Hi everyone!

It occurred to me recently that I was paying far too much money per month for regular bills such as a landline telephone and internet access.  I’m not including cable because to be honest I’ve been using an indoor antenna for 3 years and pick up about 12 HDTV stations (including NBC, ABC, CBC, CTV, PBS, The CW, Fox, Omni1, Omni2, CityTV, SunTV and Global) so I’ve been saving $60-$80 a month a loooong time.  Woo!

So I began to look for better alternatives to paying money to the big money hungry corporations that sap our hard earned money every month for services that are lagging behind many other countries.  For example, our DSL internet access is pretty slow compared to South Korea (around 43Mbps) or Sweden at 21Mbps.  How sad that we’re still under 10Mbps average.  Boo-urns.

I had both my internet connection and landline telephone with Bell.  The total bill for both was approximately $85 a month ($35 for landline telephone and about $50 for Internet).   I had heard of VoIP but Rogers Home Phone and Comwave were both too expensive.  Rogers Home Phone runs about $34 a month and Comwave is about $30 a month.  Not good enough for me.

I started looking around on the Internet for better alternatives.  For an Internet connection, I had a choice between Teksavvy and Velcom.  Teksavvy had many great reviews but charged $39.95 a month for their unlimited bandwidth connection plus a $4 per month charge for using their MLPPP connection (something that allows you to bypass Bell’s throttling of Internet traffic).  Add in an extra charge of $7 for not having a landline telephone and I’m already at a price more expensive than Bell for my Internet connection.

Velcom on the other hand, charges $29.95 a month for unlimited bandwidth DSL, with a $7 extra charge for no landline telephone.  That’s it.  Hrmm $37.00 a month plus taxes seemed pretty good to me.  There were a few negative things said about Velcom in forums but I decided to go with them anyways.

I found a company online called VBuzzer which provides VoIP services.  This allows someone to make phone calls to landline customers anywhere in the world using either their PC or using their regular phone (if you have an ATA adapter).  I searched reviews online and found nothing negative said about them at all so I decided to take my chances.  I had my telephone number from Bell transferred over to Velcom and I ordered the ATA adapter that I needed to use my regular cordless telephones.  And how much did VBuzzer charge?  $50 (U.S.) per year total for the telephone number and unlimited calling to the Greater Toronto Area.

So in summary, here’s what I was paying before and after switching companies:

Before:

• $35/month for Bell landline telephone.
• $50/month for Bell Internet

After:

• $4.17 (U.S.)/month for VoIP telephone connection.
• $40/month for Velcom DSL Internet

Total Savings:  $40.63/month.

What do I do with this money?  I think I’ll buy stocks with it and earn some more passive income through dividends