How To Reduce Your Phone Bills
There are many opportunities to save and reduce your phone bills, as I discuss here.
If you have your phone lines with your local phone company and
your television and/or Internet service with your cable company, you should
look into the option your cable company offers for bundling all three.
Bundled Services
Many times you can reduce your overall cost by dropping your local phone company and taking advantage of a combined service with Internet, television and phone all serviced by your cable company. The phone service is provided by something called Voice Over Internet Protocol (or VoIP). A special adapter connected to your cable modem allows connecting regular phones to your VoIP service. This adapter converts the analog phone lines to digital so it actually goes over the Internet. This technology has been perfected in recent years. If you have enough bandwidth, VoIP works really well.Some cable companies will provide you with a modem that has the adapter built in. One thing to keep in mind about VoIP is that it requires your own supplied power. If you lose power, you lose your phone service, unless you have an Uninterrupable Power Source (UPS) for extended power.
Some modems that include a VoIP Adapter even have a UPS built in to supply continuous power in case of a power outage. Ask what options you have with the equipment they offer.
If you have DSL for your Internet service, it gets a little tricky. First of all, I don't recommend VoIP over DSL. The bandwidth may not be high enough to support voice communication. But if you insist on it, remember that DSL is provided over your old copper phone lines. If you drop your phone service to switch to VoIP and you intend to use DSL, then this sounds like a catch 22. But there is such as thing as naked DSL. This is DSL service without the phone service. Ask your local phone company if they offer that. But as I said, it would be better to look into using VoIP over cable.
The only case where cable has competition is with fiber.
If your local phone company has installed fiber in your area, then you can consider
this to bundle all three services. It gives you the same lower bundle rate, but
it over fiber optic instead of cable. Check with your local phone company to see what
deals they offer.
Many companies are giving teaser rates for the first year for bundled service. Make sure to ask what your cost will be after the teaser period is over and get it in writing. I hear too many stories where customers need to call every few months to get the bill corrected. The only way they succeed is by keeping proof of the original quote.
Either way, bundling your services is a great way to save using the latest technology in digital communications. VoIP phone services usually include unlimited long distance within the USA and Canada. Some even include certain foreign countries.
Find a Better Long Distance Carrier
If you don't have unlimited long distance such as what is included with most VoIP services, and you find your long distance bill growing out of reach, it is very easy to switch your long distance to another provider.The fist step is to find the one that offers you the best deal. This is not a simple matter, but you can use our long distance search wizard to do the work for you. You simply answer a few questions about your calling pattern and it will list out all the long distance carriers that have the best rates. If you make international call, you can specify which countries and that will be taken into account to select the carriers that work best for you.
Once you see that list, you can click on any carrier and you'll see a sample mock bill for your service. Nothing is left to your imagination. These sample bills include all charges and taxes, just like a real bill. So you can really tell which carrier would give you the best deal. Try a long distance carrier search now
Click the Video Tour button for a closer look
at using the long distance search wizard.
Prepaid Cellular
There are two companies that offer prepaid airtime cards with minutes that can be added to your phone when needed. TracFone and NET10.When you use one of these prepaid cellular services your phone actually uses any carrier with best signal from AT&T, Verizon, Alltel or TMobile. This is because they have contracted with these carriers to resell the minutes to you. Due to the high volume from all their prepaid customers, they get a rate so low that they can offer you low rates and still make a small profit. You get the advantage of more coverage without monthly fees. With prepaid service you pay only for the minutes you use. And you get all the standard features the carriers offer except unlimited data plans. You do get voicemail, Caller-ID, call-forwarding and texting included.
TracFone charges 25¢ per minute. But they offer double minutes for the life of some phones.
If you get a phone that does not include double minutes, you can buy a double minute plan
for $24.99. That brings it down to 12.5¢ per minute.
They often have promo codes that bring the cost down a little more.
NET10 prepaid cellular
You can find both TracFone and NET10 phones, as well as their airtime cards, in local electronics and department stores. But compare to the phones you can order online. The phones in the stores may be older models they have in inventory.
The latest models are always available online and NET10 is offering free FedEx shipping of your phone until March 31, 2010. Just select 3-day FedEx and it will deduct the shipping cost at the last step of checkout.
You can examine your phone when it arrives and decide if you want to keep it and activate it with a new number or with a transfer of your existing cellular number. Transferring your number cancels your existing cellular service. But don't cancel before transferring.
I switched my cellular to NET10 and cut my cost to one-third. Read about my experience and my review of NET10 in my blog.
Prepaid International Calling
If you make international calls, I have not found anything cheaper than
Centsible Prepaid International Calling.
Yep, I spelled that right.
It's only pennies to call most anywhere in the world, low as 1¢ to some countries.
I never liked prepaid phone cards much because they all seem to have hidden costs such as monthly fees that are deducted from the balance or even fees for non-use. And some even add on surcharges to connect the call. Well, Centsible Calling does none of that. You simply load your account with any amount you want, and that amount is applied to your calls by deducting the cost of the minutes you talk. Nothing else is deducted. Believe me. I personally use Centsible Calling for my international calls. I don't use it much, and my balance never decreases when I'm leaving it dormant.
What's the catch? There's always a catch. Well, in this case the catch is simply a way to get the cost so low. The access number to make calls through Centsible Calling is a local number that would be a long distance call for you. They do have a toll-free access number, but that is a penny more. In today's world, many of us have unlimited long distance in many forms, either on our cell phones, or with VoIP services. You may not even use up all your cellular minutes during peak time. So you can put that to good use now for your international calls.
I almost forgot to mention that you don't need to dial a PIN. It recognizes your Caller-ID. You can add all the phone numbers you use to your account so you never need to dial a PIN.
I feel so good about this service because they don't play any games. There isn't even any penalty for non-use. If you don't use your card for a long time, any funds that were left in your account will still be there for you when you need to use the service again. No fees! No expiration dates! Try Centsible Prepaid International Calling now
Click the Video Tour button for a closer look.
Save on Toll-Free Service
If you have a Toll-Free number for your business or for your personal use, your monthly
carrying charge should not be more that a couple of dollars.
Kall8 has a great service
for toll-free numbers with many nice features.
Kall8 charges just $2 a month and 7¢ per minute, which could add up if you have a high volume. But this is for those who don't. If you have high volume you would be better off with your own broadband T-1 service. That can reduce your per-minute rate to 2¢ or less. But T-1 line charges are really high. T-1 is only for large firms who have a high volume.
Getting back to your case, Kall8 includes many enhanced features that give you really nice control over your Toll-Free number, such as voice mail, fax mail, caller-ID if you want to show your Toll-Free number, custom call routing, incoming call blocking by area code, by state, or even by specific number, and more. You can select a really nice number from a list for instant activation, or you can transfer and keep your existing number at Kall8's lower cost.
For a family with an aging parent or children away at camp or at college, it makes perfect sense to have a Toll-Free number for only $2 a month, so your loved ones can easily call home from anywhere without dropping a ton of change into a pay phone. This helps those care for save when they call you. Now that's when it really counts!
Learn more about Kall8
Click the Video Tour button for a closer look.
Dedicated Fax Line For Only $2
Are you paying for an extra phone line just to connect your fax machine? Cut that bill and replace it with better technology. Kall8 also provides a dedicated fax number for only $2 a month. The cost to received faxes is about 7¢ per page. It's a better way to receive your faxes because you can receive your faxes in your email as a PDF or TIF file. Now you can do more. You can save these files, or send them to someone else without needing to copy them, another cost savings! No more paper waste.Learn more how Kall8 can solve your Faxing needs