Getting an iPhone has forced a realignment of our varies communication services. First, I switched to AT&T from Verizon, then I brought
my wife’s line over so we could get a ten buck a
month break for having a family plan. The shared rollover minutes are nice too.

It didn’t stop there though. Call quality at our house is actually acceptable on at&t’s network, so we can think seriously about making changes to our landline phone service. Some people have ditches their landline service completely, but I like the fact that the phone is powered off the phone network, so I can make calls in a power outage even if I can’t recharge my phone. I also like the higher voice quality of landlone calls.

I am changing our long distance though. We are better off buying more mobile minutes and curtailing our landline long distance. I figure we can save whopping $10 or more a month. We could save even more if we ditched landline long distance because there is a $7/month FCC fee no matter how much we use, but for now I still want the option, so I’m not dropping it all together yet.

Now I have to decide if it is really worth an extra $10 or so a month to use a third party ISP with my DSL line, or if I should just use Qwest’s offering. The most obvious advantage of my current arrangement is that I have a static IP, but I really haven’t made much use of it, though it might come in handy if I want to VPN in from my iPhone.