In a new direction for Tracfone brand StraightTalk Wireless, the Walmart-backed virtual operator has listed the Home Phone Connect basestation first launched by Verizon Wireless in late 2010 for future sale, with the release slated for the 21st of this month for $99.99.
The service itself will consist of two service tiers, a $15 monthly option featuring unlimited local and nationwide long-distance calling with Voicemail, caller-ID, 3-way calling, call waiting, call forwarding, E911 support and 411 access and a $30 monthly tier which includes international long distance to over 1000 destinations.
The service will be sold under the StraightTalk Wireless Home Phone branding and will otherwise be identical to the Verizon Wireless Home Phone Connect offering in terms of service and features offered, with the differences being the prepaid nature of the service as opposed to Verizon’s contract requirement as well as the slightly cheaper monthly service rate for domestic local and long distance calls and the addition of an unlimited international long-distance option.
With this offering, Tracfone and StraightTalk look to expand outside of prepaid cellular and look to compete with more entrenched VOIP and hybrid landline services offered by cable companies. What makes this even more compelling is how it even undercuts the majority of flat-rate mobile phone plans with unlimited service, even when factoring in international long-distance per month, which makes it a viable alternative to relying solely on a mobile phone for contact, especially for freelancers or those needing an additional line for specific reasons.
As with the previous Verizon offering the limitations of this service revolve around the lack of fax capability and incompatibility with most home alarm systems, but customer feedback for the Verizon service has been positive, especially in areas where standard POTS service is generally unavailable due to specific terrain issues or lack of infrastructure development, such as new housing.
Looks like the old concept of prepaid home phone has made a comeback. This venture could work out for both vzw and Carlitos Slim. I am glad to see that someone in vzw is using their brains, because that unlimited everything with data share wont sit well with customers specially when you have to cough up the price for service plus $40 per device.
If having this as a prepaid line gets rid of all the crazy fees I’ll have a home phone again.
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It appears Straight Talk is a exclusive Verizon business, but on the tv commercials they say the nations best carriers, meaning multiple carriers. Does straight talk also use Sprint and Cellular One signals?
StraightTalk leases network access from all of the major carriers for different phones, so it’s a matter of paying attention to the packaging to see which network the specific phone operates on. Due to the network lease agreements, they cannot explicitly detail which phone operates on which network in any advertising due to competitive bias, but many have detailed major releases and which networks those phones operate under.
It sounds like it will be cheap enough, but the only thing I don’t like is having to buy it from
these ******’s at -mart….Wonder if there will be any taxes added on to this…..
I have Verizon home phone and DSL bundle service for about $65.00 a month. Will I be able to ditch Verizon’s phone line and keep DSL? I have 2 wires for telephone and 2 wires for DSL at outside box.
I started using straight talk home service in April 2014. The service is mostly reliable. I do find the voice quality is not up to par with a landline or VoIP, which I was using prior. The voicemail system is poor, as the automated message I hear when picking up messages is very broken up. I have my wireless device in a basement and have two of the three lights for signal lit. I also have Verizon cell towers located within 3 miles. There is not much flexibility for the voicemail system. I have had difficulty adjusting the number of rings or simply turning it off in favor of using an answering machine in my basement. Just my experience so far. The fee of $15 monthly helps as this is nearly half of what I paid for VoIP from another phone service with a V. Their fees simply added 33% to their advertised monthly charge. I have not tried using this wireless device when I travel. I did buy a very standard corded phone to use when the power goes out. I also use a cell phone and this service allows me to use the call forward to my cell, without needing to give out the cell phone number.