3.1. Saving MoneyYou can't judge how much you save until you know how much you spend for traditional telephone service. Table 3-1 shows the details from my bill at the start of 2005.
Take another look at the first figure in Table 3-1: Basic Local ServiceResidence. That's the number the phone companies like to quote. Notice the amount: $11.05. Darn cheap, considering all that you get for it, isn't it? A world-wide telephone network at your beck and call, and it sits waiting in your house (okay, my house) for $11.05 a month. But look at the bottom number, the Total Current Charges: $23.78. This number is more than double the "basic" service, even if you add the Touchtone fee in there. That's serious fee inflation. Note: Fee BullTouchtone fee? They charge me for Touchtone service still, after all these years? I bet if I dug up an old dial phone, they'd charge me even more for "retro dial" service. Notice the last little tag, the SBC Long Distance? Guess whatI didn't make a single long distance call on this line. They're charging me for the possibility I might make a long distance call. Okay, say the Bell apologists, but $23.78 is still less money than Vonage charges you, which is $24.99 per month. Wrong. Vonage (and competitors offer something similar) has a Basic 500 plan that includes 500 minutes of phone calls to any phone in the United States and Canada. In other words, you can get a Vonage phone line, talk 500 minutes to the farthest point from you in the United States or Canada, and pay no long distance charges. You'll pay $15, versus the Bell charge of $23.78 per month that does not include a single minute of long distance calls. To be fair, there is no time limit on my SBC local calls. I can talk 24 hours per day locally for the same $11.05er, $23.78. With the $15 Vonage plan, I get the first 500 minutes free, but must pay 3.9 cents per minute on every call afterwards. Of course, the Vonage call can be from Miami to Anchorage for the same 3.9 cents per minute after the first 500 minutes, which is cheaper than any long distance rates from SBC (by half at least, and often more depending on the called location). And if you get the Vonage Premium Unlimited Plan, you can call every minute of every day for $24.99. Now that's more than SBC's charging me per month (by $1.21) but it also includes all the long distance (U.S. and Canada) calls I can stand to make. Do you consider unlimited long distance calls a great deal for $1.21 per month? I do. Notice what my phone bill is missing: any extras whatsoever. Few people bypass Caller ID and Call Waiting and the like, and I'm about the only one in the world with a "naked" residence phone line (according to my teenagers). But SBC doesn't want us drilling down into these extras charges for reasons that will become obvious in the next section. 3.1.1. SBC Charges Versus Broadband Phone ChargesInternet telephone companies can add features much more easily, and therefore much more economically, than the traditional telephone companies. In fact, the $14.99 or $24.99 you spend with Vonage (or competitors like VoicePulse and BroadVoice) includes features worth $61.15, according to SBC and other traditional telephone companies. Here are the features from the three aforementioned broadband phone companies:
The cost of the features for each of these services, beyond the monthly fee: $0.00 (zero, zip, nada). Here is the list of features from SBC, and the price per month for each:
Ouch. Many of the popular features from the traditional telephone companies are bundled together, usually with some price break (although sometimes the reduction is pennies). Some users appreciate the savings, while others resent being forced to pay for features they don't want in order to get a good price on the features they do want. Notice there are some features available from broadband phones that traditional phone companies can't match, such as virtual numbers. Notice also that the $61.15 from SBC includes no long distance minutes, while each of the broadband phone calls include all the calls you make within the U.S. and Canada as part of the basic monthly fee. 3.1.2. Calls at Zero Cents Per MinuteSince all major broadband phone services include long distance calls within the U.S. and Canada as part of your monthly fee, there are no long distance charges unless you start dialing numbers beyond the borders of the U.S. and Canada. If you plan to spend plenty of time chatting overseas, you have two choices: check out the International Plans offered by broadband phone companies, or look to Skype and other computer-centric options. Sometimes the broadband phone services offer a flat rate plan for international calls to a set number of countries, and sometimes they offer per-minute pricing. The rates are different for each country under the per-minute plans, and they sometimes change without warning. The computer-centric plans never charge a penny for either their service or international calls when connecting from computer to computer. This means both the caller (you) and the callee (the person you want to speak with) must be connected to a computer and online to make a call. But when even the best international prices can be close to a dollar per minute (or many dollars per minute when a bulky satellite phone set is involved), sticking close to your computer may save you a fortune. Traditional phone companies charge much more per minute for international calls than do the broadband phone companies. So if you make a lot of international calls, you have every reason in the world (and your wallet) to switch to a broadband phone service immediately. |