Frugal phone advice

     Some of this has been posted before but :


   You do not need a long distance carrier. If you make no LD calls or
only a few you can eliminate the monthly fee and use phone cards or a
dial around service.

   Your local and long distance carriers can be different companies.

   Call your carriers, tell them that you are shopping around and tell
them to make an offer, then get it in writing.

  AT&T and some other cell carriers are now offering unlimited cell
service for $99 a month. Ask your carrier for this plan. If they tell
you it is only for new customers offer to extend your contract for an
additional year.

   Any time you call an 800 number the person on the other end will have
your number. If this is a concern use a pay phone.

   Read the small print on phone card posters. One company runs national
ads for one cent a minute on domestic calls. The small type has a 49
cent connect fee so you pay 50 cents for a 1  minute call and 59 cents
for ten minutes. The FCC mandates a 49 cent surcharge on phone card
calls from a pay phone. Many carriers exceed that surcharge.

  George Grapman wrote:

We're doing this now.  Note that you can still call tool-free numbers
even if you have no LD carrier, because the charges are paid at the
other end.


And keep checking to see that it doesn't change.  We had a $3/month
service from AT&T which changed after a few months to an $11/month service.


I realize everyone still calls them "800 numbers", but toll-free numbers
now include 888, 877, and 866 numbers.  In general, "8nn" is toll-free.


Evelyn C. Leeper
Heretic: someone who disagrees with you about
something neither of you knows anything about.