# Call Display



## stantistic (Sep 19, 2015)

Recently BellMTS (Manitoba), billed me $10.95 plus GST plus PST for one month of Call Display service. I happen to have a private phone answering machine. It seems to me that having a caller's number displayed is not worth that kind of money. Am I missing something?


----------



## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

1. Get a VoIP number

2. Buy BCE and prosper


----------



## stantistic (Sep 19, 2015)

m3s said:


> 1. Get a VoIP number
> 
> 2. Buy BCE and prosper


I am a BCE shareholder and so it was with heavy heart that I made my post.


----------



## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Not only can you buy a VoIP service, but you can even take your phone # away with you thanks to number portability.

For example I use CallCentric and ported my Bell cell phone number. Now when someone calls my old Bell number, it rings my VoIP or forwards the call to another phone. Voicemail is provided for free by CallCentric.


----------



## Spudd (Oct 11, 2011)

Back when I had a landline I never paid for call display, call answer, or any of those frills. They charge way more than it's worth. 

Now I have VOIP.ms as recommended by m3s and I pay 0.8 cents a call for call display. Well worth it. That means for 2 months of service plus a day, I've paid 36 cents for call display (45 calls).


----------



## cainvest (May 1, 2013)

stantistic said:


> Recently BellMTS (Manitoba), billed me $10.95 plus GST plus PST for one month of Call Display service. I happen to have a private phone answering machine. It seems to me that having a caller's number displayed is not worth that kind of money. Am I missing something?


If you don't mind me asking, what are you paying a month for the landline + call display?


----------



## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Spudd said:


> Now I have VOIP.ms as recommended by m3s and I pay 0.8 cents a call for call display. Well worth it. That means for 2 months of service plus a day, I've paid 36 cents for call display (45 calls).


:encouragement:

I'm thinking I may not even need my voip.ms anymore. Most government services and business seem to have adopted email as a formal/primary point of contact on forms. Tax returns, passport forms = email etc

For personal use 99% of people I speak to will use facebook calling, google voice, HD Voice, VoLTE etc etc. The voip.ms is my consistent email-voicemail number for businesses while I rotate local sim cards on the road

Have to wonder what happens to my BCE when everyone ditches these overpriced add on fees


----------



## stantistic (Sep 19, 2015)

cainvest said:


> If you don't mind me asking, what are you paying a month for the landline + call display?


2017 Nov.16 - Dec. 15 
individual residential landline 30.24 
call display 8.50 
911 network access 0.17 
long dist. network charge 4.95

2018 Feb. 16 - Mar. 18
individual residential landline 30.24 
call display 10.95 
911 network access 0.17 
long dist. network charge 4.95 

Additional explanation - I used to be an MTS shareholder till it was taken over by BCE. I stayed with them.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

stantistic said:


> 2017 Nov.16 - Dec. 15
> individual residential landline 30.24
> call display 8.50
> 911 network access 0.17
> ...





stan imho you really do not need call display

i realize this is being charged to a personally-owned message recording device that you have connected to your bell landline, so you can't stop call display without detaching the device & thus losing recorded phone messages (bell offers voice mail but at an equally exploitative price so you'd just be swapping one high charge for another)

this is only-my-opinion, but do you really need those recorded messages? is there ever really anything in them that you could not live without? my guess is that they are a waste of time, not to speak of a high cost. You can tell people who are dear to you to phone you at certain daytime hours when you are likely to answer, otherwise they can e-mail you. 

normally these days people are communicating by text & e-mail, they don't phone each other any more. They certainly don't leave voice messages!

also that Bell network charge ... do you really need to phone long distance every single month? if no real need, stop calling long distance on a Bell system. Research cheaper IP systems. Folks post about these in cmf forum all the time. You'd need a smart or flip phone. 

exiting landline would be a huge change for you, so in the meantime i'd just concentrate on 1) eliminating call display & voice message services, also 2) get that long distance network charge down to a couple of times a year.

in addition, Bell has a ridiculous division called "Retention Group" or something like that. Existing Bell clients haggle with them in order to get phone charges down. So while you're doing the above - ie cutting out Call Display - be sure to reach this group & haggle briskly with them!

best of luck with all this. Bell has this horrible monopoly whereby they over-charge seniors like yourself who don't have current technology & they also over-charge rural residents who can't get current technology. The more business that dying landline loses, the more Bell keeps raising charges on surviving landline customers who are helpless. Don't be one of them!

(PS to the communications wizards in this thread: stan has told us that he/she is over 80 years of age, so everybody here has to work with the demographic) (it's not easy for folks to jump into voip) (the most challenging aspect is possibly losing or switching direct 9-1-1 connection, which is vital for this age group) 


.


----------



## stantistic (Sep 19, 2015)

Thanks for your comments humble.
The following item is marginal to "call display" but I'll allow myself some leeway.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/hidden-camera-reveals-misleading-sales-tactics-for-bell-1.4556536


----------



## cainvest (May 1, 2013)

stantistic said:


> 2017 Nov.16 - Dec. 15
> individual residential landline 30.24
> call display 8.50
> 911 network access 0.17
> ...


That's a pretty high monthly bill. 


Are in or near Winnipeg? If so, take a look at Koodo wireless home phone as it's much cheaper (with call display). 
5$ a month for one year, then $20 a month. 
There is a $55 one time setup fee and it's easy to setup/use.

https://www.koodomobile.com/phones/wireless-home-phone


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

stantistic said:


> Thanks for your comments humble.
> The following item is marginal to "call display" but I'll allow myself some leeway.
> 
> http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/hidden-camera-reveals-misleading-sales-tactics-for-bell-1.4556536





after posting above, it occurred to me that you might be able to disable "call display" on your personally-owned phone message recording device? 

i don't know if that would necessarily stop the Bell charges for call display, though. Their billing network might deem that calls are ID'd or display purposes by Bell, thereore they are entitled to charge for display. Bell might deem that disabling screen display on your own personal device is within your network, not theirs.


----------



## cainvest (May 1, 2013)

humble_pie said:


> i don't know if that would necessarily stop the Bell charges for call display, though. Their billing network might deem that calls are ID'd or display purposes by Bell, thereore they are entitled to charge for display. Bell might deem that disabling screen display on your own personal device is within your network, not theirs.


Nope, you need to cancel the call display feature with them. Even if you don't have a device that shows the caller Id you'll get billed for it.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

cainvest said:


> Nope, you need to cancel the call display feature with them. Even if you don't have a device that shows the caller Id you'll get billed for it.



good point ... but i'm thinking that it's stan's personally-owned device that is telling Bell to activate call display. Stan himself (or herself) using the good ole phone to tell Bell to Cut It Out won't do any good, if the device is calling the shots .each:

PS in short, me i think stan should do both. Disable call display in the device, or get rid of the device if necessary. Haggle with Bell's Retention Group to eliminate call display services & also to get the phone bill down if possible.

... we can see what is going to happen on an evolutionary scale. Human beings will gradually lose larynxes while their fingers & thumbs will develop more & more delicate nerve endings, in order to become more & more skilled ...


----------



## cainvest (May 1, 2013)

humble_pie said:


> good point ... but i'm thinking that it's stan's personally-owned device that is telling Bell to activate call display. Stan himself (or herself) using the good ole phone to tell Bell to Cut It Out won't do any good, if the device is calling the shots .each:


Like I was saying, the device doesn't call the shots ... it's a feature enabled by BellMTS.
https://www.bellmts.ca/residential/home-phone/features

Just call them and tell them you no longer want the feature, done.


----------



## stantistic (Sep 19, 2015)

*Done*

The foul deed has been done! 
Call Display has been cancelled.
My apologies to other BCE shareholders whose dividends have thereby been diminished. :smile: 

To the folks who have suggested VOIP or other strategies - thanks - but for an elderly feller such as myself, these newfangled ideas are too intimidating.


----------



## Spudd (Oct 11, 2011)

stantistic said:


> The foul deed has been done!
> Call Display has been cancelled.
> My apologies to other BCE shareholders whose dividends have thereby been diminished. :smile:
> 
> To the folks who have suggested VOIP or other strategies - thanks - but for an elderly feller such as myself, these newfangled ideas are too intimidating.


Good job! Heck, VOIP was intimidating to me and I was a 30-something IT person when I got into it, I don't blame you at all.


----------



## cainvest (May 1, 2013)

Spudd said:


> Good job! Heck, VOIP was intimidating to me and I was a 30-something IT person when I got into it, I don't blame you at all.


No doubt, VOIP doesn't work for everyone but I do use it now and then. The koodo home phone (which I use as well) that I linked above is a nice option, basically turns you home phone(s) into a cell phone. Plug the unit in, connect it to one of your home's phone jacks and you're done, very easy to do. It has an internal battery backup for power outages and is cheaper than regular landlines.


----------



## Userkare (Nov 17, 2014)

cainvest said:


> No doubt, VOIP doesn't work for everyone but I do use it now and then. .


Not to beat a dead point, as the OP is happy with what they have now w/o call display, but for anyone else considering VOIP...

I'm a retired 'old fart', and I have figured out the features of VOIP.MS. This is why I use it...

- I have an alternate phone number that has a Toronto area code (647), but rings at my home phone in Ottawa. Cost $1.00/mo. Ask Bell what a setup like that would cost. Toronto friends (who still use Bell ) can call us without paying LD costs. This feature is world-wide, but price per month varies by country. Calls between numbers belonging to the same account can be dialed as 'extensions' with no charge - no matter where they are.
- Caller ID number and name. Not sure about the cost, but a fractional penny per call for name lookup.
- Rate to call anywhere in US & Canada about 1 cent per minute, no additional LD fees.
- 'Softphone' apps on my laptop and smartphone. Anywhere there's WiFi, I can make a call as if I were at home. Called party sees my home number in their caller ID. If I'm travelling and am in a hotel with WiFi, I can receive calls to my home number.
- If the internet is down, like in a power failure, the calls to my home number get forwarded to my cell number.
- Call Detail Records for at least a year. I can look up what numbers called us, or what numbers we dialed.
- Route every incoming call based on the caller's number to ring, go direct to voice mail, play a recording, say "number not in service", or just ignore. I only ever get a single unwanted telemarketer call - then they're blocked. No additional cost for this feature.

So, although it may not be for everyone, it still amazes me how a company can charge so little for a service that Bell charges so much for.


----------



## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

It may be worthwhile to call your company and talk about cancelling your line. I've heard of people doing this and getting much lower rates, like $10/month for a line, not sure if it had features.

If your a costco member, primus has an offer for your line, unlimited internet and a pile of features for under $50/month. I hunk even their regular price is pretty close. Www.primus.ca or www.primus.ca/Costco/ they use the same phone lines as you already have, nothing changes. The service is even done by the local company.


----------



## stantistic (Sep 19, 2015)

*Doubts*

This is straying from the subject, but you young whipper-snappers with your low rates are putting the fear of a price and dividend collapse of BCE into my mind. And BCE represents about 15% of my net worth. :nightmare: 
Furthermore, the trend line on a five year chart was recently broken.


----------



## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

From what I've been reading, the hardline infrastructure has basically been paid for for decades, any revenue they generate from it is pure profit.


----------



## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

stantistic said:


> This is straying from the subject, but you young whipper-snappers with your low rates are putting the fear of a price and dividend collapse of BCE into my mind. And BCE represents about 15% of my net worth. :nightmare:
> Furthermore, the trend line on a five year chart was recently broken.


Cdn telcos are a big piece of my portfolio. I think as long as the big 3 maintain an oligarchy in Canada they will be fine. Young whipper-snappers don't care about landlines or cable TV but they consider connectivity second only to oxygen. What telcos lose on landlines and cable they make back in premium mobile and internet packages. Mobile data/internet is far cheaper in most other countries I visit so I think their margins are still safe on these alone. My concern for my Cdn telco investments would be if NAFTA renegotiation or trade partnerships brought in "free trade" in the Cdn telco arena.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

stantistic said:


> This is straying from the subject, but you young whipper-snappers with your low rates are putting the fear of a price and dividend collapse of BCE into my mind. And BCE represents about 15% of my net worth. :nightmare:
> Furthermore, the trend line on a five year chart was recently broken.




i think you have a realistic concern but not a nightmare. Not an issue of price collapse & dividend cancellation at present.

15% of net worth is perhaps a little high for a single holding though. Might you consider a strategy of trimming a little BCE from time to time, for diversification into other issues? 

i for one would not move into other canadian telcos. A problem is that they are limited to canadian operations, so i don't see any big growth opportunities. Instead they have to keep massaging a fairly stagnant customer base. Meanwhile IP & local voip startups are stealing those customers.

stan if you would be DRIPPing BCE dividends, might you consider turning off DRIPs.

then you'd have the challenge of finding an alternative investment vehicle that would be a) secure plus b) it would offer a reasonable dividend. A looming problem is that all of these in the high quality sector are already fully priced. It's hard to find a great dividend stock these days that's selling at a bargain.

a useful strategy for a senior who wishes to leave something to his heirs is to top up high-quality stocks that one already holds, in order to raise their cost base & somewhat reduce final capital gains as a portfolio transforms into an estate for heirs.



.


----------



## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

humble_pie said:


> ... a useful strategy for a senior who wishes to leave something to his heirs is to top up high-quality stocks that one already holds, in order to raise their cost base & somewhat reduce final capital gains as a portfolio transforms into an estate for heirs.


Tell me how this would work Humble. I'd love for it to, but I don't think it does? 
My acb and CG are mitigated, but I now own more shares. 
For example, I own 100sh with an acb of $10. They are now worth $12, so if I sold I'd face CG of $2/sh x100sh= $200 total. Instead, I buy another 100sh at $12, so my acb for the 200sh is $11/sh. But if I sold at $12 I'd face a CG of $1/sh x200sh= $200 total.

Are you thinking of the senior selling some themselves and then leaving balance to the estate? E.g. where the senior does the purchase, sells 100sh for a CG of $100, and then leaves 100 for estate with a CG of $100? I guess this would split the CG's between senior and estate but doesn't actually reduce them. Couldn't I just sell my 100sh and leave the estate with all the cash rather than put money into more shares w commensurate market risk, executor needing to sell, etc.

(Sorry- wildly off-thread)


----------



## olivaw (Nov 21, 2010)

...


----------



## stantistic (Sep 19, 2015)

I apologize to CMF readers for having created a thread which overlaps BCE Inc (BCE.TO) in "Individual Stacks/Equities". I have therefore cross referenced them.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

OnlyMyOpinion said:


> Tell me how this would work Humble. I'd love for it to, but I don't think it does?
> My acb and CG are mitigated, but I now own more shares.
> For example, I own 100sh with an acb of $10. They are now worth $12, so if I sold I'd face CG of $2/sh x100sh= $200 total. Instead, I buy another 100sh at $12, so my acb for the 200sh is $11/sh. But if I sold at $12 I'd face a CG of $1/sh x200sh= $200 total.
> 
> ...




it is indeed off-topic but stantistic is such a sweetie, i do believe he'll forgive us.

i arrived at this strategy via the school of hard knocks. I have stocks with short option positions. In the early years there'd be assignments, then all of a sudden i'd have an unwanted, unplanned taxable capital gain of maybe $50 or $60k. Ouch. So it became necessary to try to keep my cost bases up at reasonable levels, in case sudden death were to happen.


if used by a senior for estate planning purposes, ideally the strategy should start when the investor is still fairly young, imho. Age in the 60s is good.

one sells or donates some shares out of a holding that has undergone significant notional capital gains, on paper. If one is selling, one does realize some capital gains, so one has to be sure not to sell so much that one gets pushed up into a higher tax bracket. Thus the gains will be limited & moreover, taxpayer can usually find some losses to offset these.

if the shares are donated to a registered charity, there are no taxable gains whatsoever.

now comes the strategy. There's a tiny amount of market timing involved. The investor waits for the shares to sink below the disposition price (sale or donation), then rebuys the lost shares at current market or even tops up & adds more. Presto, the cost base per share will have gone up.

next year, rinse & repeat. At no time should investor allow himself to incur big capital gains. What will happen, over the years, as investor swing-trades a small number of shares every year, is that the cost base per share will trail upwards.

i believe your example is correct & the aggregate taxable gain would remain the same if investor only buys; ie fails to carry out the small dispositions of shares as i've described above.

here's my example, rounding to thousands:

year 1 investor buys 1000 sh @ 10, cost $10,000
year 1 investor sells 200 sh @ 12 to hold 800 sh, adjusted cost base (800 x 10) = 8,000
year 1 investor buys 300 sh @ 12 to hold 1100 sh, new ACB 3,600 + 8000 = 11,600 or 10.55/sh

year 2 investor sells 200 sh @ 12.60 to hold 900 sh, new ACB (900 x 10.55) = 9,495 or 10.55/sh
year 2 investor buys 500 sh @ 12.60 to hold 1400 sh, new ACB (500 x 12.60) + 9495 = 6300 + 9495 = 15,795 or 11.28/sh

year 3 investor donates 400 sh @ 13.20 in order to return to his original inventory of 1000 shares. The cost of the 400 donated shares is (400 x 11.28) or 4,512. The cost of remaining holding 1000 shares is 11,280.

in other words, if investor had held throughout with no swing trading, his original cost base of $10,000 would have remained in effect. However swing trading raised the cost base of the holding to 11,280.

onlyMO i believe the chief difference between your example & mine is that yours assumes a holding with only purchases.

however my example is more of a classic swing pattern. Always buying & also always selling a few shares. Not even necessarily the same number of shares. A random progression.


----------



## peterk (May 16, 2010)

^ I imagine the math would be tricky to nail this strategy when attempting to melt down a large portfolio and not have a ultra large estate capital gain. Too soon and the benefit of leaving the shares alone and keeping the tax money now will outweigh the lower marginal rate later. And how is one supposed to know if they'll die at 75 or 95?

Myself I triggered about 8k in CG last year on purpose, to keep it in year 2017, based on the likely situation that in 2018 I'll be in a higher bracket due to larger salary and smaller RRSP deduction.


----------



## stantistic (Sep 19, 2015)

> i do believe he'll forgive us.


OK by me. 
My policy: Before I started the thread, I could not predict the direction it would go. After a while, if it can stand alone, I leave it. If it drifts, I cross reference.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

peterk said:


> Myself I triggered about 8k in CG last year on purpose, to keep it in year 2017, based on the likely situation that in 2018 I'll be in a higher bracket due to larger salary and smaller RRSP deduction.



you can scoff all you like, but see how you're walking the walk yourself .each:

see what you did? you took a little gain now to avoid a lot of tax later

the next step in the strategy - provided it was a quality stock that you viewed as a keeper in the first place - would have been to buy a quantity of additional shares *before* you sold. Not necessarily an identical quantity, it could have been fewer shares or more shares. 

this action, prior to your sale, would have raised your cost base & triggered lower capital gains per sold share. It would also have left you holding the position after the sale. As i say, only to be suggested when the holding is a quality keeper in the first place.

there's no 30-day wash rule when gains are involved, so the buying could have been done immediately prior to the sale


.


----------



## peterk (May 16, 2010)

I hardly ever scoff. :frog:

No it was shares I wanted to dispose of anyways (Teck), which made the decision easier to keep the CG in 2017 since I'll likely sell more in 2018 or 2019 anyways.

If it were a long term holding I'd have to think carefully about selling to take the tax hit now instead of in 5+ years. Like you said it's more a retirement wind down strategy when considering yuge capital gains that take you to the top bracket. Also when I'm dancing around a bunch of mid-level tax brackets in Alberta the plan can go out the window easily enough. If I end up with a capital loss in 2018, for example, then my tax selling for 2017 would have been stupid in hindsight.


----------



## amitdi (May 31, 2012)

stantistic said:


> 2017 Nov.16 - Dec. 15
> individual residential landline 30.24
> call display 8.50
> 911 network access 0.17
> ...


whoaa....

I use Magic Jack which is $99 for 5 years + $10/year for Canadian number. Works well with my 10 MBPS Internet connection as well. It doesnt have name display, but displays the number. You cant use 911 (I think) but since both me and my wife have cellphones, its okay.


----------



## stantistic (Sep 19, 2015)

> I use Magic Jack which is $99 for 5 years + $10/year for Canadian number.


If you have trouble with your phone, who do you call ?


----------



## stantistic (Sep 19, 2015)

Further to Magic Jack see

https://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/bus...-leaves-pile-lawsuits/pdHOeLw0oTD3eTRmQ6OIOP/


----------



## amitdi (May 31, 2012)

stantistic said:


> If you have trouble with your phone, who do you call ?


I dont know, never had trouble with my phone in the 3 yrs I have been using it. There must be a customer care #, no? Me and my wife both have cell phones, so we are never stuck in case the MagicJack is out.


----------



## amitdi (May 31, 2012)

stantistic said:


> Further to Magic Jack see
> 
> https://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/bus...-leaves-pile-lawsuits/pdHOeLw0oTD3eTRmQ6OIOP/


Interesting, the news is more than 3 years old. I wonder what happened since?


----------



## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

We got rid of our land lines six years ago. For our needs, it did not make any sense paying for a land line and two cell lines. Both cells have unlimited Canada wide calling. We use a long distance calling card when we need to call overseas or the the US. Spouse pays Koodo $37 for her plan, I pay Koodo $20. for the same plan (thanks to a special offer). We own our phones. We originally went with Koodo because we had zero interest in signing up to a long term contract nor were we interested in financing technology for three years. The plans come with the usual-call display, messaging, etc.


----------



## stantistic (Sep 19, 2015)

*Apples vs not apples*

In this thread and elsewhere, when comparisons are made between landlines from major telcos and upstart mobile providers, the costs are usually stated in monthly or annual fees. Usually the advantage is strongly in favour of the mobile providers.
It crosses my mind that there are important items not stated. For instance the repair services usually provided by the telcos. There is some unquantified risk of loss, theft or breakdown of privately owned cellphones and other factors.
Has anyone seen a comparison in, say, Consumer Reports taking these factors into account?


----------



## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

Good question. Don't know. We do not use our cell phones for data so the cost comparison would be good. Cell phones do give us a lot more utility inasmuch as they are portable. We have never lost a cell phone-by accident or by theft. Did put a $10 battery in Samsung unit a year or so ago. I think that if you are a big cell phone data/internet user that the comparison may not be valid inasmuch as the utility between choices would be so much different. I really think this is such a personal decision. 

This was not a choice for us between land lines and cell phones. There was no question that we would both have cell phones. The question we asked ourselves was whether, in view of this, a land land was really needed. In our case it was not nor have we missed having it. The only missing option for us was long distance calling to the US, Europe/Asia etc. We solved that by buying a Globetrotter long distance card. The last one was a $5. The year long card ran out before our minutes expired.


----------

