I recently realized that I am paying more for phone service in Ottawa
than I was in Montreal, despite making hardly any long-distance calls
here at all. A close inspection of my phone bill reminded me that I
signed up for a voicemail/caller-id/dozen-other-services bundle that
I thought would be Real Handy, but that I never use.

Since I tend to use my cellphone for personal calls and only use my
home phone as a DSL conduit and to give out to businesses, I figured
I didn’t need all those services. What’s more, I get sufficiently
few messages on my home line that I always forget to check
for messages — so I figured the best approach would be to get rid
of all of those services and buy a normal answering machine with
a blinky light I could not ignore.

So I go into the Bell World store in the Bayshore mall here, armed
with photo ID and my phone bill. I ask the service rep there to
tell me what services I have on my phone. She asks for the phone
number, and tells me that I have such-and-such bundle. Ok, I want
to get rid of the bundle, I say. She triple-checks that that’s what
I want, because not many people have plain old phone lines anymore.
She asks me for the name on the account. I tell her. Ok, done,
she says.

I leave, having not removed my ID or my phone bill from my bag.

So:

• To find out in advance if someone has caller-ID before you
  call them, just stop by your local Bell office and give them
  their phone number. They will tell you.

• To ensure that the person you want to call cannot identify you
  when you do, just stop by your local Bell office and give
  them their phone number and name. They will disable the service.

• If you know someone has an important voicemail message that you
  do not want them to hear, just stop by your local Bell office
  and give them their phone number and name. They will disable
  the service, and the contents of the voice mailbox will be
  deleted within an hour or two.

I think it’s Angry Letter time.