I’ve switched from using Bell Canada for my long distance calls to simply using those calling cards you can buy at any corner store. It’s been about two months. I have seen a tremendous reduction in my phone bill since then. My phone bill is twenty dollars cheaper! I use about $5 worth of calling cards per month.
I was talking to a representative of Bell today, and he cautioned me about using calling cards. He said, among other things, that if the calling card company network becomes too busy, they will “bump you to a trunk line and you’ll be charged the base rate.” (Direct quote. So you’d end up paying the base rate from Bell, which can’t be that great if you don’t have a calling plan–which I don’t anymore.)
I’m curious about this, because I don’t want to have an hour long conversation with a friend, thinking I’m paying 3 cents a minute, when I’m really paying whatever the heck Bell would charge. But in two months of using the same calling card brand, it hasn’t happened to me, and all my friends use calling cards, too. Mind you–they have long-distance blocked through Bell, so perhaps if it happened to one of them, the call merely wouldn’t go through. I don’t know. My long distance is not blocked by Bell because then I would lose the ability to dial 0, which I’d rather not lose.
I don’t know enough about phone service to decide on my own if this is something I should worry about. Does anyone know? Thanks!
That rep was wrong. I work for a Bell subsidiary and looked for internal information about third party calling cards (prepaid long distance type ones). No hits. Google also doesn’t have ANY stories of people being charged after using a calling card properly either. If (many) people were being charged for using (properly) a long distance card I’d know of it since it would impact my job.
Don’t worry about it. I use calling cards myself (and I get a 35% discount from Bell, that should tell you something!). Just be sure to read all the fine print on the calling card. Some are better than others in terms of pricing. But for making one long call it’s the best and cheapest way to go!
Bell seems to enjoy telling people about potential but (likely) uncommon disadvantages to their competitor’s products: cable modems slow down during peak hours, some digital cable TV channels aren’t digital (at least at the time they ran ads about that). They didn’t mention that (at the time) DSL was significantly slower than most cable modem service, or that it only mattered if TV channels were digital for people who have home theater audio.
Oh, and one of their current commercials shows someone holding a subway door open for an elderly passenger. This is portrayed as an act of holiday kindness. Holding an elevator door for someone is one thing, but holding a subway door open is dangerous and could result in a minor delay for hundreds of people. (During rush hour, a delay of even a few seconds might even result in the next train being held at a red signal.) And you could get a special holiday greeting over the PA: Don’t block the doors! I know that’s a bit off-topic, but I wanted to point it out for anyone who’s seen the commercial and didn’t think of it.
I don’t know anything about the calling cards, but I expect from Bell’s tradition of pointing out such issues that it is a very rare occurrence. Even if it did happen, the overall savings from using calling cards is probably worth it.
I know this is OT, but I was curious: Do any Canadian telcos offer an “unlimited calling” plan? When my GF and I started our relationship, she was living in Charlotte, NC and I was living in Atlanta, GA. We both switched to a plan that offered unlimited local and long distance, which made things much cheaper. Now that I’ve moved in with her in NC, I can still call my Atlanta friends and talk all day long for the same price per month. I like it!
Thanks, everyone. Yeah, I kinda suspected it was a line. Honestly, calling cards have been a popular alternative long enough now that I think I would have read something about that at some point! So I thought this was the best place to get the facts.
The calling plan I had with Bell before this, Rex Fenestrarum, was unlimited. (To my knowledge anyway…) I paid $4.95, plus a “network charge” of $2.95 (that no one told me about, mind you), plus taxes, and got 10 cents a minute for all my long distance calls. It is called the First Rate Overseas plan or some such thing.
But it’s ridiculous because I use $5 worth of calling cards a month, period. So before I was even done paying just the monthly fee for the plan, I could have had all my long-distance calls covered for the entire month.
I only kick myself for not doing this sooner. But again, if the rep was correct, I wanted to know so I could make an informed choice.
