Telephones
So the rain is not good for buried telephones lines. My lines are alright, but I’m having to find a replacement for my Mother’s system.
I felt optimistic for several days as I located what I thought was the perfect solution, but I’m beginning to suspect there is no simple solution.
Through Consumer Cellular I found a device that is a cell phone, but it plugs into the wall, so you don’t have to watch the battery level, and you can plug your existing landline phones into it. This meant that my Mother could continue to use the wireless handsets she has spread all over her house, and not have to worry about carrying a cell phone. It is really a nice concept.
I also found a nice replacement for her med-alert system. Snapfon makes a nice, simple cell phone that includes an emergency button that connects to a 7/24 monitoring service and switches to speaker phone mode.
Then the phones arrived and it turns out they both use the AT&T network. I determined that the Snapfon definitely won’t work with it, because the local network requires at least a 3G level phone and the Snapfon is only 2G. I’m afraid I’m going to run into the same thing with the Consumer Cellular phone because it is also designed strictly to make phone calls. The irony on the Consumer Cellular phone is that is branded AT&T.
4 comments
http://www.greatcall.com/Jitterbug/
i’ve heard good things about them, but can’t tell from their website whether they use at&t or not.
Actually, I just got off that web site before coming back to post the Cat Blogging post. I’m going to check with T-Mobile to see if their system will work with the phone I have, but Great Call has a cellular-based med-alert button that is one-third the monthly charge of the system my Mother now has.
Consumer Cellular is certain their product will work, but I will see later this morning.
Good luck Bryan. I’ve been through the same PITA process when I moved here. Lot’s of promises and assurances from several networks and hardware suppliers, but in the end here, Telstra is the only real option, and you have to pay an arm & a kidney for that. It’s a monopoly in Regional Aus in every way but name. Though, in my case, after 4 years here, there may actually be a viable option for me! And it’s through Aldi’s new AldiMobile! And the funny thing is that they use Telstra as their network, but it’s about a qtr the cost of dealing directly with Telstra or any other wholesale provider (who usually just undersell Telstra by maybe 5%! So Aldi have proven that there is a lot of room to move in the pricing if you are willing to look at profits long term rather than just the qtr as most do! It’s the same philosophy they use in their Supermarkets, and they are a very profitable company by any standard.) Good on the Germans (Aldi)! 😆
I hope you can find a good solution m8.
T-Mobile is also a German company, so there is hope. AT&T wants to sell you a new phone and set-up fee, so they don’t care about backwards compatibility issues. The 3G makes the data links cheaper, and they want everyone to use data, not voice.