New technology advancements have made it easy for most carriers to now offer some type of prepaid phone service. Even though a prepaid plan doesn’t offer all of the same kicks as standard service it does have some really cool features that regular service can’t offer. Here are some of the advantages to having a prepaid cellular phone.

Prepaid Cellular Phone Service Benefits:

1. Easier to budget. Pay as you want when you want.
2. You can decide how many minutes you need and avoid paying for minutes you can’t use or don’t want.
3. No Credit Checks!
4. Freedom to pick your plan, minutes, carrier and phone.
5. No obligation and absolutely no contracts.
6. Avoid a surprise attack or an outrageous bill from yourself or a family member.
7. Minutes are easy to get and very assessable through many retailers, by phone and the Internet.

How can you go wrong with all these great features and benefits from prepaid wireless? While all of this sounds great, there are some outstanding features a consumer doesn’t want to overlook from having regular monthly billed cell phone service.

Contract Cellular Phone Service Benefits:

1. Free Phones! High priced phones for free or at a reduced cost for signing a contract.
2. More minutes for the money. (In most cases)
3. Low cost text messaging.
4. A lot of free night and weekend minutes.
5. Additional or multiple line discounts.
6. No worries of running out of time.
7. Flexible billing, plans and phones.

As you can see, there are some great features and benefits of each type of wireless service you choose. Take into consideration of what you and your family needs the phone for and then you can decide on what works the best. Take a test drive and look at the different plans and phones each has to offer. Some people prefer to prepay, while others like to be billed. There is no better choice for the public. Each cell phone user is unique and has different calling needs.

I couldn’t help but realize how far the cellular industry has come. There has been a tremendous improvements and the advancements can make one proud. Believe it or not, this customer really hasn’t used this phone at all since she bought it. The reason she wanted to change phone service was due to some over charges. I mean she would have had thousands of minutes on today’s plans and probably paid a lot less and had a much better phone.

We was able to hook her up with a fantastic new pink razor in which she loved. I was able to get her a plan with thousands of minutes for under $40 a month. The customer seems to be very thrilled. I am going to assist her in programming the phone once it arrives. This is just a warning of type to anyone who hasn’t changed phones or plans in a long time. It never hurts to do a little research and shopping and in the phone industry it may save you a lot of money with better products and service.

View the article, advantages and disadvantages of VoIP to learn the basic difference between services. A good rule of thumb to follow to determine which service is best, is to learn about your calling needs.

Do you make a lot of long distance calls? Just a few years ago, consumers paid nearly 0.35 cents a minute for long distance calls. As competition grew from the deregulation of long distance companies, the rates got much cheaper. Now it is very uncommon for a consumer to pay more than 0.10 cents per minute. VoIP can save money on long distance phone calls. Most VoIP companies, if not all, don’t charge any additional money for long distance calls. All calls within the USA are considered local calls.

VoIP can also save consumers money on calling features. Most VoIP phone providers will include all calling features such as voice mail, caller id, call waiting etc. at no additional cost. Each of the features can cost up to $7 more with traditional local phone service. However, many local phone companies are now becoming more competitive and offering discount packages which include calling features.

VoIp can not be used without a high speed Internet connection such as cable or DSL. If the high speed connection gets disconnected, dropped or has any service problems your phone service will not work. So you have to keep your DSL or cable paid or you lose phone service. Cable and DSL will be down more than traditional phone service. However, these connections are very reliable and rarely are out for long periods of time.

VoIP can also keep your telephone number private. VoIP phone numbers won’t be listed in the local telephone directory. It will be hard for others to find your telephone number. Some people actually like this. This also helps steer off the dreaded telemarketers. However, this does make it harder for emergency officials to track or contact you.

In general, consumers are still working out all the issues of having VoIP services and options. If you have DSL through a phone company, then VoIP may have to be purchased with them to become cost effective. A lot of phone companies will not sell their consumers dsl or high speed Internet without local phone service. In my opinion, this seems to be almost like a monopoly. Consumers should have access to services available in their area regardless of purchase. The beef on this is it seems as if VoIP offered through cable and phone companies cost more than through independent VoIP service providers. This would be like a food service not selling you a hamburger without first purchasing fries or a drink.

This makes it very difficult to pick the cheapest services available to you. For example; VoIP, satellite TV and DSL may offer the lowest prices. However, if you can’t purchase the DSL without buying phone service, VoIP may not be very useful to you. Cable Internet is all most always cheaper combined with cable services. This may be a burden if you want satellite TV. This makes it almost impossible to buy all three of these items from different companies.

The caller must first answer English or Spanish, then they may have to listen to phone numbers for additional departments and finally they will get options to get where they need to be. The problem is this entire process takes too long. Then the caller finally gets to a customer service rep. and has to wait for a long time. Even worse a caller gets disconnected. This entire process is a joke.

So what happened to real people? Companies are trying to automate process to save time, money and resources. They seem to think that the automated process eliminates many calls that customer care reps. don’t need to take. Some automated calls can answer questions and help consumers, but more times than not people are bothered by them.

In general people don’t like dealing with automated phone calls. Consumers want to talk with real people. Automated calls work great to check balances or take payments. However, they aren’t very good at answering questions or concerns. I think that companies lose many customers due to this process. In my opinion this cost them more money than it saves them. If there customers are always angry and can’t get their questions and concerns answered they are more likely to leave.

The one thing America has is competition. This gives the companies with real live people answering calls a huge selling point. These companies should market this and take advantage of this valuable lost art. Real customer service is what customers want. America has choices and are looking to take their business elsewhere when they are not satisfied.

Since the start of deregulation here in Texas, my electric bill has sky rocketed. I am fairly confident that these higher rates are in part due to deregulation. However, the price of gas and crude oil probably has played a bigger role. Most Americans have probably seen similar rate hikes without deregulation. MY bill in 2003 was never over $200 a month. With that being said my bill in 2006 was never below $200 a month. I had multiple bills over $400 and one costing me nearly $600. However, this country has had success in the past with deregulation of other utility bills such as local and long distance telephone service.

The deregulation of long distance service was probably first. Back in the 80’s many of us was paying 0.30 a minute for a long distance phone call. Now you can find rates as low as 0.02 cents a minute. And there are not many consumers who pay more than 0.05. So you can see how far we have come since the deregulation of long distance service.

Local phone service was next. This has had very similar results as long distance calls. You can get both unlimited and long distance phone service for about $30 with VoIP. VoIP has also added to the competition and helped us save money. However, most of us have not seen a tremendous drop in our standard telephone service bill. This is a good thing though. As most products and items we buy have had big increases since 1996, telephone service has not. Each day more and more Americans are getting the opportunity to choose their local phone company, and in general this deregulation has been great.

So why are we having trouble with the electric deregulation? This is a really hard question to answer. For one many local or cities have municipalities that control the electricity in the area. These cities or regions would be hit very hard if they had the competition. This really shouldn’t be a customer problem. If they have a good business plan and model they should be able to succeed as any good business in America does. They have all the equipment, lines and power plants as a head start against the competition. This should be a huge advantage for them. As competitors would have to buy or pay for access to this equipment to serve customers. Basically this would mean the competition would serve as a middleman of sorts. Another problem with the slowed progress of deregulation could be the required license to serve customers. The state monitors and requires companies to be licensed before serving us. This we should all be very thankful for, even though it slows down the progress.

If past performances tell us anything, deregulation of electricity will work and save us money in the long run. This may take longer than any of us want, but it should be worth the wait. I don’t know how many of us can deal with another round of high electric bills. Until we get this all sorted out, many unfortunate Americans will have to make sacrifices they can’t afford. In Texas one of the best sites to get more information about switching carriers is http://www.powertochoose.org

Tags: deregulation of electricity, electric bill, local phone service, long distance service, provider, companies, company, carriers,  municipalities, competitors, utility bills, rates, power palnts

If you purchase a used device or have lost your instructions, blue tooth can still be set up if you know the code. If you are using the Motorola brand cell phones you will want to dial 0000. It is really that simple. The prompts will enable you to hook up your wireless device.

If you are using the Nokia brand cell phones use code 1234. Again real simple and easy to follow prompts will connect your device. The are some of the most common cell phone manufactures available. However, other brands have similar codes and instructions to use. Contact your cell phone provider or manufacture for more details.

Tags: blue tooth, cell phone provider, manufactures, Nokia, Motorola, codes, technology, wireless

I signed up for a 30 day free trial of road side assistance through my cell phone company. I bought a new cell phone and they offered the trial free of charge for 30 days. I was more than happy to accept it.

It came to use very quickly. I was stranded on the highway with mechanical failure this Saturday and was in desperate need of some help. I tried many times to get my truck started at a very busy intersection with no luck. I had to call 911 for assistance.

They had a police officer come to the seen and help me out. We was to far away from a safe place to push it and there was no shoulder available to get out of harms way. The officer wanted me to have it towed. He even asked if I had a road side assistance plan or knew of anyone to call. All of the sudden the free trial came to mind.

I called the local store and ask for the emergency help number. Then I called them up and had a tow truck sent to me for help. They paid up to $75 per tow. Since I was only going a few miles away this would cover the entire cost of the bill. This is a big difference from having a police officer call in a tow truck. They can have rates exceeding $150.

I will never again go without roadside assistance and I am a firm believer in the benefits they offer. They had a truck to me in less than 20 minutes at no cost. This convinced me to keep my plan for many months and years to come.

Tags: road side assistance, emergency help, tow truck, mechanical failure

The discounted phone service is available to people on Medicaid, Food Stamps, SSS and housing assistance. All states could be different qualifications and additional people may qualify. Contact your current local telephone service provider if you need help. Ask about the lifeline ot Link-up program.

This can be very helpful to those truely in need. This system should not be abused in anyway to allow the government to keep funding these programs. Maybe with the help of lifeline you could now get that medication or food you need so much.

You can also learn more through via the Internet at FCC.

Tags: lifeline, low income assistance, link-up, governement help, Medicaid, Food Stamps, SSS and housing assistance programs

First of all you can take a few minutes and look over your last 5 or 6 bills and determine how many minutes you are using. If you are just sending messages because you are board or wasting minutes for no reason take this in account as well. Decide the average minutes you will need per month. Visit the website of your current cell phone company and look at the different plans they now offer. Pick the one that best meets your needs and have them change your plan.

If you are having trouble switching plans or they want you to renew a long contract, consider switching cell phone service. Not only will you get more plan choices, you can also look into getting a new phone. You might even find a free phone you like or get a sweet promotional deal from the new company. With the new technology, you can now switch carriers and keep the same phone number.

The competition is fierce, which allows you to have more options and in general better deals. So take a minute and look at your current plan and amount spent or your cell phone service. See if you can find ways to save money on services and cut minutes you do not use. There is no reason to spend more money than you have to. Check out our huge selection of free cell phones and plans.

Juston Garland
Editor, Nationwide Bill Relief

Tags: cell phones, cellular plans, text messaging, free cell phones, choosing a cell phone service

All you will need to do in order to get a refund on your 2006 taxes is fill out 1 additional line on your 2006 return. The IRS is also creating a short form for those who don’t have to fill out a regular return. You don’t have to figure out how much you spent or have copies of your phone bills if you use the standard refund. This seems to be a fair refund for all. If you paid for long distance service you will get a refund if you fill out the form.

This refund is for residential service, businesses and charities. To find out more information ask your tax advisor or simply visit the IRS website.

Juston Garland
Editor, Nationwide Bill Relief

Tags: income taxes, long distance tax credit, tax refunds, irs