Finding cheap phone service - By: Ramon Phelps

Saving money on telephone service isn't that hard, if you're willing to do a little work. There are a bunch of discount telephone service companies and plans out these days, both VoIP and landline services, and, depending on where you live, and if you have broadband internet service or not, there are ways to save money with both types of plans.

While regular land-line phone service is usually more expensive than Internet telephone service, it can be cheaper if you do not make very many calls each month. Some landline phone companies still offer local telephone service for less than $15 per month, but you have to pay extra for voice mail, caller id, call waiting and other features that come free with Digital telephone service. And, if you make any long distance calls, those are going to be charged to your telephone bill too. Even with the addition of some long distance calling, if you're a light caller, you could still keep your phone bill under $20 per month with land-line phone service.

Now, if you already have high speed internet service to your home, or office, you could save a bundle by using Digital phone service, instead of land line service. The telephone service now provided by VoIP providers is just as good as the service provided by wireline companies, though some people still remember the bad old days when it sucked. While many people remember the old days of Internet phone service, and are leery of trying it out, Digital telephone service is now one of the best deals on the market, with many unlimited local and long distance plans coming in at under $20 per month.

Searching for cheap calling plans yourself can be a pain, but there are a lot of websites on the internet that will do the work for you. Go to an internet search engine, like Google or Bing, and search for something like "compare phone service", or "phone rate search tool", and you should come up with a list of sites that aggregate plans from a ton of different providers. Visit a couple of these sites, and use their tools to get a list of the best telephone deals in your city.

Of course, if you already have high speed internet service, you can just grab a product like Magicjack, which offers unlimited local and long distance telephone service for under $20 per year, or maybe just try Skype first, if you're willing to make calls through your computer. Magicjack also offers 911 service, and they let you transfer your phone number to their service, so I'd personally use it instead of Skype.

Before hitting the aggregator sites, make sure you go over any old telephone bills you have, and have this information available:

Monthly instate long distance minutes.
Monthly state to state long distance calls.
Any countries that you call on a regular basis, and the average number of minutes.
Any fees charged by your telephone company.
Any taxes charged by your current telephone company.

By running this information through one of these comparison websites, you'll end up being able to see the features and prices of plans that are available in your area, without having to wade through 25 different sites and a whole legal pad full of notes.

Even if you're not interested, you should check the VoIP calling plans too, since eventually the FCC will do away with land line phone service. Many of the land-line carriers have requested this, since it's just too expensive to keep up, especially when compared to Internet telephone service. Over the last year or two, the FCC has been redoing some of their taxes and fees, to encourage telephone companies to bring broadband internet service into all areas of the country, so that they can switch their customers over to Internet telephone service instead.

So, head on out, and find yourself a cheaper phone service today, since you now know all the in's and out's of finding the best calling plans in your area .

About the Author

I'm a technology junkie that likes write about telecom. I publish articles about cell phones and VoIP telephone service for different techie blogs, as well as for some article directories together with online magazines. These are a couple of the sites I've written for: phone service, phone service

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Ramon-Phelps/232277

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