Discount Long Distance

Remember all those 10-10 long distance companies? You don't? Well, back in the late 90s there were many companies like 10-10-320 that ran television commercials for their discount long distance services. AT&T fought back...with Carrot Top.

These 10-10 numbers allowed a caller to dial ( often from pay phones, remember those?) the number and then pay only 10 cents per minute for long distance calls. I remember names like the "dime line" and these companies places ads and cards everywhere. Back then AT&T and MCI charged outrageous rates like 20-30 cents a minute to call someone across the state.

The "problem" with these dime a minute services was that eventually someone would come out with the 5 cent call, then the 4 cent, and 3 cent. Big companies lowered their rates to 7 cents per minute. And other competing services took over ( VOIP, wireless,etc). This was before EVERYONE had a cell phone. A lot of young adults had pagers. When they received a page they would call the number back from home or a pay phone.

Around 2000 many long distance companies came to be- offering 3-4 cpm without dialing a code every time you made a call. For a few years it was very easy to get someone to replace their AT&T plan with a <5 cents plan with no monthly fees.

While the heyday of this service is long gone ( people have cell phones, VOIP, Instant messaging, text, facebook now), there are still quite a few discount long distance companies with very good rates of 2-3 cents per minute on long distance calls.

Broadband Phone

Broadband Phone is growing in popularity and will continue to do so in our opinion. By Broadband Phone we mean phone service that uses your high speed internet connection. The most well known example is Vonage. There are MANY companies like Vonage with very similar offerings and deals. Even most local phone and cable companies now offer something like this and many are pushing the switch. For example, I was an AT&T land line customer but their reps talked me into switching to Uverse digital phone.

Carriers who felt threatened by VOIP have made the smart move by embracing the service. Many cheap broadband companies ( Sunrocket anyone?) have gone out of business.

International Call Origination from Canada and Overseas

Most of our international calling clients were based in the United States and wanted to call Canada or other countries. However, many clients actually lived IN Canada and wanted to make calls that originated internationally. This could include Canadians who needed to call friends in the United States or Europe.

The solutions for this are not as plentiful, however there are a few internationally calling cards and services that get the job done. Recent VOIP services also cater to Canadian customers and those who want to be able to choose where their calls originate.

Dialaround Long Distance Phone Service

Dialaround is a long distance phone service that allows the subscriber to save money on phone calls without changing providers. You signup for a service that gives you a toll free access code and allows you to "dial around" and use that provider for a specific phone call.

This service was particularly popular for international calls, where phone company rates where very high. We signed up a lot of customers who had origins in Asia and Eastern Europe especially. This works similar to the international calling card. However, the dial around providers allowed a customer to register phone numbers they would call from, with no need to use a card.

Bundled Phone Services

Bundled Services in this sense refers to local and long distance phone from the same company on one bill. In the "old days" of land line residential phone service, it was pretty common to have a local carrier and another for long distance. For example Verizon ( or another Baby Bell) would be the local carrier and you would get your long distance ( and separate bill) through AT&T.

In the early 2000s, a lot of local reseller providers started offering flat rate local and long distance for one price on one bill. These bundles often included many premium features ( call waiting, caller ID, voicemail) for "free" and a set number or unlimited minutes.

Many of the big local providers got in on the act as well as expanding wireless and digital phone ( voip) offerings. The reseller bundles have fallen out of favor. Now one can get a similar deal through AT&T, opt for VOIP services, or use free wireless minutes for long distance calls.

Bundles may now refer to subscribing to phone, cable/tv, and internet all through one provider. A cable triple play, if you will. For example I use AT&T Uverse for my home phone, internet, and television programming. Many cable companies offer something similar.

Delmarva Telecom Relaunch

We are in the process of moving our site delmarvatelecom and re-launching as a blog. The current site has a lot of issues and the design is antiquated. We have decided to make it a blog for easier updating.

I am going to be adding a lot of skeleton posts and doing a lot of editing and playing with the setting the next several days. The goal is to get all the info from the main site into blog form without missing anything.