Every call I’ve ever gotten from a long distance company has had the company asserting - not surprisingly - that theirs is the best deal in town.
Is there a good resource for a disinterested, neutral third party comparison of the various rate plans, 10-10 companies, etc? I’m specifically interested in good rate plans for international calling.
I don’t know of any 3rd party comparisions worth looking at, but I’ve been really happy with I-Link. The additional services are really nice (voice & fax messaging, one-number-following, etc). You can check it out at www.i-link.com.
BTW, whenever any of the telemarketers for other LD services call me, I tell them what I’m paying now and they just give up. Occasionally, they’ve asked for the URL to check out for themselves.
How about not paying?
Granted, you only get two hours a month per account, but fi you get multiple accounts . . . 
Bricker - here are a couple of comparison sites recommended by our local radio consumer advocate Clark Howard:
I haven’t tried them, so you can be our guinea pig.
I discovered myself hijacking this thread, big time. I’ll go start another, but thanks for asking the question, Bricker. I’m curious to see what you find out.
(This is my third attempt at replying so I hope you find it helpful.)
When I was shopping around for long distance I found http://www.myrateplan.com which led me to http://www.1plus-longdistance.com/unitel/
Unitel offers $0.0049 per 6 seconds with an 18 second minimum/call and no monthly fee*.
(BTW, the above sentence is a really quick and easy way to get a long-distance telemarketer to say thank you and goodbye.)
*unless you spend less than $15/month, in that case there is a $2 monthly fee.
Another one recommended by our fair Clark Howard is http://www.bigzoo.com.
RICK!!! So nice to see you post! Been missing your help on legal issues…
Back to the thread now…
Back when I used to live in the US (about 6 years ago) I found a very good way, I switch companies every month. Each time they would call me I would agree to change, and they would always send me a $50 check (plus pay for the switching fee). So my monthy rate was way down.
If you have a Sam’s Club membership you can get 500 calling card minutes for around 30 dollars. That’s about 6 cents a minute.
Well you can do them for free on the net with your computer with dialpad.com
Plus some other sites.
I bought a calling card from 7-11 for $10. You get like 6 cent minutes to the uk. However, first minute is a dollar, so that limits you to 10 calls or less.
But, laugh if you want, but I have AT&T, Sprint & MCI too.