Section 3.2. Handling, or Not, Calls

3.2. Handling, or Not, Calls

If you are a slave to the ringing phone, you may not know the bone-deep joy of ignoring calls when you find them inconvenient. I recommend you hang a mental "Do Not Disturb" sign up sometime, let the answering machine earn its keep, and enjoy not answering the phone for a change.

However, even when you want to answer the phone, you may not be able to do so. Many features from broadband phone services allow you to control, rather than react to, incoming phone calls. The following sections describe these. I've also included a list of prices from various traditional phone companies as well as from broadband VoIP providers.

3.2.1. Caller ID

• SBC: $9.95

• Verizon: $7.95

• BellSouth: $9.00

• Qwest: $6.95

• Broadband phone services: $0.00

Want to know who's calling? The traditional phone companies count on that desire, to the tune of $7 to $10 per month per line. Qwest even has the, ahem, courage to charge for installation, but it could be they're the only ones listing it on their web site where I can find it.

Getting Caller ID is a double whammy for some people: they pay for the service, and they need to buy new phones to actually use the service. The traditional telephone companies still sell little Caller ID boxes that sit beside the phone for those users with older phones that don't have Caller ID support.

Want to know the sad part about these Caller ID charges? All phones calls now carry the information needed to display the caller information. There is no longer any extra expense borne by the traditional telephone companies to rationalize their high Caller ID prices.

3.2.2. Call Waiting

• SBC: $2.80

• Verizon: $0

• BellSouth: $7.50

• Qwest: $5.50

• Broadband phone services: $0.00

Can't stand to miss a call, even when you're on one? Call waiting service has been available from traditional telephone companies for quite a while, and the general public seems to like it.

So, of course, the broadband phone services include call waiting. After all, when you're doing all the phone call handling via a computer rather than a telephone switch, such features are simple to add.

3.2.3. Call Forwarding

• SBC: $5.00-$7.50

• Verizon: $1.80-$2.50

• BellSouth: $5.00-$15.50

• Qwest: $3.00-$3.50

• Broadband phone services: $0.00

When someone calls you where you aren't, isn't it nice to have the phone ring where you are? That's Call Forwarding, and the traditional telephone companies made a big deal about this "advanced" feature when they made it available.

There are multiple ways to handle call forwarding, however, such as:

• Call Forwarding Always, Busy, and No Answer

• Call Forwarding Selective (certain numbers are forwarded)

• Call Forwardingring at multiple phones at once

You may also see these service listed as something like "Multipath" or "Simul-Ring" when a call can go to more than one phone at a time. Remote access to control call forwarding comes with a steep price at BellSouth, but once again, it's free at the broadband phone service companies.

Note that if you forward calls to a cell phone and have both ring, but the cell phone voicemail picks up sooner than your desktop phone, the message will never make it to your desktop phone.

3.2.4. Conference Calling

• SBC: $5.00 (three-way only)

• Verizon: $4.00 (three-way only)

• BellSouth: $6.00 (three-way only)

• Qwest: $3.50 (three-way only)

• Broadband phone services: $0.00

This is a favorite teenage feature, judging by my daughter and her friends. Their cell phones can do it, so they expect their desk phones to let them add another caller to the phone party whenever they want.

The traditional telephone companies and phone-centric broadband phone companies are all limited to three-way calling. Skype, however, offers up to five callers in one conference (they are talking about increasing that number). You can't get much real work done that way, but it's a nice feature for the marketing department to tout, don't you think?