Phone & Internet bundling

A building in our stake has three phone lines: one for the bishop, one for the hall, and one for the Family History Center. The first two are direct billed through Granite; the third is paid for by the stake. The internet (DSL) is on the FHC line but paid for by the local Facilities Maintenance group.

Our internet stinks so I want to get it provided by the cable company. They also offer phone and it does seem cheaper to bundle everything. But now who pays for it?

The FM group clearly pays for the Internet service, which is apparently how it is done for this particular building. It sounds like the phone service for the first two phones is considered to be standard for the building and so is direct billed. I'm guessing that the third phone is considered optional (the stake chose to have an additional line), and so the stake pays for it.

So if you switch to cable for your ISP (and the FM group approves the change), the FM group would bear that cost, which would replace the DSL bill. The simplest approach is to keep your third phone line in place. Then there's no confusion as to who pays what.

But if you want to try to bundle phone and ISP, it seems to me you'd have to work that out with the FM group (which would be paying the cable bill). The stake might be able to pay the incremental cost to the FM group. But it could also be that the FM group would consider that a hassle they don't want to deal with, in which case you're back to the option of keeping your third phone line as it is now.

mpolder wrote:Our internet stinks

Define "stinks". Note that there is no support at any level for using video streaming for lessons. If that's the hope - forget it. The church won't promise their servers can handle it. The advise from the top level is to download prior to the class.

mpolder wrote:so I want to get it provided by the cable company. They also offer phone and it does seem cheaper to bundle everything. But now who pays for it?

Keep in mind when comparing costs, you'll have to know at what rate each intends to charge you. If one is charging "residential" rates and the other is "commercial", you may find the economic decision is completely opposite of what it would be for home use.

Also note that non-POTS phones tend to fail after a prolonged power outage. As such, it might be in the interests of the ward's emergency planning to keep some/most/all of the old POTS phone lines.

mpolder wrote:They also offer phone and it does seem cheaper to bundle everything.

Perhaps, but depending on the provider, the FM Group may have special rates through the church that we are not always privy to.

Mikerowaved wrote:

mpolder wrote:They also offer phone and it does seem cheaper to bundle everything.

Perhaps, but depending on the provider, the FM Group may have special rates through the church that we are not always privy to.

There are providers that have pre negotiated costs and speeds... The list is available in the Clerksupport.lds.org site. Comcast and time Warner are both on the list.

The instructions sent when FM took responsibilities for Internet fully included that if a phone line was used for DSL it was to be transferred to FM to pay.

russellhltn wrote:

mpolder wrote:Our internet stinks

Define "stinks". Note that there is no support at any level for using video streaming for lessons. If that's the hope - forget it. The church won't promise their servers can handle it. The advise from the top level is to download prior to the class.

On the other hand, if your building is used in broadcasting or receiving meeting webcasts, an upgrade of your broadband service might be well justified.

russellhltn wrote:

mpolder wrote:so I want to get it provided by the cable company. They also offer phone and it does seem cheaper to bundle everything. But now who pays for it?

Keep in mind when comparing costs, you'll have to know at what rate each intends to charge you. If one is charging "residential" rates and the other is "commercial", you may find the economic decision is completely opposite of what it would be for home use.

Also note that non-POTS phones tend to fail after a prolonged power outage. As such, it might be in the interests of the ward's emergency planning to keep some/most/all of the old POTS phone lines.

Another reason to keep a POTS line is for audio backup purposes, during webcasts. In the event that Internet service is disrupted during a webcast, you would loose your webcast connection as well as any VOIP phone service based on that same Internet service.

danpass wrote:On the other hand, if your building is used in broadcasting or receiving meeting webcasts, an upgrade of your broadband service might be well justified.

Keep in mind that speed isn't everything. Quality of Service counts too. A speed increase with a lower QoS could find you going backward.

It goes back to "define sucks".

JohnShaw wrote:The instructions sent when FM took responsibilities for Internet fully included that if a phone line was used for DSL it was to be transferred to FM to pay.

Can anyone provide a link to these instructions? Our FM group is having us pay the phone portion of our internet/phone bills out of the Reimbursed/Phone account, then having us forward copies of the bills to FM, at which point they pay the internet portion.