first time we lost service, because it's happened so many times since! Certainly, the scariest time was a period of several days around my due date with the babe. Incidentally, she was born at home (planned, not accidental), but if we had needed to call an ambulance, what would we have done? From a quick mental tally, I estimated that in D's first five months of life so far, we've lost our phone and internet (because they're linked, so if one's out, well, so is the other) five times, or once a month on average. Sometimes it's for a few hours, and sometimes it's a few days.

One of the worst things about it is that we don't necessarily know right away, unless we're trying to connect to the internet. I've been at home all day and had people trying to call me, and didn't know until later. In addition, we have a shanty little answering machine that I love; I've had it since first year university, and I love that it's a physical machine (as opposed to voice-mail), it's easy to use, and it doesn't require a password. Guess what happens when our phone is out? You get our Distributel voice-mail, which we didn't sign up for, and for which we have not been given a password. So then we don't actually have access to messages people have left. We requested that the company either take away the voice mail service altogether, or please give us the password. The agreed to the latter, and gave us the wrong password. Gah!

The hubby had complained to them before, but I decided to do it for myself after our last interruption in service, which lasted a full day last week. I wrote out my talking points (so that I wouldn't freak right out and start yelling, which accomplishes nothing), and asked to speak directly to a manager. My main concern was that, being at home with my daughter all day, I was genuinely curious as to what they expected me to do in the event of an emergency requiring me to call 911, if my phone was out. The manager I spoke to was very nice, but he didn't really have an answer for me. The point of my call, aside from voicing my concerns, was to let them know we wouldn't be renewing our contract with them.

We're looking into going back to our former provider, but with a slightly slower internet connection. It's looking like it's be just over 60$/month, which seems okay, given that we've never had interruptions of service with this provider in the past. We'll see how it turns out... in May, when our contract is up!