Billing Games – Everyone bills the same way…right? Not really, and it can make a big difference to your pocketbook. Some plans bill in full minutes, other bill in smaller increments, thirty or six second blocks. How does this affect me you ask? Here’s how it can impact how much you pay for a call.

Let’s say you make a call that is 3.2 minutes long. On a full minute plan you pay for a 4-minute call. The company adds the additional time to the call and then they bill you. Let’s create an example: suppose company A charges 7¢ minute and bills in full minutes, while company Z charges 8¢ per minute, but bills in six second increments. Here is how much you would pay for the 3.2-minute call.

          Company A: 3.2 minute call is rounded to 4 minutes X 7¢ = 28¢

          Company Z: 3.2 minute call is billed at 3.2 minutes X 8¢  = 26¢

As you can see, company Z actually offers a better deal on this call. The more you look at all these deals, the more you realize that even subtle differences can really impact how much you pay for long distance calls over a year’s time.

Understanding Your Phone Bill and Other Information

PIC Freeze- (Preferred Interexchange Carrier) to keep unscrupulous companies from switching (also known as slamming) your phone number away from your preferred long distance company, you can freeze your choice with your local telephone company. Simply call your local phone company and tell them you want to freeze your PIC. Now the only way your company can be changed is if you personally call the local phone company and let them know you want to change. They will usually let you create a password to protect from someone pretending to be you calling them and asking to make a change.

Are you being charged for your dial-up Internet calls?

If you have a local dial-up number for your Internet connection, and it is considered to be in your local area, you need to make sure that the calls are not routed as long distance calls.

Have you been switched to the carrier you selected?

LEC's (local exchange company) also known by most as their local phone company, can take up to 45 days to switch you to the new long distance service you requested. Meanwhile, you will receive bills from your old company until the switch occurs. You need to call your LEC (whoever supplies your local service) and insist that they make the switch to the long distance carrier you prefer right now. If you have chosen a long distance carrier and you feel that it has been long enough for your LEC to switch your services over, simply dial 1-700-555-4141. This is a recording that will tell you who is carrying your long distance service. If the 700 test says something other than the carrier of your choice, you should call your LEC.

Are you being charged for dialing a 10-10- number?

If you don't actually use a long distance service but instead rely on dialing 10-10- numbers before your long distance calls, you need to see if you are being billed a monthly service charge on top of the call itself.

Are there any 809 area code calls on your bill?

If you have an 809 area code call listed on your bill, you probably need to question it. The 809 prefix leads to an international call. Those calls may cost you upwards of twenty dollars a minute. Some companies have been known to send out offers that say you won a car and then direct you to call a number to claim the prize. Many times this involves calling an 809 number. When you call this number, you are calling internationally. You can ask your local phone company to block international calling.

Did you make all the calls listed on your bill?

You may be shocked to learn that some long distance companies will either accidentally or purposefully add random calls to your bill - calls you may not have made at all. Look at each call and ask yourself if you know who the number belongs to. If you don't, it may be a call you are being charged for but never made. Call the company and verify if it was a call you made. If not, have them credit the call.

Taxes and Charges – Sometimes it seems as if there are more taxes and fees than actual calls on your phone bill. What are all those taxes for? (The government likes to call them fees.) Well, it can very from state to state or even city to city, but here are the most common taxes and fees appearing on your bill.

USF – (Universal Service Fund) This fee is charged by the federal government and is used to provide basic phone service to people who are unable to afford phone service. It is also used to provide funding to schools and libraries to connect to the internet and to each other.

PICC – (Preferred Interexchange Carrier Charge) This is a fee your local phone company charges all long distance companies to connect to them. This fee appears on the your long distance phone bill. This money is collected and sent to the local phone company.

SMS – (Service Management System). SMS is a national clearinghouse for all 800 numbers. Think of them as the holding company that manages the status of all 800 numbers. This is where long distance companies go to see if an 800 number is available and where previously used numbers are stored. This fee only applies if you have an 800 number. SMS charges all long distance companies a monthly fee to manage and maintain a national database of all 8XX numbers.

Taxes – Depending on where you live you can expect to pay city, county, state, and federal taxes. If you use a travel card to make calls outside of your home state, you may find taxes charged from the state(s) you made calls from.

When you look at all the fees and taxes on your bill, it can become pretty overwhelming trying to understand it all. Hopefully, this information will prove to be helpful.

How do you protest your bill?

You can first call the company that sent you the bill. If you want to file an informal complaint with the FCC, you can do so by telephone at 1-888-CALL-FCC and toll-free at 1-888-TELL-FCC, or FAX at 202-418-0232, or email at fccinfo@fcc.gov, or fill out an online complaint form at www.fcc.gov/cib/ccformpage.html.

New Ways to Communicate

Service Options – Today there are many ways people can communicate. We list some of the most popular communication alternatives available. Since most people are already familiar with email (after all, you are reading this on the internet), pagers, and voice mail/answering machines, we want to focus on some of the lesser known technologies and how they might benefit you.

VOIP – (Voice over internet protocol) This service can work in a few different ways, but the two most common are over your phone or computer. When using a phone, you are typically given an access number. You dial the access number, then a code, then dial the number that you wish to reach. The local phone company sends this call to an IP provider instead of sending it to a traditional long distance company. The call is then routed over the internet and is received by the called party.

On your computer you need to load voice type software that allows you to use the service. Many companies use their own proprietary software, so you may not be able to use it to call all of your friends on their computers unless they support the same protocol. Some services allow you to call standard telephones as well. These calls are also carried over the internet.

The two biggest issues with VOIP are quality and reliability. Sure this can be an inexpensive way to communicate, but at what level are you willing to sacrifice quality with savings. Because the calls go over the internet, reliability is an issue. You know how bad the internet can be sometimes and since you are trying to send voice over the same networks, it is not uncommon to experience poor voice quality, echo, and calls terminating in the middle of a conversation. Most people just won’t tolerate voice service at this low level.

The other issue is quality. Remember, the call is being sent as a data stream and not analog voice. With IP, voice is sent in packets just like data. With data this is no big deal because the packets don’t always arrive in order, but are organized at the other end. With voice, you can’t do this and make the voice sound intelligible. Each packet must be received in order. To do this requires a great deal of bandwidth, which requires large sums of money to guarantee the quality of sound, and there goes your savings and then some.

The good news is that technology is starting to effectively deal with quality of service issues. It won’t be too far in the future when VOIP could become a common and quality way to communicate. However, since the local phone company carries the first and last miles, and they will surely at some point start charging for the service, VOIP may lose its pricing advantage in short order.

Unless you are a large company building big private networks capable of properly handling voice and data over the same fiber, calling as we do today is still the most reliable and cost effective way to communicate.

DSL – (Digital Subscriber Line) There are many types of DSL service. The most common are ADSL, SDSL, and HDSL. This service allow you to have high speed internet access using existing copper wire already supplied by your local phone company to your home of office. Up until recently you could only send or receive information at speeds of up to 56/64K without ordering an expensive T1 circuit or ISDN. Now you can use that standard copper to achieve speed that can meet or exceed T1 technology, for a fraction of the cost.

A company, such as Longdistance.com, can take the copper that goes from your computer to your local phone company and convert it to a high-speed data line. Once the data stream from your computer reaches the local central office, it is handed over to a DSL provider who “treats” the circuit to allow for high bandwidth transmission. The line is then sent to the nearest internet access and now pages that used to take minutes to load now only takes seconds. It transforms the internet experience. However, DSL speed can be limited by how far your phone line is located from your local phone company’s central office. The more distance between you and your central office, the slower the speed.

Right now, you can live up to 50,000 feet from your local central office and receive DSL service. However, the fastest speed you can get at this distance is approximately 128K. If you live only a few thousand feet from the central office, you can get speeds of 1.5M or more. Also, you need a copper line that is free of coils and bridges. Your DSL provider will be able to determine the quality of your local copper and determine what speeds are available.

ADSL is usually used for the home or very small business. The speed is a little slower primarily by the way the signal is sent and how many people the DSL provider allows to share the same lines to the internet. The other DSL services are more expensive, but they allow for faster speeds and there is less congestion due to the way traffic is engineered by the DSL provider.