CUTTING YOUR PHONE BILL

The newly announced increase in GCT to 20% on telephone calls will force many of us to re-examine how much we talk and the medium we use to facilitate this ‘necessary’ action. The Consumer Affairs Commission strongly recommends that you take a look at the following factors, if you intend to maintain or reduce your telephone expenses.

Necessary Phone Calls?

As a result of the proliferation of the Jamaican marketplace with cellular telephones, it seems that persons have increased the “emergency” and “urgent” telephone calls they make. Calls that were previously avoided are now considered necessary. The CAC encourages each and every consumer to examine the nature of the telephone call before you make it. Is it really necessary to call your friend 20 times a day or call your brother in the next room? When you pause to think of the cause, you will find that many telephone calls are simply unnecessary.

For those calls that are less pressing you may consider alternative means of communication, e.g. the mail or email where you have broadband access.

Off Peak & Peak Hours

Organize your telephone calls. During peak hours make necessary calls only, and leave the others for those times when call charges are reduced. Peak hours may vary with each provider but generally begin after 7:00 pm. A quick comparison will show you a decrease of a few cents, which adds up to tens and hundreds at the end of your billing cycle.

Use Calling Cards

For most of us a quick review of your telephone bill will reveal that a significant portion of your call charges comes from cellular and long distance calls, using a calling card for these call will reduce your call charges.

Time yourself

The minute you pick up the telephone and dial out you should make every effort to monitor the duration of your call, the longer the call the more expensive. You will find that keeping your eye on the clock will help you stick within budget and when a phone card is being used, preserve the life of your card.

Remove features you do not need

Is it really necessary to have voice mail and star (*)69? Think about it, if it were important would the person not leave a message or call back. How often do you use call divert or use conferencing. Don’t get us wrong; if you need additional features apart from the basic then by all means get it. It is however unlikely that you need all the features, so get the features that you really need and used regularly.

Internet

Different service providers will offer you different packages, what is important to note is, the package you select should match your needs. For those persons who are always online, you should not select a phone services with a per minute charge or even a package with a flat monthly rate and a dial-up charge for each time you log on to the net, instead you could opt for a broadband connection where you are always on. If you rarely go on then why pay a flat rate? These are questions you need to ask and answer based on your own patterns of use.

Avoid disconnection

When your service is disconnected it adds to your overall costs, as there is usually a set fee associated with reconnection and in some instances a deposit is required before your service is reconnected. The best way to avoid all this is to make your payments on time. If your billing cycle becomes due at an inconvenient time then change it to match your cash flow.

Budget

Plan ahead. Allocate a fixed sum every month. Deduct from this sum your line rental charges and feature charges and keep in mind the 20% for GCT.

Tell us what issues you want addressed

Send e-mail to: cacjam@infochan.com or star@gleaner.com

Write to us at: 1B Holborn Road, Kingston 10 Or call us at: 926-1650-2 or toll free 1-888-991-4470, ask for our Information Desk