Direct Dial Long Distance Through Your Home Phone Provider
Every home phone provider offers standard per minute rates for long distance and many of them also offer packages with monthly fees that give you either significantly reduced rates, a bundle of long distance minutes to use every month, or even unlimited long distance. These packages are worth looking into and may give you acceptable rates depending on who your home phone service provider is. It may make sense to check out other home phone service providers in your area that may have cheaper long distance rates if you make a lot of long distance calls.
However, it is rare for a home phone provider to provide the absolute best rates, no matter how they package it, so make sure you check out other dedicated or dial around long distance providers as well. Rates vary significantly from province to province so I am unable to offer a comprehensive price comparison here but instead I will list the major home phone providers and the provinces that they service (see province abbreviations list @ Wikipedia) and you can compare the rates for your province yourself.
This list of companies does not include those companies that provide a VoIP based home phone and long distance service.
Direct Dial Long Distance Supplementing Your Home Phone Provider
Direct dial long distance providers are service providers that entirely replace the existing long distance service provided to you by your home phone service provider. That means whenever you pick up the phone and dial a long distance number, the call will be connected and billed through your dedicated long distance provider. The rates from these specialized companies tend to be a fair bit cheaper than those offered by your home phone provider otherwise there would be no reason for you to switch.
The long distance services listed below are available in most provinces so it is much easier to compare rates and plans.
Per Minute Rate With No Monthly Fees
These are the long distance providers that offer per minute rates without any monthly package price. In some cases, a network service fee may apply.
Per Minute Rate With A Small Monthly Fee
These are the long distance providers that either give discounted per minute rates by paying a small monthly fee in addition to the per minute rates. In some cases, a network service fee may apply.
Unlimited & Minute Bundle Canada Packages
These are the long distance providers that either have a package that provides unlimited minutes within Canada or a specific bundle of minutes for a given monthly rate.
Unlimited & Minute Bundle North America Packages
These are the long distance providers that either have a package that provides unlimited minutes or a specified bundle of minutes within Canada and the USA for a given monthly rate. Canada and the USA aren’t technically the only countries in North America but for the purposes of this comparison they are the only two countries considered to be North America.
Dial Around Long Distance
Dial around long distance providers are service providers that can be used with any traditional home phone service, and occasionally cell phone service, without replacing your existing long distance service provider. This is accomplished by first dialing an access number, usually prefixed with 10-10, to connect to their system and then entering in the phone number of the person you are calling to be connected to them. This works much like how calling cards work except that you usually always have your phone number registered with them so that you don’t have to enter any PINs or additional numbers outside of the access number. You also typically get billed for your usage directly on your phone bill after the fact and instead of prepaying.
It is also important to note that these services are usually only available with standard telephone service providers like Bell, Telus, and Rogers and they aren’t always available in all areas. If you have a standard, non-VoIP, telephone service you can easily dial the number to test and see if it will work for you.
Per Minute Rate
These are the dial around long distance services that offer a flat per minute rate. A few of the listed services do have minute bundles for the first several minutes of the call at a reduced rate. Those services are typically inferior for short calls because you are almost always charged for the full bundle of minutes even if you don’t use them. Alo is the exception to this rule in that for shorter calls they only bill you 5¢/min instead of billing you for the entire 50¢ minute bundle. 10-10-229, Alo, and Yak are the best options if you want a service that doesn’t have a minimum charge.
Bundle Of Minutes For A Flat Rate (Per Call)
These are the dial around long distance services that give you a bundle of minutes on every call for a set rate. This typically means that you will be billed the rate for the entire bundle of minutes even for short calls, which can end up being quite expensive. However, if your call is long enough to use up all of the bundled minutes or more, then you will typically get much cheaper effective rates than going with dial around service that charges you by the minute. Again, Alo is the exception to this in that they don’t bill you for the entire bundle of minutes if you have a really short call.
Unless otherwise noted, all of the services listed below have the same rate for both Canada and the USA and some of them offer the same rate to several other countries as well.
Unlimited Monthly Packages
Monthly packages are a bit of a rarity for dial around long distance service providers with Worldline being the only provider I know of that offers such a service. It can also be easily used with cell phones because it uses local access numbers (LANs) instead of the normal 10-10 number.
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