It amazes me that my local telephone calling area is incredibly small. My parents, who live fifteen minutes away from me, are considered long distance. They can, however, call me for free. Their local telephone company has given them a vast calling area. I just don’t understand this. I’ve questioned my local telephone company about this several times and the usual answer is pretty much, “that’s just the way it is.” I’m not quite satisfied with that answer but there isn’t too much I can do. I just may end up fighting back by finding a new local telephone provider.
What also amazes me is the number of fees that are tacked onto my monthly bill. My phone plan is only supposed to be $34.99. My grand total every month is near $50. Something just doesn’t make sense. There are some companies out there that are getting rich from people like me. Half of the fees and taxes on my bill don’t even make any sense. When you question the local telephone company about it, I pretty much get the same answer that I get when I asked about my calling area. Is this just the way it has become? We’re quoted a price and choose a monthly calling plan based on our budgets and once the bill arrives, all of the fees and taxes put us over our budget. It isn’t just local telephone companies that do this. It is everywhere.
We don’t have too many local telephone providers that are in competition with one another so shopping around didn’t prove to be too much of a success. I probably will switch companies just for the ability to call more areas for free. At the moment, my calling area is terrible. I need a much larger area. As I was in the midst of my searching for a competitive offer, I received a call from another local telephone company. Maybe they got my subliminal messages about wanting new offers because I had not yet solicited them. They offered me a phone plan that included unlimited calling to the entire country! I would not get a long distance charge for calling any of our 50 states. That sounded way too good to be true. Nope, for only $39.99 a month it would be mine. I jumped all over that. Sure, it wouldn’t be any cheaper than what I was currently paying but to not have to worry about long distance calls would make things in my household so much nicer. I made certain that phone call had been recorded.
When I hung up the phone, I was all too happy to call my present local telephone company and cancel my services. When they began to offer me new things to get me to remain and asked me why I was leaving, I replied, “That’s just the way it is.” Then I hung up. Wow, that felt great.