Comm South Companies, INC was one of the very first prepaid home telephone companies to exist. Before prepaid phone service, you had the choice of only signing up with your local telephone company for home phone service. Examples of local telephone companies were the big Bell companies such as Southwestern and Pacific Bell, Alltel and GTE.
If you were unable to pay your phone bill with your local telephone company you would be disconnected and you would not able to establish new telephone service in your name until the old bill was paid in full and possibly a deposit was made in the range of $100.00–$500.00 depending on your outstanding bill amount. Bills could be run up due to collect, long distance charges, 1-900 number charges or other toll charges that could have been made by you, someone in your household including your children or a visiting friend or relative.
In some cases home phone service could not be established at the address where the disconnected service had existed even if service was being applied for in a different name. Alltel was one of the telephone companies that did not allow service to be established at a specific address if there was a past due unpaid delinquent bill showing on their records at that address until the delinquent charges were paid for in full; regardless if the new service application was in a different name.
Comm South Companies was created and opened for business in the late 1990s. They offered prepaid home phone service to anyone regardless of credit, past due bills, or proof of identity. When the company started all dial tone lines were completely blocked meaning that only local telephone calls could be made and no collect, 900, or other toll calls could be made. If you wanted to call long distance you would be required to buy a prepaid long distance card from a local store. Over time, Comm South Companies acquired a long distance plan which would allow you to make long distance calls from your home phone which was prepaid in advance. Each bill you received from Comm South was a bill for the next month of service and the due date was before that next month of service which is why the service was prepaid before you even used it to prevent people from running up high bills and not paying.
The monthly service charges were anywhere from $65.00 to $100.00 per month depending on what features you wanted. They offered most of the features you could get from the normal local phone companies such as caller ID, call waiting, three way calling, speed dial, call blocker, and call waiting ID. Comm South did allow payment arrangements/extensions if you were unable to pay your bill by the due date but the payment extension was never allowed beyond only a week or two. If you were disconnected for non payment by Comm South, it was never reflected on your credit report because a) it was prepaid service and b) you didn't have to use your real name or social security number.
Comm South Companies grew very quickly, so quickly in fact that their Customer Service department began to remain open 24 hours a day and had very long hold times. The old telephone number for Customer Service was 1-800-936-5223 and the billing address was in Dallas, Texas; their old website was www.commsouth.com. Comm South Companies had established local telephone service for millions of Americans who could not get home phone service due to an outstanding balance with their local telephone company. By the year 2003 so many other companies had been created to "cash in" on this type of service and on people who needed home phone service but were unable to get it that Comm South became just 1 out of several different choices for prepaid home phone service and Comm South Companies went out of business and filed for Bankruptcy. Their customers were not disconnected when the company went out of business, they were simply transferred to other prepaid home phone service providers such as DPI Teleconnect. Comm South Companies however will always be one of the first telephone companies to provide home phone service to Americans who could not get a home phone with their local telephone company. They created a market and provided service to people when no one else would and will always be remembered as doing so. Comm South Companies, Inc opened the door for this type of service that will be in place for many years to come.