I guess it all depends on how much you call from home versus away from home or on the road. We use pre-paid cellular. The new phones were free after rebate and my wife and I each spend about $5-$7/month for the STI Mobile/Sprint service. We only make quick 1-2 minute calls for necessary reasons and it works fine anywhere in the country that Sprint covers. Voice mail and text messaging are turned off on both cellular phones. Other cellular providers are now joining the pre-paid game with good deals. We are still stuck with the old telephone company for home and home office lines. I must have the reliability and quality of a landline for my business. I do pay too much for long distance, toll-free, and local service for my business compared to the low rates available today. Bills are typically $35-$50/month for relatively low volume usage. The last time I switched was from MCI to Ameritech(i.e. SBC/AT&T/who knows?) It was a pain to switch, but the new lower rates were good for a year before they went up again. Our home phone line just went up to $22/month for local phone service. It started at $18 several years ago. Pre-paid long distance service is $.025/minute using cards from companies like Cheap Phonecards. The latest cards don't require you to enter the pin every time from home and you can program the 800 access number into speed dial. The long distance cards are great from hotels too. We are seriously considering the switch to broadband phone service, but our local numbers are not yet portable for Vonage or the others. We are just outside of their large markets. Broadband cable internet is $30/month and speed is around 300K or 10 times faster than dial-up. It is fast enough for our needs. The total bill (excluding my business) is around $67/month for all phones and broadband for my wife and I. Here is a link that might be useful: Cheap Phone Cards

tish - I am not in an open primary state. Just a state that is assumed to go Democrat so no point in anyone spending money here. I do get calls for non-presidential campaigns. We got a ridiculous number of calls a few years ago when we had a high profile congressional election. It was truly annoying so I understand how those of you in first primary/swing states must feel. My experiences with campaigning and where the information comes from. I worked for the Ramsey Clark senatorial campaign (yes, I'm pretty old) when I was in college. I had a copy of the voter registration roles for my area and I sent literature to everyone registered as a Democrat or independent. (How old school and small budget does that sound? lol) I did one session of calling for candidate Obama. We called registered Democrats. The point of it was more to get out the vote rather than change minds. I didn't do it again because the campaign office didn't have enough phones so I had to use my mobile phone. I got calls afterwards from people who hadn't answered their phones. "Saw you on caller ID, what did you call about?" calls. We had been advised not to leave messages but in retrospect maybe we should have. Hang in there everyone!

Please, KT friends, do not talk and drive. It's not about your HANDS. It's about distracting your MIND from piloting a thousand pounds of missile among other missiles. You will need all your wits about you when the darn fool sharing your road while distracted by his phone creates a sudden traffic crisis. We see others driving distracted all the time. We could immediately reduce traffic deaths and accidents by not allowing civilian vehicles to take or receive any but emergency calls while the vehicle is in motion. Some trucking companies already attempt to do this; their company phones will not operate when the truck is in motion. There is no personal call more important than driving FOCUSED. Again, multi-tasking is a MYTH. Elmer -- Yes, I'm talking about a take-overs or shut-downs. When people put 'all their eggs' onto a cloud, what happens if the cloud 'floats away'? In "Handmaid's Tale" -- a *story* -- religious oligarchs take over the nation, controlling everyone's ability to buy, sell, move about, communicate, eat, breathe. If everyone eventually puts his whole life online...wouldn't it be easy to freeze or seize it? Some of my concern is prompted by learning that even in remote Chinese villages, people not only have cell phones, but have every aspect of their lives 'on' them: Their identity papers, their savings, their pensions. Phones replace cash and credit card transactions. It's "I Am My Cell Phone". This led me to think about bandits holding people's computers hostage, and then to, "Why not kidnap the entire Virtual Person?" That led to, "Why not take over a whole nation? And now we are back to "Handmaid's Tale".

My cordless phone is kept on the charger near me. When I'm at home I'm generally wearing shorts these days and I leave the cell in the holster on my jeans. The cell number is only given to a fortunate few and I give them a special ring so I know if they should call. However they're all trained to either call my home number first or call the forwarding number so I can answer it on the landline. My cell is prepaid and it's primary use is emergencies and convenience when I'm out and secondary use is long distance calls. I generally charge the cell when I'm in my vehicle or occasionally when it really needs it I put it on the charger in the house. I'm not a phone addict. Phones are a tool for my convenience and benefit. I refuse to become a slave to them. My landline has talking caller ID so if it rings I'll know if I want to talk to them. If it's an out of state area code, it's not answered if I'm trying to sleep (and most of the time not answered if I'm not trying to sleep). Occasionally a friend will call when he's working nights since I'm often up at night. If I'm expecting a call, I'll pull the phone off the charger and keep it within easy reach, otherwise, even when it's on the charger I can reach it easily with the grabber. I use the phone less and less these days. I used to have a phone in the bathroom but not anymore. If someone calls when I'm on the pot, they'd better call back or leave a message (or both). People know I don't run for the phone. If I'm out getting the mail, in the bathroom, busy with something, etc, I don't answer the phone. I have my priorities and a phone is not high on the priority list. Love the surgically removed usb port line! Keeping that in mind.