Q. I turned in my converter box to Comcast three years ago. I just found out that I have been charged $3.79 every month for the past three years for a converter box that I no longer have. When I complained to Comcast, I was told it was my responsibility to call it to their attention. Robin from customer service informed me that they only had to credit me six months. Shouldn’t the company be responsible for removing these charges from my bill?

GERALDINE RYAN
Lawrenceville

A. The company agrees with you, Geraldine. Comcast’s Jody Doherty asked customer care agents to research your account. You are correct. The three years worth of $3.79 monthly payments were deducted in error. Ms. Doherty says Comcast will give you a full refund of all 36 or so payments, along with its apology.

«Mrs. Ryan is a valued customer,» said Ms. Doherty. «Comcast prides itself on stellar service and we thank her for bringing this problem to our attention.»

So what happened to the «we only have to refund six months worth of payments»? You were charged for a service you did not receive. Unless you signed a contract that specifically gives a company a refund deadline, there is no six-month limit on errors.

Company reps might say they can only refund six months. That may be all that particular person is authorized to refund; to get the rest, perhaps you have to talk to a supervisor.

Company reps might tell you it is their company policy to refund only six months. That could well be true, but that does not mean you have to accept the company policy. That policy is often based on how many months of easy computer access a customer rep has.

Just because a customer service person tells you that refunds are limited to three months or six months doesn’t make it so by law.

That said, this is another example of why it is important to look closely at what we are paying for on our monthly bills. Mistakes happen and the sooner we catch them, the easier they are to fix.

Q. When I opened my Verizon bill, I was surprised by a $2 charge for long-distance service that I never knew I had. I didn’t order it. Verizon said I had this «timeless» long-distance plan for a while. Before there had been no monthly fee and no charge if I didn’t make any long-distance calls. Now Verizon says I have to pay $2 a month not to make long-distance calls and if I don’t want to pay the fee, I have to pay Verizon $5 to take the charge off. What’s going on?

CHUCK BERTRAM
Plum

A. Verizon is doing what AT&T did a while back, surprising old customers with a new charge. In fact, that may be how many of you became Verizon «timeless» customers. Back when AT&T started charging customers a monthly fee for a long-distance service few people realized they had, you might have switched to Verizon’s no-monthly-fee plan.

The people most likely to be surprised by this charge are those who rarely, if ever, make long-distance telephone calls. If you were on this «timeless plan» and didn’t make long-distance calls, you wouldn’t see any sign of the timeless program on your bill.

As of Aug. 1, that changed. Customers listed under Verizon’s «timeless plan» will now be charged a $2 monthly fee that will allow them to make in-state long-distance and state-to-state, direct-dialed long-distance calls for 10 cents a minute.

If you don’t want to pay that $2 charge, you can change to a different Verizon long-distance plan and pay 35 cents per minute with no monthly fees. You can say you want to drop long-distance plans altogether or you can switch long-distance carriers.

Verizon’s Lee Gierczynski said there is no fee for switching plans or dropping long-distance. There is a $5 fee for switching from one long-distance company to another.

My husband does an amazing job filing old bills. So I had no doubt he could dig up more than three years’ worth of MCI bills if we ever wanted to actually calculate a refund on our 2006 federal income tax return for a now-defunct, long-distance phone tax.

My husband found those bills -- or most of them. We quickly concluded that we’re not going to make big money by trying to file yet another tax form.

I doubt whether you would, either. So maybe we don’t need to feel guilty if we opt for the easy out on this one.

Refund based on excise tax

Recently, the Internal Revenue Service announced guidelines for a onetime tax refund based on the old excise tax on long-distance phone service. The refund is available to anyone who paid long-distance taxes on landline, cell phone or Voice over Internet Protocol service.

The federal government lost a series of cases in which courts held that the 108-year-old tax didn’t apply to long-distance service as it’s billed today. The government stopped collecting the excise tax on long-distance service as of July 31.

The IRS refund applies to the excise taxes paid after Feb. 28, 2003, and before Aug. 1, 2006.

To get the easy money, taxpayers only have to fill out one additional line on their 2006 income tax return. You don’t need your old bills. You won’t have to itemize deductions to get this refund.

And if you don’t typically file a tax return because you don’t owe taxes, you’d want to file what’s called a Form 1040EZ-T to get the phone refund.

The standard refunds are:

• A maximum refund of $60 for a family of four or more.
• A $50 refund for a family of three.
• A $40 refund for two.
• A $30 refund for a single filer.

«It’s going to be based on the number of exemptions you’re claiming on your 2006 tax return,» said E. H. Rubinsky, tax analyst for RIA, a provider of tax information and software to tax professionals.

«They’re trying to simplify this.»

The IRS said the standard amount is based on telephone usage data and reflects the tax paid by similar-size households.

The most recent rate for the excise tax was 3%.

Then again, individuals who think they’re being shortchanged also have the option of calculating the tax by finding their old bills and filling out the new Form 8913.

But because the IRS refund applies to the excise taxes paid dating back more than three years, filers would potentially need to dig up 41 months of old phone records.

Many tax experts suggest that consumers simply take the refund money on the table and skip the scavenger hunt for old bills.

«Leave that garbage bag at home, where it belongs. Don’t bring it to my office,» joked James Jenkins, president of Jenkins & Co., a tax firm in Southfield.

Paperwork hunt

To check this out, I looked at our old bills.

My husband and I have our long-distance service through one carrier. Our local service is through another carrier. So we needed only the long-distance bills from MCI.

But it helps to eyeball a few bills to see what kind of taxes you’ve been paying.

At our house, we’d get $50 without digging up any bills. That’s the standard refund for two parents and one child.

The actual excise tax?

A random look at our bills showed that we paid anywhere from 35 cents to 55 cents a month from 2003 through the time the tax expired.

For example, we paid 55 cents for the tax on our long-distance bill in June 2006. That bill totaled $21.17.

Say we even paid 60 cents a month each month for 41 months, we’d still be talking about only $24.60 in excise taxes.

The standard refunds start looking more reasonable.

Yes, the tax refund includes some interest. But we’re also talking about extra work digging up bills -- and filling out forms.

Certainly, there are exceptions.

If you’re single and someone who uses long-distance a lot, you might come up with a bigger refund on your own.

Or if you have more than one phone service, say, long-distance service for a landline and cell phone service, you might be able to get a bigger refund by finding your old bills, said Maggie Doedtman, tax advice manager for H&R Block in Kansas City, Miss.

But in most cases, don’t waste your time digging.

Telephone tax refunds

• Businesses and nonprofits are required to base their telephone tax refund on the actual amount of the tax paid. The IRS last week said it is continuing to work on a reasonable method for estimating those
• Remember, the excise tax continues to apply to local service. The IRS does not refund taxes on local service.
• Individuals are expected to receive about $10 billion in telephone tax refunds next year, economists at the U. S. Department of Treasury say.

The Community Agency for Senior Citizens is a good place to start if you have questions about care
Monday, November 29, 2004

As executive director of the Community Agency for Senior Citizens (CASC), Richard Reetz can relate to the dilemma that adult children face when trying to care for aging parents and loved ones from afar.

While Reetz was living on Staten Island, trying to balance his responsibilities on the job and at home, he was also trying to care for his own older parents back «home» in his native Massachusetts. His sister, his only sibling, lived even further away, in California.

Although his parents have since passed away, Reetz remembers «it wasn’t easy» from 400 miles away to make sure they had the proper services and care.

«I sympathize with any Staten Islander who has to care for a parent or loved one who lives out of state, or even off the Island.

»And I sympathize with those adult children who grew up on Staten Island but moved away to make their own lives, and now have to worry about care for a parent or loved one who still lives here," said Reetz.

More than 5 million of the 34 million Americans caring for older family members live more than an hour away from the relative needing care, according to statistics from the MetLife Mature Market Institute. The institute and the National Alliance for Caregiving released a study in July, «Miles Away: The MetLife Study of Long-Distance Caregiving,» that found long-distance caregivers live an average of 450 miles or 7.2 hours away from the care recipient.

It’s a trend that’s expected to grow, in part because our society is increasingly aging and mobile, with parents and children relocating away from each other for reasons such as a job change or a retirement home.

«The problem is that the so-called ’extended-family’ just doesn’t exist anymore, once you get down to the second and third generations,» said Reetz.

But Reetz, whose agency is the jumping-off point for senior services on the Island, has some tips for those having to care for aging loved ones by long distance.

First, he said, try to identify the exact municipality, county and state of residence of your parent or loved one. «That may sound easy, but once you get out of New York City, you run into villages and towns, townships, cities, counties and regions. It’s a whole new ball game,» Reetz noted.

Once you get this information, however, you can identify the agency or agencies that provide services to seniors in the area and make contact with them. «You can determine what services are available and how services can be coordinated,» he said. The federal Older American Act provides funding to each state for services for the aging, and determines how those funds and services are dispersed.

Adult children trying to provide services to a parent or loved one living on the Island can call the city’s Department for the Aging or contact CASC directly, Reetz said.

The city funds a network of social service, transportation and nutrition programs for seniors. «Although there are gaps in service, and we’ve weathered some budget cuts, as a whole, New York City is very generous with its funding and types of services for the elderly, when compared with other municipalities,» he observed.

What not to do, Reetz said, is feel guilty about not being there to care for a loved one. Neither should an adult child try to impose care on a parent or loved one.

«Sometimes we feel guilty that we can’t be there, and we want to make things easier. But however well-intentioned we might be, we can’t make people do something, such as move in with you or move to a care facility or accept live-in help, against their wishes,» he said.

The best advice, experts say, is to be proactive in making care-giving choices.

Arrangements for care should be made «with mutual respect,» for the adult child and parent, and ideally while a parent or loved one is well enough to participate in the decision-making process, Reetz said. «As difficult as it may be to raise the subject of care, these things should be discussed together,» he said.

Discussion can occur while a child is visiting a parent in his or her home, or while a parent is visiting the home of a grown child. An adult child can express concern, but a parent or loved one should express his or her preferences for care.

«You can say something like ’Mom, you are healthy now, but when and if you couldn’t manage on your own, what do you think you would like to do? And since I can’t be there, what would you want me to do?’ Once it’s out on the table, it gets the discussion going,» Reetz suggested.

To reach CASC, call (718) 981–6226. The agency’s office is located at 56 Bay St. in St. George.

Diane Lore is a feature writer and columnist with the Lifestyle section of the Staten Island Advance. You may e-mail her at lore@siadvance.com.

By TAKAMITSU SAWA

It looks as though Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is determined to push through postal privatization as the ultimate goal of his structural reform efforts.

It is generally agreed that government enterprise should not threaten private business and that privatization is desirable without qualification. Few doubt that the privatizations of Japanese National Railways and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corp. in the 1980s were successful.

When it was privatized, JNR was split into six regional passenger railway companies and a freight railway company, all of the JR group. Although residents of remote, sparsely populated areas were inconvenienced by the abolition of deficit-ridden lines, most Japanese greatly benefited from JNR’s privatization, as it improved passenger service and cut train fares. High-speed Shinkansen trains, however, still charge high fares, with little competition from higher-cost airlines and inexpensive but slower buses.

As for the the telecom giant, it was privatized as NTT, but it was not divided into regional units. The privatization coincided with the launch of three telecom companies that was supposed to make the market competitive. Still, NTT monopolized intra-city telephone circuits, forcing its three new rivals to specialize in long-distance telecommunications.

The liberalization of the telecom market started in an environment of unfair competition. For example, in relaying a long-distance call from Kyoto to Tokyo, Daini Denden -- now known as KDDI -- provided wireless communications between base stations in the two cities. NTT offered the use of individual telephones in Kyoto and Tokyo and its intra-city circuits between base stations, but its rivals had to pay for the use.

Then the market was hit by the unforeseen boom in the popularity of cell phones, e-mail and and Internet-based telephone service. With the sharp decrease in international and long-distance domestic telephone calls, the use of subscriber phones declined. Use of public telephones is steadily decreasing.

There is no doubt that the privatizations of JNR and NTT successfully enhanced public convenience.

The business of networks -- be they railways, telecom-related, power grids, highways or mail services -- usually starts as a national enterprise. That’s because the business requires a huge initial investment for laying a national network that offers «universal service»: All regions must be covered.

It is generally agreed that it would be unfair to limit expanded mail delivery, new supplies of electricity and the construction of railways and highways to urban areas with high population densities. Similarly, it would be unreasonable to expect profit-seeking private enterprise to offer universal service.

For example, the nation’s 10 electric power companies are required to supply power to any region, including remote rural areas and isolated islands.

However, network businesses sometimes develop problems peculiar to monopolistic activities, such as redundant labor, inefficiency from the practice of basing service charges on capital investment, and the tendency to maintain costs and profits at levels that do not directly correlate to demand. The result is high charges, with chronic deficits covered by tax revenues.

In Japan’s high-growth years, when steady growth in tax revenues was taken for granted, few complained about using tax money to cover JNR’s deficits. After the international oil crunches, though, Japan entered a slow-growth period, and the rate of tax-revenue increases slipped, causing a chronic budget deficit.

There was consensus that much of the deficit stemmed from the use of tax money to subsidize national enterprises, and this sparked efforts to reform JNR. To eliminate JNR’s deficit, it was mandatory to abolish 3,000 km of unprofitable rail lines and to dismiss redundant workers.

It was impossible to implement drastic reform while JNR remained a national enterprise with the government covering operating deficits. Privatization was the only way to eliminate the chronic deficit. The rationale was that a private enterprise would go bankrupt if it continued to post deficits.

However, private enterprise is not always superior to government service. In the United States, where there are calls to privatize prisons, nobody would deny that human-rights abuses could occur in private prisons. In Iraq, some military services are manned by mercenaries from private companies. This is likely to have been a factor in the abuse cases reported in Iraqi prisons.

As the economist John Maynard Keyes said, distinction must be made between what the government should do and what it should not do.

Takamitsu Sawa, professor of economics at Kyoto University, is also the director of the university’s Institute of Economic Research.

The Japan Times: Nov. 29, 2004

By Hadar Horesh

«Dry run» launches of products and services that are inaccessible to the consumer have become de rigueur in the communications sector. Cellcom announced «Third Generation Services» that would enable video communications between subscribers, but didn’t really tell us that the infrastructure covered only a small area of the country, the devices were expensive and hard to come by, and the last thing the cellular service provider really wanted was mass demand for this nonexistent service.

Internet service provider Netvision entered the international long distance calls market with a ploy that offered service only to subscribers with a huge number of calls to North America. That may not have actually constituted long distance service, but it made the company look like it was competing in the international calls market a few weeks earlier than it actually had service for all.

But the cable television sector’s launch of telephone service was the greatest feint of all. In light of state-run phone company Bezeq’s image as an unbeatable monopoly, and because all previous attempts to break it have failed, many hoped that this time was the real thing. No more empty politicians’ declarations of «the dawn of the age of competition,» but real competition, using the cable television network that already reaches 97 percent of Israeli households.

When the hoped-for declaration came, exactly on the date the cable companies had promised, the headlines shouted the end of the communications monopoly so loudly it was virtually audible. But behind the headlines, it became clear that, at least for the moment, nothing in the sector has changed. Bezeq still rules the roost, and the cable companies don’t care to shake the tree.

Using a sophisticated price list, they explained that the new service is just a small perk they plan at the moment to offer a chosen few subscribers (perhaps those who threatened to desert in favor of satellite TV? No one said so explicitly, but the cable companies also don’t deny it). A policy of «customer retention» in multichannel television does not constitute competition with Bezeq.

The cable companies didn’t choose the timing of the declared launch for business purposes or for public relations, as other companies have done. They tried to meet conditions they accepted when they got permission to merge into a single cable television company. The conditions mandated they had to launch a commercial telephone network. And what do you do when you miss a deadline? Announce a service that doesn’t actually exist.

We can hope it’s just a minor technical problem, and the CEO of the cable companies’ joint operations Ram Belinkov will live up to his promises to provide the service to all in a matter of months. But the unnecessary and misleading launch could have been avoided simply: those who determined that the cable telephone network had to go live in a year, could have given them a reasonable extension to make the launch of cable telephone service a real celebration for communications consumers.

New Delhi: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has decided to slash tariffs for leased line based Virtual Private Network (VPN) services by about 50 per cent from December 1.

The move would benefit corporate houses, which would now be able to take a 2Mbps connection from BSNL for as low as Rs 3.5 lakh per year compared to the existing tariff of Rs 6 lakh per annum.

The higher standard VPN services with 99 per cent assured quality level would cost Rs 7 lakh a year compared to Rs 12 lakh at present. The move is aimed at reducing the gap with the tariffs offered by private Internet Service Providers (ISP). VPN services are used by corporates to link up their retail chain and branch offices on a secure and dedicated communication network. Until now, private Internet Service Providers such as Sify have dominated the VPN market owing to lower cost of operations compared to long distance operators who are also competing for a share of this segment.

The BSNL move assumes significance as it comes at a time when a decision by Department of Telecom (DoT) to impose entry fee and licence fee on private Internet Service Providers for offering VPN services has come under heavy fire from the industry. The fresh levy would increase the cost of operations for private ISPs that is likely to be passed on to their consumers making Internet services such as VPN dearer.

ISPs have accused the DoT of imposing the entry fee at the behest of BSNL. The state-owned company had earlier objected to ISPs offering VPN services as it was beyond the scope of Internet operators’ licence. BSNL has even refused to give leased lines to the ISPs on grounds that the level playing field was not even. While long distance operators such as BSNL had to pay a licence fee of 15 per cent of the annual revenue, ISPs did not pay anything. This kept the costs of leased line service from long distance operators at a higher level compared to ISPs.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority (Trai) is reportedly working out a new access deficit regime for international long distance calls. If so, it is barking up the wrong tree. While a reduction in a questionable charge is welcome, sound policy calls for more than just tampering with the quantum. It is small comfort that Trai has officially acknowledged that the present access deficit charge (ADC) on all telephone calls are too high and will be reduced shortly. But it is not enough. As we have said in these columns earlier, the ADC regime in its present form must be given a speedy burial.

Trai had said as much in more than one of its earlier assessments, which favoured a change to a revenue-share mechanism for implementing the ADC. It noted the current method „is complex, dependent on distance and whether the call is inter-circle or intra-circle…(and) creates an incentive to misreport the category of calls.“ More important, there is no clear categorisation of the loss to BSNL from rural telephony. Phone companies have no incentive to check the origin of any call terminating on their network, since regulations do not allow them to negotiate the rate they get for this.

Ironically, this is despite the fact that we already have a universal service obligation (USO) fund, financed by levies on all carriers, which is meant to subsidise rural telephony. A disbursement mechanism from the kitty is in place. There is no reason why the expenses meant for paying the ‘access deficit’ cannot come entirely out of the USO fund, by merging ADC with the latter. Trai had itself made such a suggestion last year, saying a USO-like revenue share represents a big improvement over the current per-minute ADC. The reason is that it removes the incentive to pass off calls originating from abroad as local ones. Remember, it is precisely on this point that BSNL and MTNL have taken Reliance to court. A flat revenue-share-based levy would certainly be far better than having one with such divergence — from 30p to 80p on national long-distance calls to Rs 4.25 on international ones.

The point is, if something has to be subsidised from levies on private parties, the charge should be simple and transparently administered. And it most certainly must not be big enough to create an incentive to avoid paying. Where the money is going and how should also be clear. The present per-call ADC fails the test: there are inherent incentives to conceal matters at more than one point, the charges are regarded as too high, the mechanism is dispute-prone. Having just one subsidy kitty and financing it with a simple levy on revenue, as with the USO fund, is far better.

Opponents say there’s not enough ’effective competition’ in available service. Qwest disagrees.

REGISTER BUSINESS WRITER
Not long ago, Iowans had only one option when ordering telephone service: the local phone company serving their area.

These days, consumers buy telecommunication services from a number of competing wireline, wireless and cable television providers. State regulators are scheduled to rule today whether those choices form enough competition to allow the market — not the state — to determine phone rates.

The Iowa Utilities Board is considering telephone deregulation in Sioux City, Council Bluffs and 22 smaller markets. The board is also considering deregulating second residential telephone lines throughout the state.

Deregulation in other states has produced mixed results for consumers. Nebraska saw little change in rates, while fees increased in Ohio, consumer advocates say.

Iowa law allows deregulation if the board finds «effective competition.»

Deregulation opponents, including rural Iowa phone companies and national long-distance carrier AT&T, say Iowa does not yet have effective competition. But Iowa’s largest local phone company points to increasing communication choices.

«There’s a lot of competition out there,» said Max Phillips, Qwest’s state president for Iowa. «It’s all shapes and sizes, and more is on the way.»

Qwest and other regional phone companies are legacies of a monopoly era shaped by regulation. But the Telecommunications Act of 1996 allowed other providers to compete against the «Baby Bells» for customers.

Now phone companies can compete in service territories of rivals. Long-distance carriers like AT&T were allowed into local markets. Cable television providers like Cox Communications launched phone services. In some cases, cities themselves offered telecom services.

Qwest advocates telephone deregulation statewide. That would be a mistake, Cox Communications attorney Bret Dublinske said in comments to the board. Cox, which has about 1 million access lines in 10 states, is not an equal to Qwest, which has more than 14 million lines in 14 states.

«Its size and reach — built without risk due to regulatory protection — dwarfs any other fully facilities-based competitor operating in Iowa,» he said.

Curtis Eldred, manager of Cedar Communications in Stanwood, told the utilities board he’s at a competitive disadvantage. A deregulated Iowa Telecom could cut prices in his territory and recover revenue in its regulated areas — an option he does not have.

«It is unlikely (Iowa Telecom) would be significantly affected financially if it operated at a loss in Stanwood,» he said.

The Iowa Office of the Consumer Advocate, a state agency that represents consumers in utilities matters, supports deregulation in the 22 smaller markets but not Council Bluffs or Sioux City.

In those two cities, companies rely on leasing agreements with Qwest to compete, attorney Gary Stewart wrote in a filing. Long-distance companies like AT&T, for example, do not own their own lines reaching customer homes. Instead, they lease access to Qwest’s network. The arrangement leaves competitors and consumers vulnerable to Qwest pricing changes.

That contrasts with the smaller markets under consideration where independent phone companies have built their own networks to compete for customers, Stewart said.

The state’s deregulation inquiry comes as the Federal Communications Commission is rewriting rules determining how Qwest and other Baby Bells share their networks with competitors. The Bells have said they have been forced to open their networks to competitors below their cost of operating them. Recent federal court rulings have favored the Bells. The FCC is scheduled to issue new rules next month.

A federal report issued Monday suggests that Amtrak cut its long-distance routes, including the Texas Eagle that runs through East Texas.

The report by the U. S. Department of Transportation’s inspector general, Kenneth Mead, says the train service should drop long-distance routes in favor of repairing and maintaining short-distance routes in the Northeast, where Amtrak owns the rails on which it runs.

Amtrak leases access to other rail tracks around the country, including Union Pacific in Longview, Marshall and other East Texas cities.

The Texas Eagle runs from San Antonio to Chicago.

Mead said the current system can no longer be maintained.

„The total funding Amtrak receives from all sources is not sufficient to maintain the current system in a state of good repair,“ he said.

Congress has consistently given Amtrak less than the railroad has said it needs for maintenance and capital investment.

This year, Amtrak sought $1.5 billion, but the Bush administration proposed $900 million, which the House approved. Over the weekend, though, House and Senate negotiators agreed to a $1.2 billion subsidy. At that level, Amtrak will not be able to undertake the capital investments it had planned.

The railroad delayed capital investments last year, too. For that year, it asked for $1.8 billion but got about $1.2 billion.

Amtrak has posted losses of at least $500 million each year for the past 10 years, but Meads’ report noted that ridership was up last year.

At least one supporter doubts the Texas Eagle or other long-distance routes will be cut.

«This sort of statement is not anything new … (Kenneth Mead) is really saying that Amtrak needs a stable source of funding. It’s never had its own source of funding. It’s been starved,» said former Marshall Mayor Audrey Kariel, who heads the transportation committee for that city’s chamber of commerce.

«I think that the Northeast corridor alone would cost the same without the long-haul trains,» Kariel said.

Kariel believes the Texas Eagle and other routes still exist because of support from people such as U. S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who has adopted a «national or nothing» approach to Amtrak. That support would disintegrate if Texas lines shut down, because senators like Hutchison would have no interest in funding a system located mainly in the Northeast.

«I think it would be a very big mistake to cut the long-distance trains. There is a big battle in Congress over what do with Amtrak,» Kariel said.

The Texas Eagle route also passes through Arkansas, where Bill Pollard is fighting to maintain it.

He said Mead is holding Amtrak to a higher standard compared to all public transportation systems.

He said the long-distance routes have been gaining passengers and real problems are a lack of equipment and freight congestion.

«(Closing down the long-distance routes) would not significantly reduce the loss.

»The vast majority of Amtrak’s funding goes into the railroad they own in the Northeast corridor," said Pollard.

He also doubts any major changes will take place, calling Mead’s report a «same song, different verse» that has been issued annually.

In a statement, the National Association of Railroad Passengers said if the national network is destroyed, Congress will no longer want to support Amtrak. «Eliminating that network, while preserving every existing short-distance service, would create a 21-state ‘system’ of four isolated mini-networks, weakening Amtrak’s ability to get federal funding,» the group said.

The New York Times News Service contributed to this report.

By Julia Bauer
The Grand Rapids Press

When Diane Hysell realized she was talking too little and paying too much for her cell phone service, she dumped the wireless contract and bought a pay-as-you-go phone.

«I don’t use it a lot. My husband and I figured out this was a better deal,» said Hysell, of Kentwood. «You can see the amount of money you have left on it.»

Because she is not a heavy user, Hysell figures she will save money with Virgin Mobile’s base fee of $20 for three months of service -- or one-fifth of what she paid to Verizon Wireless for a cell phone rarely used.

It costs her 25 cents per minute for the first 10 minutes each day. If she hits the 10-minute mark, each additional minute costs a dime.

Hysell likes the convenience of the cell phone, but will never give up her home phone, a service that costs about $25 a month.

Hysell -- like millions of us -- has embraced the new while clinging to the past.

«People view wireless phones as a necessity,» Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Michelle Gilbert said. «The 20-somethings group is the first generation to grow up not knowing life without cell phones.»

Of the 170 million cell phone users in the United States, more than 90 percent also have traditional phone service. Only 7 percent of cell phone users have abandoned home phone lines entirely.

«I don’t think we’re going to see the day when the landline goes away,» Gilbert said. «The wireless phone just gives a customer freedom to use it almost anywhere.»

Ray Carigon, a retiree in Saranac, got his first cell phone five years ago.

«I wouldn’t leave home without it,» said Carigon, who pays about $80 a month for phone service.

The breakdown is nearly even -- about $40 for the cell phone and $38 for the home phone.

«The main reason to have the home phone is for our incoming calls and 911 service,» Carigon said.

Long-distance calling

People who use a traditional home telephone for long-distance calls keep the phone companies happy. It fattens the monthly bill you pay, which fattens their bottom line.

You can drop long-distance coverage on your home phone and instead use prepaid phone cards or the 10–10 long distance dialing plans. A $10 telephone card from Walgreens, for instance, gives you 100 minutes of phone time in the United States.

If your cell phone has unlimited long distance, use it instead.

Another cost-cutting option works for cell phone users who call people in the same wireless family. Verizon Wireless, Nextel and other large cell phone providers give customers free minutes or price breaks when they talk to others in the system.

«If most of the people you know are on Verizon, you can save money because you don’t need as large of a rate plan,» Gilbert said.

You also can save money if one phone company handles all of your communications needs -- local service, long distance and high-speed Internet, for instance.

Americans pay nearly $159 a month to stay super-connected: $48 for cell phones, $36 for local phones, $9.50 for long distance and in-state toll calls, plus $65 for high-speed Internet and cable or satellite television service.

«Many consumers are now overspending on telecommunications costs,» concluded a study by TNS Telecoms, a research firm.

No kidding.

Try «bundling.» It is the industry’s term for buying multiple services from one company.

«The more you buy, the more you save,» said Jody Lau, a spokeswoman for SBC Communications.

Select the combination platter of local and long-distance service with high-speed Internet and satellite TV, and you’ll save $17 a month as opposed to getting them «a la carte.»

Though SBC is an industry giant, it is by no means the only game in town, notes Dave Waymire, a lobbyist with the Michigan Alliance for Telecommunications.

«It’s better than four years ago, when SBC was the only choice you really had,» Waymire said. «Unlimited local phone calling was $42.50 a month. And now the standard rate is $20.»

To find the best deal, Waymire suggests shopping around.

Consider, too, how much your time is worth. The «bundling» approach offers the convenience of paying one bill for multiple services, even though shrewd shoppers will find better rates by using several companies.

Going really hi-tech

More consumers are trying an alternative to both the cell phone and the traditional home phone. They make phone calls via the Internet, using Voice-over-Internet Protocol, or VoIP.

The technology is being marketed aggressively in Grand Rapids and in southeastern Michigan.

Internet-based phone service is growing more popular.

By early next year, SBC said it will offer home-based VoIP service to its DSL high-speed Internet customers.

SBC bundles its landline and DSL services at a discount. Prices for the service have not been revealed.

Those most likely to embrace VoIP are the cost-conscious among us who make frequent or lengthy calls.

«VoIP is probably the hottest new technology in communications,» said Mike Pruyn, a spokesman for AT&T.

The method uses fiber-optic lines and connections rather than the traditional phone lines leased by other service providers such as AT&T.

Consumers benefit by getting unlimited local, toll and long-distance calls at a lower cost than traditional service -- often with many of the same features.

VoIP is most cost-effective for those who already use high-speed connections for computer use, because broadband service by itself can run up to $40 a month.

Press News Service contributed to this story.