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About Long Distance Long Distance is simple right? Wrong. There are actually many factors to consider. Price is usually the biggest factor, followed by service and quality. All of these factors contribute to ultimate value or Bang for Our Buck. I will briefly address the three main factors: PRICE The lower the better. This one doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out. 7 cents/minute is always cheaper than 23 cents/min. To get the lowest possible price on Long Distance service you are either going to have to deal with a reseller or contract massive usage agreements with your current Long Distance Provider. When you are shopping for cheap rates it helps to know some inside information ; ) Every Long Distance call placed in America to America has three parts (each of which have costs associated with them) The First part is the "Origination Leg". Every Time you pick up a phone to make a long distance call the local phone company who provides you with your dial tone service gets a piece of the per minute action. The Origination charge is determined by each local phone company and I have never been able to find any rhyme or reason behind the wildly varying rates each local company charges across America. The Second part is the "Long Distance Leg". This is where the travels through the "cloud" or the massive switching network. This is where money can be saved. A reseller can purchase massive time on the network and can sell it to you at a profit. They pay by the second and they mark it up and bill you by the minute (generally). The risk they take is figuring out how much time they need to satisfy their needs without committing to too much time that they then can't sell. The margins for error get smaller and smaller as the price drops. The Third and final part is the "Termination Leg". Again this is a local phone company charge for receiving the Long Distance call. (actually there are a few other charges for Uncle Sam but they are not important for this example). So, to save you money on a Long Distance call a company must pre-purchase network time or pre-commit to usage amounts. They must then build highly complicated spread sheets to analyze where their call traffic starts and stops because they still have to pay the local Origination and Termination charges and they have to run a tight ship when it comes to billing and all. Interestingly enough some areas of the country have Origination and Termination charges that are higher than what some long distance services charge per minute. They have to average it out over tens of thousands of users.
SERVICE When you are dealing with one of the "Big 3" Long Distance providers you are going to get top shelf customer service. They have 24x7 staff and technicians making sure you stay connected and happy. They have to, they service business clients and charge top dollar for their product. Resellers can save money here by either not providing service or by providing limited (or lame) service. You have to decide for yourself how much service you need available to you should the proverbial Poo hit the rapidly spinning blades of the mechanical cooling unit.
QUALITY Here is where most resellers really cut corners. They either over-sell their service, meaning they have more customers and demand than the allotted time they have contracted for or they got with sub carriers to save money. Basically a sub carrier is a long distance carrier that doesn't have the infrastructure of one of the "Big 3". Some sub carrier networks have lousy switching technology, dirty lines and massive holes in coverage areas. You will experience dropped calls, shadow conversations in the background, and the ever popular "Please try you call again later, all circuits are busy at this time" message.
Flat Price Unlimited Long Distance Lie Don't fall prey to one of these scams. It is physically impossible to deliver this product to the marketplace. If it were true I would have a link to it from my site! I know how much things cost and who gets paid what. The local telcos have to get their money and teh network time only gets so cheap. These scams are the old something for nothing crap often peddled by MLM Dream Weavers. They set up a service which often requires a user to dial an access number or enter a pin number. They seriously oversell the service signing up more customers than the service can handle. Then they fold up and move on to the next set of suckers. They set these services up with access numbers so they don't physically have to switch your Long Distance service to their company so they can avoid having the FCC all over them like white on rice. It is a greed scam. If you buy into it you will always get burned! If you want good long distance service you are going to have to pay for it. It is that simple.
IN SUMMARY I recommend and use 2cents Long Distance.com. They are backed by massive technology, use a Tier1 Carrier (MCI) and have done some truly innovative stuff to keep costs down and pass the savings on to end consumers. I love them because they are not a Network Marketing company (go figure) and they don't have to charge me more money to pay out commissions every time I pick up the phone. I have negotiated a great deal with 2centsLongDistance.com for visitors to my web site. Follow the instructions on the "Get 2cents/min Long Distance" page and you will not have to pay the $50 Administration Fee!
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