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Choosing a Telephone Provider

Shopping for Local Residential Telephone Service

Customers of local residential telephone service may have competitive alternatives for local telephone service. To determine whether you may have such alternatives, consider the following question.

Do you live in Verizon service territory?

In other words, are you or could you be a customer of Verizon for local residential telephone service? Presently, only the Verizon service territory in New Hampshire is open to local landline competition. Approximately 10% of residential customers in New Hampshire are served by an independent telephone company and do not have any choice for a local landline provider. If you do not live in Verizon service territory, skip the remainder of this section and go to the sections (below) which discuss shopping for long distance and wireless service. If you do live in Verizon service territory, consider the next question.

Do you live in an area (within Verizon service territory) where Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) offer or provide residential services?

Even if you live in Verizon service territory, your alternatives for local residential telephone service depend upon whether competitors to Verizon are serving residential customers in your specific geographic area. Currently, New Hampshire has 44 active Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) competing in the Verizon territory. Unfortunately only a few have ventured into the residential market. The chart at the end of this section includes CLECs presently providing local residential service within New Hampshire. To determine whether any of these CLECs are servicing your geographic area, you must contact the CLEC. If none of the CLECs service your area, go to the sections (below) which discuss shopping for long distance and wireless service. If one or more of the CLECs service your area, consider the competitive offerings described in the table below.

The following table provides the current Verizon base standard rates, Verizon Freedom Unlimited Package and a sampling of products from CLECs offering residential service with rate comparisons. Please note that prices, product packages and service availability change rapidly. In reading this edition of the RateWatcher, please note that Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is not included in our competitive comparisons. Please visit our website at www.oca.nh.gov to view the Summer RateWatcher which focused on VoIP.

For purposes of reading the table, the term “features” refers to additional functions such as; caller I.D, call waiting and call forwarding to name a few. The term “Rate Group” refers to how many telephone lines are serviced in a particular area. The rate groups range from Rate Group A, which is the lowest number of lines, to Rate Group E, which is the largest number of lines.

Shopping for a Long Distance Carrier

New Hampshire currently has 157 active long distance service providers. Due to the number of companies offering long distance products one of the most efficient ways for a consumer to find the long distance product best for them is to perform a search on the Internet. Three websites listed on the N.H. Public Utilities Commission (N.H. PUC) web site that may help in conducting a search are: www.ldwiz.com, www.abtolls.com and www.smartprice.com. You may also call the N.H. PUC, at 1-800-852-3793 or visit www.puc.nh.gov for their list of companies authorized to do business in New Hampshire.