Telecommunications companies provide phone, Internet and digital, cable or satellite television services under a contract that covers a limited period, usually a year or two. When the contract expires, the service continues, but often without a previous discount or special offer. If you are outside of your contract period, you could be saving money by switching to a better deal, and the following tips will help.
1. Using Money Dashboard's budgeting software, work out how much you currently pay for television, Internet and landline phone calls.2. Don't sign-up for a broadband deal via a promotional salesperson, you'll find better deals online.3. Use our price comparison tool to compare broadband deals and find the cheapest deal available to you. 4. If you never use your land line phone, and you only have it for the Internet connection, look for a deal with cheap line rental and no call packages. 5. If you use your land line phone regularly, look for ‘weekend' or ‘any time' call packages to save money on your bill.6. Alternatively, you can save money by avoiding calling from the house phone and using a VOIP service like Skype to make calls. VOIP is certainly the cheapest option for international phone calls.7. If you use a lot of Internet bandwidth, maybe you're a hard core gamer or watch a lot of streaming TV and movies, then pay attention to any download limits on your broadband deal, or look for an unlimited package. 8. If you want TV, broadband and a land line phone, look for an all-in-one package to get the best deal on all three.9. Don't pay full price for premium channels or packages. Look online for deals, or call and ask if there's is any discounts available for new or loyal customers.10. If you watch live TV, either on the TV set or another device, or you record live TV with a DVR or DVD burner, then you are required to have a TV License. However, if you only ever watch catch-up TV, on-demand TV, DVDs, Blu-rays and/or listen to the radio (including BBC radio) then you do not need a TV License, and can save money by cancelling yours.If you find a deal that suits you, but you don't want the hassle of transferring to a new provider, call up your current provider and ask to speak to their cancellations or retentions department. Let them know you are considering switching and where you saw the deal, and see if they can make a similar or better offer. If you get flustered, or feel like they might cancel your service before you are ready, just tell them you need to think it over and will call back another time.
