CenturyLink bundle discounts are no longer available, but you can still get standalone home phone service.
Simply Unlimited Home Phone + Simply Unlimited Internet
Phone plan: Unlimited nationwide calling
Price: $90.00/mo.
Data is as of time of post. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
Jun 6, 2023 | Share
CenturyLink isn’t trying to reinvent home phone service. The phones work the same. The features (call waiting, caller ID, etc.) are so standard that they don’t feel like features. The long-distance charges aren’t a joke. The bills can have puzzling and dubious fees.
So, yeah—CenturyLink home phone service is just like you remember from the days before smartphones. Minus the nostalgia.
Okay, maybe it’s not fair to say that landlines have no upsides. Ambulance drivers will know your exact location. You won’t have to charge your phone (as much). The phones don’t have tons of apps, games, and messages to distract you from real life. And retro-tech like this will totally boost your hipster cred.
Are we reaching for reasons to have a landline? Yeah, kinda. But that doesn’t mean your reasons aren’t important.
Data is as of time of post. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
CenturyLink’s Simply Unlimited Home Phone plan comes with unlimited nationwide calling and up to 10 calling features. If you add it to your CenturyLink internet plan (you can’t purchase standalone phone service), you’ll save $10 monthly off the combined costs of the services.
Now let’s talk long-distance rates (remember those?).
| Package | Type of service | Monthly fee | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CenturyLink Choice International | Long-distance discount plan | $6.00/mo. + per-min. charges (varies) | View Plan |
| Easy Talk | Long-distance minutes | Buckets of min. start at $5.00/mo. | View Plan |
| Easy Talk II | Long-distance discount plan | $7.99/mo. + $0.05/min. | View Plan |
Data is as of time of post. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
Home Phone Unlimited includes unlimited long-distance calling throughout most of North America (50 states, Canada, and U.S. territories). But what if you have family in Japan or Australia?
If you need to call other countries, CenturyLink charges extra for long-distance calls, just like back in the old days. You’ll pay higher rates during peak hours (Monday–Friday, 7:00 a.m.–7:00 p.m.) and slightly lower rates on nights and weekends.
Of course, those rates are straight outta SayWhat-town. Calling Japan during peak hours with CenturyLink will cost $1.62 a minute. On nights and weekends, the same call will set you back $1.17 a minute.
Obviously, those prices aren’t ideal, but there is an alternative.
For an additional $6 a month, the CenturyLink Choice International add-on slashes your long-distance rate. That call to Japan, for instance, drops by 86–96% ($0.08–$0.22 a minute) with Choice International. And there are no restrictions on the time of day you can call.
If you pick the Home Phone Unlimited plan, CenturyLink Choice International will bring your bill up to $66 a month (plus fees and taxes).
But do you really wanna spend 66 bucks a month on a landline? That feels like a lot of dough to blow on a service that’s almost obsolete.
So how many Easy-Talk minutes do you get for your five bucks a month? That’s what we’d like to know.
We asked at least four CenturyLink reps for specifics on Easy Talk. All we were able to learn is that the add-on starts at $5 a month for what the company calls “a bucket of long-distance minutes.”
The buckets, we were told, come in three sizes: 50, 100, or 200 minutes. How much is each bucket? None of the reps could say. It’s probably safe to assume that $5 gets you the 50-minute bucket. But we’re not sure what to tell you regarding the bigger ones.
One more thing about Easy Talk: It may not be available in your area. You might instead qualify for Easy Talk II, which is $7.99 a month plus $0.05 per minute. That would bring your monthly payment to $32.24.