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psa: AT&T long distance minimums started 3/1

M

morkinva

Diamond Member
If like me you signed up for the online billing to get an amazon g.c., there are now minimums on all these long distance plans. I just got a bill for like $10 for making 1 short call, jeez!

They claim to have sent out a letter in December, but I never saw it.

So I called them (prepare to wait a while) and they eliminated the billing. I changed to something called their 'simple plan', which they claim incurs no minimum monthly billing.
 
Yeah, that simple plan probably doesn't have a monthly minimum but your rates will probably be in the 25c/min range. 🙁

My LD is now a $10, 120 minute calling card bought from Staples. But nothing will ever beat the Qwest 4.9c/min, no monthly min LD plan I used to have years back. They would only charge my credit card when my balance went over $5, and it took me eight months to do that!
 
Go to Sams Club or Costco and get you one of the prepaid LD card. It will cost you around 4 cents or less a minute and no fee or surchage.
 
I just switched to the SBC Value Plus Flat Rate Promotion. It has no fee, no minimum, and is five cents a minute for the first year. There also is no switching fee and you get a $25 Visa giftcard. http://sbc.com/lastchancedeal3

This is good through the end of march for SBC local customers.
link
 
Originally posted by: huesmann
Just use your freakin' cell phone! 🙂
Click to expand...

Amen to that! They cell companies already charge a fortune for wireless service, might as well use as much LD as possible on them. Also, too freakin bad the local telcos make us choose a primary LD carrier. I wonder if I can disable LD from my home altogether? Because even if you don't call LD, the LD carrier always finds a way to at least tax the heck out of you.
 
I'm on that AT&T Simple plan and it is great! I just my cell phone for long distance and will only use my land line in case if my cell phone isn't working and I have to make a call right away.

The Simple plan won't tax ou or change any other fees if you don't make any calls with it that month (cost 25 cents per minute though). So in my situation when I don't plan on ever using it it works out great!.
 
No question.

OneSuite.com

2.5¢ / minute, domestic using local access number
2.9¢ / minute, domestic using 800 number

$10 minimum purchase
good for, at most, 6 months - you only need very modest usage to use that up.

*NO* other minimums / charges (other than that darn 55¢ pay phone charge to the 800 number).
 
Dump the phone company completely and go with Vonage for $25/month with 500 minutes of LD included... After that it's $3.9/minute. Need a TON of LD minutes? Go for $35/month plan and get unlimited LD to US and Canada.
 
You can drop your LD altogether from your landline. You can still use calling cards or 10-10- numbers to make LD calls.
 
Beware of 10-10 numbers. I had one once, that charged a simple nickle a minute, period. Then about a year later, I noticed huge bills....seems that indeed, it was still a nickle a minute, problem is...they now had a twenty minute minimum...uh oh, no notice that I recalled. (As I used this almost exclusively for very short calls, I was expecting a ten cent call, and got all $1 calls. Interesting, Verizon, upon complaint, back billed them for almost a year back charges, and there was never any argument to that, it amounted to a few hundred dollars.

I use USADatanet.com If you live in the East (Main to Wisconson?, to Florida) it's ten cents a minute, up to 9.9 minutes....then FREE...talk for six hours...still 99 cents. It's the cheapest way to call "in-state," and since now, most of my calling is long calls out of state, they've dropped my phone costs by half. They used to be tax free, but now it's up to about 10% of the bill, which beat's Verizon's ~44% for taxes...yikes. I've used USADatanet.com for about three years. No complaints...can call from anyplace (within their ~20 state system) by accessing a local number, even from a friends house. Highly recommended.

Anyone have any experience with the internet based calling system...no taxes there...yet.
 
i have been using onesuite for a couple years now....its about 98-99% reliable and the price is better than any i have ever seen
 
Another vote for onesuite.

Been using it for 3 years. Very, very reliable. Add $$ to my account immediately over the web. Register at their site your primary #s that you'd be likely calling from. Dial the 800 or local # they have, then dial your LD # after the prompt. Hell, I use this as my calling card when I'm on the road & my cellphone isn't working.

 
AT$T tried to charge me $7.09 this month for making NO CALLS WHATSOEVER. It's not just the $5 minimum, it's a $1 nonregulatory fee, and taxes.

I am so fed up with these scum. Sure they're losing money to cellphones, and there is a good reason.

I called and switched to the "simple" plan with no monthly fee or minimum, $.25 a minute. We'll use the cell phone for LD. I also got a refund of $7.10.
 
I don't know about you or other people, but I've gotten rid of my land phone, as I see no purpose of having a national long-distance plan when I can use a nation-wide subscribed cell phone to do the same thing.

Unless you're making international long-distance, I'd rather save some money and use a cell as sole contact.
 
I bought a One Suite plan before I realized it only lasted 6 months. Often I won't use that many minutes in 6 months. Thus, the statement on their website "and no catches" isn't completely true IMO. It's stated in the FAQ, but not in the 'tell me more' pages, or, that I remember, stated in the sign up process.
 
One Suite is the bomb. Works like a charm for me. Granted, there are other "tricks" out there, such as using your cellphone for long distance, but in terms of a dial-around LD provider, they throw rocks at everyone else I've seen with their 2.5 to 2.9¢ per minute rates and no BS fees. They don't even charge me sales tax.
 
Last Year I siged up with GlobalFiberNet and I get 3.5 cents / min state to state calling with no minimum usage fees as long as I signed up for online payment.
I live in California, so rates and availability may vary, but the rates are now 3.25 cents / min for my area.

When searching around for the signup link it seemed that there is some kind of referral plan going on. Here are a couple links that I found that had low rates when I did a search for my area code and prefix. Note: I am not affiliated with these resellers, agents, globalfibernet or any phone company at all. I just found a good deal.

http://www.airespring-ld.com/
http://www.globalfibernet.com/click.asp?nAd=GA202

For the past 3 months I have made 0 long distance phone calls and my bill has been $0 from them. Whenever I did have a bill it was rarely over $3 for occasional state to state calls. A free toll-free 877 number is available to you that will ring to your normal phone number. A cool feature, but it sux when people call it and it's a wrong number. In that case you get billed the 3.5 cents a min for their mistake.

I hope this helps,

Dave
 
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