I don’t know about you but as I’ve got older I just want things to flow along smoothly. No unexpected changes or surprises. That doesn’t mean I don’t instigate changes myself, just don’t like having them ‘forced’ on me
For more years than I can remember we have been associated with two phone providers. There is the national carrier T who provides the landline to the house and who we use for local calls and there’s the other carrier O who we use for long distance which on the bill are just termed as National and International. The old terms of STD (subscriber trunk dialling) and ISD (international subscriber dialling) that first appeared when subscribers could place their own calls without going through the operator seemed to have gone by the wayside now.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_switchboard
We split from T many years ago when the new carrier came on the scene and ‘special rates’ for long distance calls first appeared – at one time we used to makes lots of interstate and international calls and ‘these rates’ were much better than what we were paying. These days because of other ways of keeping in touch those calls vary month to month – there are still some we know without internet and others who don’t like emails and would run a mile rather than talk on skpe lol
So we receive two sets of accounts, line rental and local calls from one and another from the other company for everything else. Yes, we do have mobiles but we don’t feel about them the way so many do these days. We use the internet at home, mine is prepaid and The Golfer is on a very old low cost plan. It was a very good arrangement that as far as I was concerned suited us – until recently.
Fast forward to last month and we get a very nice note from the national carrier advising of a(nother) rise in the line rental. A necessary evil because we need it for our internet provider (another company unrelated to the other two)
So I start investigating other options and you’d never believe what I found.
Right under my nose as well 🙂
For less than the cost of the new monthly line rental I can now get (from T) a plan covering said rental plus unlimited local calls and lots of other low cost call charges and because we are pensioners (shush, we don’t always admit to that) there is a monthly allowance that will definitely cover those national and international calls we make using O plus various other extras. So we’ll basically be paying line rental and everything else will be free
How good is that 🙂
How daft (and pleased) did I feel when I realised that by returning to a full service with the national carrier I would be getting a bargain and saving myself some money as well.
Now I realise all businesses welcome new clients with open arms these days but I left the ‘shop’ feeling very content after the ‘very young girl – ‘almost a child’ – I spoke with to arrange this change looked me in the eye and came out with a variation of a very old expression
‘Welcome back to the fold’
Still Waters 
Woo Hoo.
I suspect leaving the fold is part of the reason for your excellent deal. We are still with them for a landline and don’t get a deal anything close to that good.
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There is so much competition now among telcos, it’s great news for us.
We have two landlines, one home and one business. Two wifi’s again home and business. Two Mobil phones and two iPads that have their own numbers. And because we bundle all of these on a business account we have saved lots and lots of money
Unfortunately they don’t tell you that. You have to go and enquire about these things yourself
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I am getting ready to make some serious changes and can’t help but wonder if what is better now might get worse and I will want to return to my current carrier.
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Good for you to find the better deal!
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Good for you Cathy! We have had a similar experience.
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I remember the terrible service we had in France when France Telecom had the monopoly…as soon as that was removed we removed ourselves to another operator as did many others. FT decided to change its image by changing it name to Orange and eventually came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to change its idea of service too…friends now tell me it is quite good….but were I mad enough to go back to France I would automatically be closing my eyes to the idea of using Orange because of the history.
Pays to stay aware!
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We are on the ‘senior’ rates. Any of them seem to be no bargain lately.
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Welcome back to blog world, Cathy. Good to see you. In Hawaii, I have one provider that provides telephone, Internet and cable TV. Good enough for me.
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Sounds like a good deal to me. Well done for making the effort to sort it all out. I agree about sales people being younger all the time. I suppose it will be so every year from now on!
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At some point, maybe a year back, I decided to get the Internet back on at home and went with a new provider (I’m in New Zealand) that my family thought was a good deal, and what happened it took over my landline and I found I wasn’t get such large invoices with extra charges.
So when I moved house recently, I found that his unit had “fibre” and my provider decided I would like that for an extra $2 a month. So I took it up.
when there were problems with the landline, they decided the new modem was at fault so overnight a new one was couriered…and then it all was up and working again.
So one provider and one monthly rate and it’s all back together…I don’t make many trunk or overseas calls so I won’t know if that rate has gone up or not…
And yes “help desk” all sound like they just left secondary school…
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