BCTelco customers are increasingly exploring alternative solutions for their communication needs due to the rising prices and lack of features offered by the traditional BCTelco landline. Customers have been facing several problems with the company’s services, such as
- Poor customer service
- Frequent outages
- High prices
- Limited options for landline service
This article covers - the drawbacks of having a BCTelco landline service and the best alternative - Community Phone.
Drawbacks of a BCTelco Landline
1. High Prices
The BCTelco basic phone plan includes unlimited calling to other BCTelco numbers within their service area for $25 per month. You must purchase EAS (Extended Area Service) at an additional cost if you want to call your loved ones or friends from other areas outside of BCT coverage. Long-distance calls will cost you extra too. These add-ons will increase your phone bill amount or limit your ability to stay connected to your loved ones.
2. Activation Fee
BCT charges its customers an activation fee to activate your landline service. Ensure you read the fine print and T&Cs to understand the charges that will appear on your phone bill.
3. Geographical Limitations
BCT service is available only in a few areas, leading to additional expenses in buying EAS. Switching providers where BCT does not provide service may also become a hassle. Or, BCT’s monopoly in certain areas may allow them to charge premium charges for basic features.
4. Downtime
Inclement weather with rain, lightning, and tornadoes can take out an entire landline network in no time, leaving you stranded without a phone during emergencies. Repairing these lines can be a hassle as BCT phone technicians may not know where the problem started and how to fix it, leading to severe downtime.
5. Physical Limitation
Conventional landlines tether you to a spot. Since they are tied to your physical address, you may have a problem when you move to another location. Your BCT tariff may vary depending on the area you move to, and you may get lesser features.
Switch to Community Phone wireless landline service with reliable coverage across 99% of the US. Take your landline anywhere without changing your number, as you only need a power outlet and a phone to continue using your landline.
6. Challenges in Procuring Replacements
Since copper wire technology is outdated, you may face challenges in getting a BCT technician to repair your faulty instrument or wall jack or procure replacement parts for your landline.
7. Manual Spam Blocking or No Spam Blocker
BCTelco cannot provide automated spam call blocking, as conventional landlines do not house the technology for an in-built spam blocker. With Americans losing an average of $577 per person in 2022 to phone scams, manual spam blocking or phone features are ineffective against spam.
You need a system that can block spam calls automatically before your phone rings. Switch to Community Phone to enjoy the reliability of a conventional landline and the protection of a robust spam blocker.
Read on to learn more!
8. Maintenance
As per FCC order 19-72, large carriers can retire copper wire service nationwide. This order allows telecom companies to encourage customers to upgrade to expensive bundled fiber service landlines. Companies that do not want to retire their copper connections can allow the POTS lines to deteriorate by not investing in maintenance.
Lines laid down in the 80s and 90s are bound to require extensive maintenance as they would have been damaged due to inclement weather and wear and tear. However, since companies like BCTelco are unwilling to maintain POTS lines, maintenance or repair requests will be met with neglect from carriers, leaving you stranded without a phone during emergencies.
Community Phone - The Best BCTelco Landline Alternative
Community Phone is the cheapest landline phone service in the U.S., revolutionizing traditional landlines to combine reliability, flexibility, and excellent features. Their wireless landline base connects your home phone to local cell towers, eliminating the need for high-speed internet to make or receive calls.
Experience superior voice quality and reliable connectivity across 99% of the U.S., including rural areas. The unique landline base design ensures crystal-clear voice quality in rural and low-reception areas by amplifying mobile signals.
Enjoy unlimited nationwide calling, features like spam blocking, call forwarding, call waiting, voicemail, 3-way calling, landline texting, and more at affordable prices. With their US-based support, no hidden charges, and a 14-day FREE trial, Community Phone is the best landline service.
How It Works
The Community Phone landline base does not tie your phone to the internet as it works off resilient cell towers. The company's partnership with nationwide carriers and the unique design of the landline base ensure connectivity across 99% of the U.S., including rural areas. The built-in antennas on the base amplify signals from mobile towers to ensure superior voice quality in low-reception areas.
The 12-hour backup battery in the base ensures your phones continue working during a power outage or blackout in your area.
What Makes Community Phone Better Than BCTelco?
Here’s why Community Phone is better than BCTelco landlines:
1. Higher Uptime Than Other Providers
The Community Phone landline base connects your home phone to local cell towers, eliminating the need for an internet or copper connection. These resilient cell towers are supported through backup power units to have 99.99% uptime, ensuring your phone lines stay working. The 12-hour backup battery on the base ensures your phones continue to work when there is a power outage or blackout in your area.
2. No Physical Limitation
The Community Phone wireless landline service gives you the flexibility and mobility required. The company’s partnership with nationwide carriers ensures connectivity across 99% of the US. You can take your landline with you anywhere without changing your number. All you need is a power outlet and a phone, and your landline will work as well as a new one.
3. Zero Installation Cost
You do not need a technician or advanced skills to install your Community Phone landline. You can set up your landline in 30 seconds with the following steps:
1. Unwrap the landline base
2. Connect the base to a power outlet. Do not turn it on yet.
3. Hook your phone to the base per instructions in the manual
4. Toggle the ON/OFF switch to the ON position
5. Turn on the power and wait for 5 mins. Once the base finishes setup, make a test call to ensure your phone works as intended.
4. Lifetime Hardware Warranty
Enjoy a lifetime hardware warranty on the Community Phone landline base. Contact their customer support if you have questions about installing your landline base or its functionality. The reps will be happy to troubleshoot any errors or arrange a replacement if you need one.
5. Extensive Features
Community Phone combines the reliability of a landline, the freedom of wireless access, and excellent calling features in one. Enjoy outstanding calling features like spam call blocking, call waiting, caller ID, 3-way calling, landline texting, and more at affordable prices.
Talk to a Community Phone specialist today to learn more!
6. No Hidden Charges
Community Phone does not surprise its customers with hidden charges on their monthly bills. No installation fees or exorbitant equipment charges will crop up on your bills unnoticed. The company boasts transparency and you pay what you signed up for.
7. No Fancy Hardware
You don't need fancy equipment for your Community Phone landline, except the landline base and a SIM. You will receive the SIM with the base when you sign up with Community Phone.
The landline base is compatible with all phone models, saving you the hassle of buying new phone equipment. Save time and money with the zero-cost installation of the landline base.
Community Phone Landline Features
Spam Call Blocking
43% of Americans invest in spam blocker services after falling prey to phone scams. Manual call barring and phone features are ineffective against spam as they can be activated only after receiving a spam call. You need to be proactive about protecting yourself, and your loved ones from spam, as scammers make close to 200 million calls yearly, targeting unsuspecting people.
Get the Community Phone spam-blocker, your one-stop solution to barring unwanted and unlawful calls from ringing your phone. The spam blocker challenges robocalls and blocks them before the call can ring your phone, ensuring protection against spam.
The "Safelist," a new Community Phone feature, allows you to list the numbers you want to accept calls from. Your phone will ring to let calls from these numbers through and block all others before the phone rings. You can update your allowed list anytime to add or delete numbers, or Community Phone specialists will be happy to assist you.
Studies report that several people miss legitimate calls fearing spam. Community Phone is launching another iteration of the Safelist soon to help you manage legitimate calls while blocking spam. This feature will allow you to accept calls from numbers you want and route the rest to voicemail. Since Community Phone will not block other numbers, you can check your voice messages and respond to the ones you deem necessary.
The soon-to-be-launched "blocklist" is an aggressive spam blocker that blocks over 6 million spam calls based on an ever-growing database of spam numbers and a spam score. You can actively contribute to this database by adding a spam number to protect yourself and other Community Phone customers from scams and fraud.
Talk to Community Phone specialists to learn more!
Call Waiting
The call-waiting feature helps you handle two calls simultaneously. You will hear 2 beeps when there is an incoming call while you are engaged on one call. You can place the first call on hold, talk to the second caller, or route it to voicemail.
Call Forwarding
Enable call forwarding to forward important calls when you cannot answer them from your business landline. You can opt from one of the several Community Phone options to forward your business calls to a number of your choice.
Temporary Forwarding: Use the manual process to turn call forwarding ON/OFF if you are temporarily away from your business phone. Here's how you can enable it:
1. Get a dial tone
2. Dial **21*1
3. Dial the 10-digit number you want the calls forwarded to and #
4. Three beeps will indicate you have enabled call forwarding
Follow the same steps, but press ##21# to turn off call forwarding.
Unconditional Forwarding: Forward all calls from your landline to a cell phone or another number of your choice and ditch your landline.
Conditional Forwarding: You can program several phone numbers to ring simultaneously with one incoming call, allowing the person available to answer the call.
You can also have numbers ring in succession if the first number is busy or does not answer. For example, your cell phone can ring if you do not answer your landline within 20 seconds.
Call History
Enable the call history feature and access information on incoming and outgoing calls to and from your Community Phone landline.
You can use this feature to
1. Return missed calls from known contacts
2. Store legitimate contacts
3. Check caller information against known contacts
4. Send a message or
5. Block spam calls.
Caller ID
On Outgoing Calls
Opt for the caller ID feature so the recipient can see your number or name when you make outbound calls. This feature can help loved ones answer your call or return missed calls without mistaking them as spam.
Incoming Calls
You will be able to see the caller ID of the person calling you if:
1. The person has enabled caller ID
2. Has registered in the national register
3. Your phone can support the caller ID feature.
Community Phone does not use third-party apps to provide the caller ID feature.
Landline Texting
Studies reveal that millennials and later generations prefer texting to talking. Stay in touch with younger children or grandchildren by texting them from your Community Phone landline through the landline texting feature. The unlimited text feature and 2-way messaging enable you to see the messages from the recipient and continue the conversation.
3-way Calling
Connect with 2 or more of your loved ones simultaneously with the 3-way calling feature, spend some great moments, and create memorable experiences. You can connect with your loved ones on the same call and hear them speak simultaneously without worrying about free calling apps, internet bandwidth, or patchy and dropped internet calls.
Benefits of Switching to Community Phone
Besides having a reliable landline service that does not require internet, Community Phone members enjoy the following benefits:
Unlimited nationwide calling and text: Stay in touch with loved ones across the U.S. with Community Phone's unlimited talk and text.
No internet needed: The Community Phone landline base works off cell towers without tying your phone to the internet. Since your phones are not dependent on the internet, they will continue working during an internet outage or maintenance.
Number choice: You can get a new local number FREE when you sign up with Community Phone. You can also transfer your existing number through their unique hand-held porting process.
Zero-cost Installation: The landline base does not require a technician to install it. You or anyone in your business or household can install your Community Phone landline in under 30 seconds and be ready to make calls in 5 mins.
24/7 reliable customer support: Contact Community Phone customer support via phone, email, and live chat 24/7 to experience world-class support from live agents. Glowing customer reviews on BBB and Trustpilot are testimonies of their commitment to customers.
Works during power outages: The 12-hour backup battery in the landline base ensures your phones continue working during power outages and blackouts.
How to get a Community Phone landline?
Follow these steps to get a Community Phone landline:
1. Call Community Phone at (866)-340-6256 and speak with a specialist.
2. The rep will check your area for coverage. Since Community Phone covers 99% of the US, this should not be an issue.
3. You get a local number FREE when you signup. Choose a new number or port your existing number. The specialist will help you get a similar number if your preferred number is unavailable.
4. Choose a plan to suit your needs.
5. Complete the signup process
6. Wait for your landline base, and install it per instructions. You can contact Community Phone support if you have challenges or questions.
7. Wait until the base completes the setup. Make a test call to check if your landline works as intended.
FAQs
What are the drawbacks of BCTelco Landline?
Some of the drawbacks of the BCTelco landline are
1. The basic plan is expensive and very limited in features. You must buy EAS at an additional cost if you want to call loved ones outside the BCT service area.
2. Long-distance calls will cost you extra.
3. You will have to pay an activation fee to activate your service
4. Maintenance and spare part procurement may be challenging
5. Poor customer service
What is the best alternative to BCTelco Landline?
The best alternative to BCTelco Landline is Community Phone's wireless landline service. This cost-effective, cutting-edge technology eliminates the need for costly installation and maintenance of copper wires or an internet connection, as it operates off cellular towers. With a setup time of only 30 seconds, users can enjoy the convenience of a landline connection without the hassle and expense of installation.
Conclusion
BCTelco Landline is an outdated technology that may not suit everyone’s needs. Community Phone's wireless landline service is a better alternative, offering superior features and convenience at a much lower cost. With no wires or installation required, it’s easy to get started and stay connected with friends and family with the help of Community Phone. Try it today to discover the benefits for yourself!