How to pick a long distance phone service.
On the right is a list websites that contain links to long distance search engines, long distance telephone companies and compare the prices of most long distance companies in the US. I will continue to ad links to long distance websites as I find them, in the meantime though, here is a list of three things to look for in a long distance company.
- Never pay a monthly fee.
- Some companies charge you a monthly fee to buy in to their cheap telephone rates. If you pay $7.95 per month to buy in to their plan and you only use 400 minutes of long distance, you just raised your cost per minute by about 2¢.
- Never sign up for a plan with a variable rate.
- Never sign up for a plan that charges you different prices depending on what day it is or what time it is. Where's the convenience in that? Oh Boy, you just saved a penny, but you had to make the phone call at midnight on Tuesday. That's not a very good deal if you ask us. Especially when we know of 7-8 long distance telephone companies that offer the same low rates 24/7 and still charge you less than other company's "Cheap Times".
- Find a company that offers multi-minute billing.
- What that means is that they break the minute up into segments and only bill you to the nearest segment. If they're billing you in 6 second increments, then a 2.2 minute call, at 5¢ per minute, would cost you 11¢. That very same call made through a company that billed by the minute, would cost you 15¢. Make 200 calls over a month and the difference is $8.00 for the exact same calls. Add in the $7.95 you paid for their plan, and you've already wasted $15.95.
Go here to see a cost comparison of AT&T, MCI, Opex,
Unitel and PNG long distance services.
|
