Home phone Guides

Tips for cheaper home phone bills

Updated: Thursday 6 January, 2011

By Becca Talbot - becca@consumerchoices.co.uk

It’s easy to get cheaper phone bills if you know where to look. In fact, cutting the cost of your calls could be simply a matter of choosing the right tariff, rather than clock-watching while you’re on the phone.

The UK’s home phone market is made up of dozens of companies all vying for your custom. Each one caters for a particular type of customer - a household that makes a particular type of call – so you could waste a small fortune by picking the wrong one. But if you pick the right one, you’ll be laughing.

The best way to determine which phone provider is right for you is to take a look at your last bill. How much of it is made of UK peak-time calls? How much is UK off-peak calls? Does your current provider charge more for national calls and, if so, is this costing you a fortune? And how about international calls and calls to mobiles?

• If you make lots of national UK calls…
• If you make lots of UK calls at peak times…
• If you make lots of calls to mobiles…
• If you make lots of international calls...

If you make lots of national UK calls…

You could benefit from cheaper phone bills just by switching to a company that charges local rates no matter whether you’re calling (within the UK, of course).

If you make lots of UK calls at peak times…

Some companies don’t differentiate between peak and off-peak. This might mean paying a bit more for your evening and weekend calls, but this could average out quite nicely if you’re at home during the day. Don’t forget that using a dial-up internet connection in the daytime will be adding to your bills as well.

If you work from home or simply make lots of calls, you should consider an anytime unlimited phone package - this will allow you to natter on forever for a fixed monthly fee.

If you make lots of calls to mobiles…

Unless you have signed up to a calling plan add-on from your home phone provider, calls to mobile numbers are not normally included in your free calls allowance (i.e. your unlimited calls), and are charged at a more expensive rate than calls to landlines.

For example, if you’re a Virgin Media (www.virginmedia.com) customer with a cable phone line, calls to mobiles cost between 19.35p and 31.61p per minute during the day, depending which network you are calling.

You can save money by finding and switching to the home phone tariff that offers cheap rates to the networks you call the most, though. It’s easy - just use the Homephonechoices.co.uk calculator to search.

If you make lots of international calls…

You might benefit from a phone card or a prefix number that will redirect your international calls through a secondary provider, leaving you free to use your main provider for your UK calls. You can even get different prefixes or cards for calling different countries and, as long as you remember to use the right one, these can guarantee you far cheaper phone bills.

Whatever type of call you make most often, the easiest way to get cheaper phone bills is to use the Home Phone Choices calculator. Just give a few details about your calling habits and it will give you a list of the best tariffs for your household.

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