Long distance phone service / calling cards explained

LD explained   International calls    customer sign up    calling card

Your phone service is comprised of "two" kinds of calls; INTERSTATE, which are calls made to areas outside of your state; and INTRASTATE, calls made within your state. Intralata or calls made within your local calling area that are still long distance calls are also intrastate calls. Some plans will give you a great rate on one but not the other, and most plans don't even address intrastate calls which are usually quite high from your local provider because they feel they have a monopoly on that part of your phone bill.  Not so.  Look at your phone bill and see what percentage of your calls are out of state and which are in-state. If 90% of your calls are out of state the 4.9 plan is a great buy , but in Washington State the intrastate rate charged by US West is  11-15 cents a minute which is high; you need a plan that covers BOTH interstate as well as intrastate calls.  

One reason intrastate rates are so high is that most plans try to average their cost.  Intrastate calls involve not only calls to major areas which are cheap but to Timbuktu and Podunkville which have little ma bells charging exhorbitant rates going and coming out of them.  I think the iPhone plan has it right. I am located in Silverdale, WA and most of my instate calls are made to Bainbridge Island, Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, etc.   For these calls my intrastate rate with iPhone is only 4.9 - 5.9  cents/minute.    That's a great rate to go along with their  interstate rates which can be as low as 2.9 and are often 3.9 - 4.9, especially when the plan is 6 second billing with no monthly service charge.   If I happen to call a remote ma bell area like Vashon Island, that call might cost as much as 18 cents a minute instate, but I can know that before I place the call using the rate finder on the iPhone  site, and I haven't paid a penalty for averaging the one call I might make to a high toll area when 99% of my calls are to low toll areas within the state.  Sound reasonable? My monthy phone bills using iPhone  for both interstate and intrastate calls have been averaging between 4.9 and 5.9 cents/minute.

•All business lines can be on one bill and all personal lines will be on a second bill. No matter how many phone lines you have, you should not have more than two phone bills.This is how you now get billed from your local company also.


For cheapest international calls Cognigen has a prepaid calling card in $5, $10, $20, and $40 amounts with incredible rates like 27 cents/min to Russia. But this card has a surcharge per call of 39 cents to $2 depending upon where you are calling and a 25 cents/month service charge. But if you make international calls a lot, I haven’t seen cheaper rates anywhere. Click on "calling cards" at  http://ld.net/?4392  and be sure to click on "international rates" with each of them to compare which is cheapest. You can also use the "best rate calculator" at 
http://ld.net/?4392   to find the cheapest international rate for the country you wish to call.


Customer sign up simply brings you into the program as a customer. No MLM involved unless you qualify as  QR.  You simply get the good rates on all the aforementioned phone service products and don’t have to deal with getting other people to sign up to get your good rate. It costs nothing to sign up for the service to become a customer and iPhone will even pay your local phone company’s $5 switchover fee if you circle the fee on your bill and send them a copy. They will also pay to have you switched back if you do not like the service. Your customer sign up DOES allow you to be a direct sales agent if you wish, but there is no obligation to do so. 

•To sign up for iPhone or another service more suited to your calling needs through Cognigen, do the following:

1. Go to our website at http:/Ld.net/?4392 and sign up online.

2. After you sign up they will send you an e-mail giving you an account number and a password and a URL to go to to print out a residential/business service agreement which you must FAX back to them ; fax number is provided on the form. OR you can   

3. Print out the residential/business service agreement and mail it to  the address at the end of the form. 

•Some plans will automatically send you a  calling card with your sign up but look carefully at the rate/min; you might be advised to trash it and get the RoadTel calling card below.


Calling card or phonecard? Which is best? For occassional use the 8.5 cents/min RoadTel calling card with calls charged to your home phone number on 1 minute billing  and NO Surcharges (except if you make the call from a payphone where EVERYBODY gets a surcharge) or NO monthly fees is a best buy. It also provides records of calls made. Kids need it to call home; you need it call home or anywhere else when there’s no change in your pocket or you just want to make the call the cheapest way possible. Long distance calls placed away from home by not using a calling card or phonecard are the phone company’s cash cow; ranging from $1 to $3.65 per minute. A few phonecards may be cheaper per minute but at 1 minute billing, recharge fees, shipping and handling fees, and surcharges ranging from 30 cents   to AT&T’s $1.79 per call I doubt you would beat the economics of the RoadTel calling card. You need to sign up for a RoadTel calling card separately from the 1+ service.There is a one time $3.95 accounting fee for setup to get any number of RoadTel cards but no fees thereafter.•RoadTel calling card - a best buy. No surcharges (except if call is made from a payphone, federal regulations  impose a 30 cent charge on any call from a payphone which goes to the owner of the phone).

1. Go to our website at http:/Ld.net/roadtel/?4392 and sign up online; or

2. Print out the RoadTel sign up form , fill it out,  & Fax to RoadTel at    1-207-439-6162;or

3. Print out the RoadTel sign up form, fill it out and Send it in to RoadTel at the address at the bottom of the page. What could be easier? This is an 8.5  calling card on 1 minute  billing  and again NO-Surcharges or monthly fees.  There is a one time only initial set up fee of $2.99. You have to designate a home phone number on the sign up, but you will be sent a separate statement for calls made on this card.

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