Ponderosa, one of the oldest telecom companies, has been under fire for a few years because of its service. Customers have complained about high prices, unreliable service, and being forced to bundle their internet with their phone service. Apathetic customer support and the company’s monopoly in certain areas have left people clamoring for reliable landline alternatives.
This article covers:
1. The drawbacks of having a Ponderosa landline
2. The best Ponderosa landline alternative - Community Phone
Drawbacks of Having a Ponderosa Landline
1. Premium Charges for Unreliable Service
Several customers have expressed dissatisfaction about paying premium prices when Ponderosa landlines and the internet do not work.
2. Customer Apathy
As per reviews, customers calling support have been given basic instructions to troubleshoot an issue or have been asked to buy new equipment. Customers have also been displeased about paying for non-working refurbished equipment from Ponderosa.
3. Installation Fees and Premise Visiting Charges
Ponderosa charges a steep fee for your landline installation and activation and for visiting your premises. These charges differ area-wise; installation and premise visits can cost you upwards of $100.
Get Community Phone, the best wireless landline with a zero-cost installation and no premise visiting charges. Read on or talk to their specialists at 866-264-3879 to learn more!
4. Phones will Go Down During a Power Outage
Your Ponderosa landline will go down during a power or network outage or scheduled or unscheduled maintenance as it works off the internet.
You will have to buy a battery backup to continue using your landline during power outages, but it is expensive and not the perfect solution. The backup battery can help you only if you have a power outage, but your phone lines will be down if Ponderosa has an outage or other issues.
5. Expensive Bundled Options
Customers have been upset about bundling their internet with a landline service they do not need. If you need landline service, you must bundle your landline with the internet or other services you do not need.
6. Poor Call Quality
Ponderosa landlines use the internet for making and receiving calls. Call quality and clarity on fiber service phones depend on your internet speed and consistency. Since consistent internet connectivity and speeds are subject to time of the day, network congestion, and your device, you may have call drops and poor voice quality on your Ponderosa home phone.
7. Safety and Security Issues
Calls from your Ponderosa landlines may leave you vulnerable to hacks, attacks, malware, and internet-related threats, as it uses the internet for voice communication. Hackers may intercept your data, leading to data and identity theft.
For example, you may be liable for credit cards, expensive purchases, and loans you never took.
8. Monopoly in Certain Areas
Displeased Ponderosa customers feel that the company’s monopoly in certain areas has allowed them to charge premium prices for dissatisfactory services.
Community Phone - The Best Alternative To a Ponderosa Landline
Community Phone is the best wireless landline service provider in the US that works without an internet or copper connection. Their wireless landline base connects to cell towers in your area, providing reliability and excellent call quality.
Enjoy unlimited nationwide calling and outstanding features like call forwarding, voicemail, spam call blocking, call waiting, and 3-way calling at affordable prices. With world-class support, great coverage in rural and low-reception areas, no hidden charges, and a 14-day FREE trial, Community Phone is the best Ponderosa alternative.
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 Ponderosa?
Here’s why Community Phone is better than Ponderosa 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
Community Phone’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
68.4 million Americans were victims of phone scams in 2022, a 23% increase from 2021. Manual call blocking is no longer effective due to scammers' persistent attacks. According to reports, con artists have discovered a technique to get around the STIR/SHAKEN regulations that the government has implemented for customer safety. You need a spam blocker than can block unwanted calls before your phone rings.
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. Understanding the need to balance robust spam protection and legitimate calls, Community Phone is launching another iteration of the Safelist soon.
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 heps 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
a) Return missed calls from known contacts
b) Store legitimate contacts
c) Check caller information against known contacts
d) Send a message or
e) 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.
FAQs
What are the drawbacks of Ponderosa Landline?
Drawbacks of Ponderosa landlines include high prices, unreliable service, internet bundled with phone services, unhelpful customer support, and customer apathy. Their landline is also available only in a few areas, and customers have to pay for installation and premise visit charges when signing up with them.
What is the best alternative to Ponderosa Landline?
The best alternative to Ponderosa Landline is Community Phone's wireless landlines. Unlike Ponderosa's copper wiring, Community Phone’s state-of-the-art technology wirelessly delivers phone service to your home or business. It is a low cost and deeply reliable solution with no credit checks or deposit fees.
You can setup your landline setup in as little as 30 seconds and won't have to worry about premise visit charges. Talk to their specialists today at 866-264-3879 to learn more!
Conclusion
Ponderosa Landline has several drawbacks that has left customers feeling frustrated with their service. Get Community Phone or port your Ponderosa number to enjoy several benefits like unlimited calling, great features, and the freedom of wireless access. Take your Community Phone landline with you anywhere across the country without changing your number and enjoy their reliable service. Talk to their specialists today to learn more!