But calling cards issued by your local phone company have a serious problem.

In the case of FairPoint, you could be charged as much as 75 cents per minute to use the card, and that’s before the payphone access charge. And given the abundance of prepaid calling cards which have rates as little as one cent per minute, that seems a bit insane.

FairPoint officials said the new calling cards were issued to approximately 400,000 customers in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, to replace Verizon calling cards as part of the corporate transition expected to be completed in November.

“When we do the changeover, those [Verizon] cards will go away,” FairPoint spokesman Jeff Nevins said Thursday. “We didn’t want people to be caught without a card. The last thing we wanted was someone holding on to their old Verizon calling card … to find out their card had been canceled.” — Bangor Daily News

Phone company calling cards differ from prepaid cards in that charges billed to the card appear on your regular telephone company bill. In addition, the cards can be used from virtually anywhere in the U.S. simply by dialing the operator. While you can call the 800 number printed on the card to make a call, you don’t have to.

Both local and long distance companies have been offering these cards to their customers for decades now, though only in the last 10 years or so have the rates on them begun to skyrocket, even as prepaid calling cards have emerged and their rates have steadily dropped. Frequent users can get lower rates by signing up for a calling card plan with the phone company that issued the card, but even the lowest card rates offered are higher than most prepaid cards.

I recommend that if you receive these cards from your local phone company that you first call the company to have the card numbers deactivated, so that someone can’t steal or guess the number and use it without your knowledge, before you destroy the cards. Then, if you feel you need to have a calling card around in case of some emergency, go pick one up at the corner store.

I’ve worked for various phone companies since 1997 and I’ve always been interested in the telephone network, and lately, in the convergence of various different communications technologies such as wireless phones and VoIP. In my time I’ve worked in a wide variety of local and long distance phone company positions, including customer service, repair, billing, fraud prevention, Internet support, and probably things I have forgotten. This breadth of knowledge allows me to put telephone company news in context.

A lack of time forced me to put this site on the back burner, and it’s remained there for two years. This month I’ll resume updating it with the latest news on landlines, fiber to the home, and other important news which will affect you every time you make a call.

While I will cover just about anything related to telecommunications, my primary focus is on landlines. As far as I know, this was and is the only site to focus on landline telephone service. This focus will continue, since landlines aren’t going anywhere any time soon. Along with landlines I’ll cover fiber to the home services such as Verizon’s FiOS, which are already beginning to replace traditional copper lines in many areas.

To get this party started right, consider the insanity that occurs when someone named Libshitz tries to sign up for Verizon’s DSL service. Dr. Herman I. Libshitz, 69, wanted to install DSL in his summer home in Rehoboth Beach, Del. But signing up for the service through Verizon’s self-installation kit failed. So, of course, he calls Verizon.

This is how the doctor remembers it:

“We called their help line, and got a wonderful young man in the Philippines who told us:

“‘We can’t install it because your name has **** in it.’”

“These people have no trouble putting me in their phone book. They send me mail with that name, they send me a bill routinely, and they cash my checks with Libshitz on it. They just offended me.” — Philadelphia Inquirer

(A Verizon spokeswoman told the Inquirer that the company would grant an exception to Libshitz.)

Well, one bad turn deserves another, I say. Phone Watch will certainly offend Verizon at some point in the very near future. Join (or re-join) us by subscribing to the RSS feed.

On its Kansas City, Mo., headquarters building, right next door to Sprint Nextel’s headquarters, it unveiled an eight story tall banner on the north side of the building facing Interstate 435.

And in Florida, the company embarked on a bus tour, traveling between many of the local communities it serves in that state.

“Because we have such a wide service area, we’ve selected a different method to launch the company name,” said Jeff Mechlin, a public affairs manager for Embarq Corporation. “Instead of a one-event affair,” Mechlin said Wednesday, “we’ve decided to take the name to the people with a multi-stop coach tour. We started in Sebring this morning and Arcadia was our first stop.” — Sun Herald

The company expects to spend $48 million on launching the new brand, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. It also will use more traditional approaches, such as advertising campaigns and bill inserts, to raise awareness of the new brand and its new corporate motto, “This way to common sense.”

“Our goal is to offer practical, innovative solutions to help people communicate,” Embarq CEO Daniel Hesse said. “This is a new chapter in our 100-plus-year history. We have the ability to improve and simplify communications services.”

Embarq, which began as Brown Telephone Company in 1899 in Abilene, Kan., now has 7.4 million access lines and 20,000 employees in 18 states. The company trades on the New York Stock Exchange under symbol EQ. On Thursday, Bear Stearns gave the stock an initial rating of “outperform.”

AT&T spokesman Kerry Hibbs said that, aside from a 20 cent increase in 2002, basic local rates had remained static since 1984.

Rates will also increase by 5 percent for some services such as caller ID and call forwarding.

“Overall, our costs are rising,” Hibbs said. “When you look at things like labor and health care, the costs of doing business have increased in the last 22 years. We need the revenue to continue providing good service and to invest in technology.”

But people with bundled service plans such as unlimited long distance service, or extended area service, won’t be affected.

Hibbs said that some customers may be able to save money by signing up for packages which include calling features with local service or local and long distance service.

AT&T serves about 1.2 million lines in Missouri.

New Qwest customers in Colorado, Washington, Minnesota, Arizona, Oregon and Utah can receive the Qwest Home Entertainment bundle package, which includes Qwest Choice DSL Deluxe with MSN Premium, DirecTV service, and Qwest home telephone service with unlimited long distance, for prices ranging from $77.97 to $87.97 per month for between 12 and 15 months, depending on the state.

“We’re doing this in certain markets to compete heavily with the cable operators,” said Stephanie Copeland, Qwest vice president of product marketing. . . .

Comcast charges $112.89 for a similar package of phone service, high-speed Internet and cable TV, spokeswoman Cindy Parsons said. — Associated Press

Qwest provides local telephone service within most of 14 Midwest, Rocky Mountain and Pacific Northwest states. It faces especially tough competition in places such as Nebraska and Colorado, where cable operators such as Comcast threaten its dominance in local telephone service. For instance, Comcast has 700,000 customers in Colorado, and in Omaha, Nebr., Qwest is no longer the largest local telephone carrier.

Throughout the sweepstakes period which runs June 1 through August 31, BellSouth will be showing off the Pontiac Solstice sports car at shopping malls, sporting events and community festivals within its nine-state service area.

To enter the sweepstakes, BellSouth customers can register online at http://www.bellsouth.com/411care or by calling 1-877-615-3278, to receive one free sweepstakes entry. After registering, customers get additional entries each time they dial 411 from their home telephones.

Non-BellSouth customers, and customers who do not wish to use 411, can also enter by mail. No purchase is necessary to enter or to win.

Winners will be chosen in a random drawing on or about October 31, and notified by mail.

The merged company would have local telephone lines primarily in 22 states, wireless lines nationwide, and is currently deploying Internet-based television services.

Read more: Reuters; ABC News

It looks like Ma Bell is coming back together. At the end of this merger, we’ll have AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest. And the two immediate questions are: What will happen to Qwest? And will AT&T and Verizon merge themselves, or compete head-to-head?

T-Mobile has posted more information on their Web site.

According to postcards being mailed by AT&T to local customers, the charge reflects “increased connectivity costs.”

According to NBC 10 News in Philadelphia, Pa., AT&T said that “the fee is fair and in line with current market pricing” and that it “reflects the increasing costs of doing business.” Which doesn’t say much.

In these areas, Verizon charges AT&T a monthly charge per line for access to the telephone network.

A-Com Protection Services of Columbus, Ga., a provider of burglar alarms and security services, requested the extension because it had not finished converting its burglar alarms in the affected areas to use 10-digit dialing. The company will be required to file monthly progress reports with the PSC saying how many burglar alarms still need to be converted.

Prior to the order, mandatory 10-digit dialing had been set to go into effect April 3. Pursuant to an order from the Georgia Public Service Commission issued Wednesday, that deadline will be extended to October 3. Until mandatory 10-digit dialing goes into effect, numbers in the new 762 area code cannot be issued.

The North American Numbering Plan Administration projects that the 706 area code will run out of numbers in the second quarter of 2006.