Of course Rogers has now entered the home phone business to compete with Bell. If the ads haven’t already verified one thing for you already then here it is: one is not always better than the other. Let’s go over the cost and reasons why one would switch to rogers home phone.

Rogers Home Phone Base fee: $24.95/month

Plus $5.95 System Access fee (non-government fee) and other fees.

This plan includes:

• 2 calling features (voicemail, call display, call waiting, call forwarding, call return, 3 way calling)

• 500 FREE North American Long Distance minutes²

This plan all in is advertised at $31.31/month with Rogers.

With Bell the same plan is $60.74 all in.

Hopefully you are eligible for the old tariffed rates in your community, rather than Bell's new unregulated free-for-all-pricing Home Phone product. It depends on where you live I believe, most Bell customers are grandfathered under the old CRTC-regulated pricing. Teksavvy is a competitor that should be looked into for Bell-type local landline service, features and long-distance all under one roof.

Another matter to keep in mind is that Long Distance is cheap if you go through the right provider, Only fools get their Long Distance through Bell, with their network charge and all. Cheap and reliable long distance can be had for pennies a minute through companies like Yak, on a strictly pay-as-you-use basis. Buckets of minutes are just a way to charge you more since you're likely to use less or more than the allotted amount.

One advantage of Rogers Home Phone is that many people have an unlimited "Rogers to Rogers" element of their cell phone bill, but with new competition arriving soon, this may not be such an advantage when non-ripoff cell phone service comes around, like Wind and Public Mobile.

To add another call feature is 4$ per month. To add another on top of that is an extra 2$. The next would be no extra charge. To add the final feature would be an extra 4$.

With every calling feature the totals of the two are:

Rogers $41.31

Bell $68.79

So with minimal features, the difference between the two is more prevalent in favour of Rogers.

Cable-Based Telephone Service Criticism

A major concern for many would be the fact that if for any reason Rogers phone system is down in your area then you’re unable to contact any emergency line including but not restricted to 911. A cell phone should be reserved for these types of situations at the minimum.

Obviously Bell can have their technical problems which would cause the same restrictions, but telephone systems were built with much more reliability than cable systems. .

I myself am with Bell home phone and have been for many years and I cannot remember any outage.

Bottom line: This isn't just Bell vs. Rogers. You have other options! Go with Teksavvy, a Bell reseller, if you need a landline. It'll cost just $46/month all in, and that's only assuming you use 500 minutes of long distance, it's less if you use less.

A better way for some to go may be a cell phone and a decent VoIP plan for making cheap outgoing calls while you're at home. VoIP providers are getting better and better at services that would ring your computer first, home second, and then your cell third, etc. I'm currently using Voip.ms to set up something like this, but it can be complicated. Once it is working though, it'll be great, and hugely money saving.