If they are advertising a phone service that sounds great, you need to read the fine print first. Generally they will say that it is available for 3, 6 or 12 months at that price and then it will go up to the normal price, whatever that is. Then there are the "nickel and dime us to death" charges that they add for taxes and surcharges on top of that. You really need to call them and ask them how all this works with regards to their prices. Don't get duped by the ads.

I have have a new home (about 1 year old) in a new development and cable is poor here as well. I had digital for a while but it continued to have degraded service and finally cancelled it and went to satellite. Had cable techs out 3 or 4 times and they said it is a problem outside of my development. More people need to complain before it will get fixed. Satillite signal is great. Can't find the down side to switching. Still have analog cable since I have their internet service but don't really use it much for TV and will be getting rid of is as soon as fiber optic from Verizon is comple in my area. Analog cable is still snowy sometimes.

I find a lot of these companies have terrible customer service. Two previous telephone suppliers I have used must have been the worst ever. First one I had to complain to the telecoms regulator before they fixed the problem with my line, the second I was cut off by mistake but carried on being billed. I could never get speaking to anyone in customer service, just permanently in a queue no matter what time I called. This time it took the telecoms regulator and my solicitor to get it sorted. There a more suppliers than you can shake a stick at that will charge more or less the same for a like for like service. Before choosing one, call their technical support / customer service line. If you don't get speaking to a human within three minutes forget them and move on to the next one on the list. Saving a few coppers each month is no good if you can't get hold of anyone when there is a problem. So if you get good service from your current supplier(s), I'm not saying don't switch, but think long and hard about switching. If someone else is offering the same for considerably less, remember that they must be cutting costs somewhere.

I can think of a few easy ways to save money on telephone services. You can save money by owning rather than renting your telephone handsets, both for landline and mobile services. Landline telephones are cheap and rarely go wrong. Mobiles don't need to be changed every year either. Also, many landlines have extra services you pay for monthly. £3.99 a month for an answerphone service looks small, but it's almost £50 a year. You could buy an answerphone for much less and keep it for years. Anyone who has extra services on their telephone line should look at their yearly costs and think about how much they use these services. I believe a lot of people are paying for services they never actually use.