I scrupulously screen my calls. My answering message says, "If you are a telemarketer, we don't want to hear from you. Otherwise, please be patient with the answering machine."

We never answer the phone until we know who it is (After all, you'ld never let anybody through your front door without first knowing who it is). We never get sales calls and we've never had a complaint.

It seems that the telephone holds a peculiar sense of urgency for people. The phone rings, and we want to know right now who wants to connect with us. I've always felt that the phone is a way for people to keep a thumb on me - to be able to get into my face on-demand, without regard to my situation. I maintain a phone for MY convenience, not yours. In almost all cases I will be happy to temporarily allow you into my space, but I intend to maintain the option.

I'm listening to Thom's callers about this, and they all like to have fun with these calls. I think that's great, but it seems clear that they all really like getting these calls, otherwise they would take steps to block them out. It all speaks to the odd power of the telephone.

Don't throw away those old answering machines!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: artlo,

If I could get just my dsl through my phone company without having to have the phone service I would and just use a cell, too bad they dont allow that.

Astaroth,

You might investigate going to an internet phone (I chose JOIPhone at $8.95/month. . . gives you free long distance worldwide). When you do this, the internet phone company actually takes the phone service away from your current landline provider. The questions, of course, are will this break out the cost of the landline phone service? Will there still be taxes and other fees remaining? Is there another way for you to get broadband all by itself? It worked for us because we use a satellite broadband. I don't know what forms of broadband are available to you.

I just did a quick Google search and it appears that you may have satellite broadband available in Colton.

The scheme would be to use the ISP service provided by the satellite company (ours is free), switch to an internet phone service and become completely independant from your current landline company.

The biggest thrill for me in doing this was the opportunity to screw Verizon.