Save Money on Home Phone Service – Verizon May Combine Home With Cell

You may eventually be able to eliminate your home-phone bill, without eliminating your land line.  Verizon is testing "Home Phone Connect", a new service which will allow you to have a land-line phone which uses minutes from your cellular plan.  Although your cellphone bill may increase, you may be able to eliminate a much bigger monthly home phone bill.

Customers would be able to keep their existing landline phones through the use of a base station that taps into Verizon's wireless network and then connects calls to the home phone handset, according to Network World.  A battery backup would provide power to the base should the electricity go out.

The service itself would cost an extra $9.99 a month for Verizon Wireless subscribers who pay at least $69.99 for their current family plans or an extra $19.99 a month for unlimited local and long distance calls. Subscribers will also be able to carry their existing home phone numbers to the new service.

Standard features, such as call waiting, call forwarding, 911, and 411 service will be included.

This new service is being tested in Connecticut and New York, and Verizon is not yet saying when it plans to roll out the service to the rest of the country.

via CNET News.