Economizing on phone bills

Dewi Anggraeni Contributor Melbourne, Australia

In this era of rapid advance of electronic communication, the use of the telephone, landlines as well as cellular, it seems, has become a must, unless you intentionally want to shut out the outside world - outside your own abode, that is.

While electronic communication is a boon to business and personal networks, the costs are often daunting. So any devices or tricks promising to reduce these costs will always grab the attention of the user.

Powertec Communications, a telecommunications company based on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia (www.powertec.com.au), has successfully developed one such money-saving device.

Called a Cellular Diverter, it can help cut down your telephone bills if you often ring your office or home from your cellular phone, and if you regularly divert your incoming calls.

It consists of two components: The GSM Diverter switch, and the Fixed Cellular Terminal.

The diverter switch diverts the incoming call to your landline onto the fixed cellular terminal, a kind of wireless device used a great deal by ships and offshore mining companies. This clever diverter then converts that forwarding call into a cellular-to- cellular call, instead of landline-to-cellular call.

Depending on your server or billing scheme, where cellular-to- cellular calls are usually cheaper than landline-to-cellular calls, this diverter can save you up to 70 percent on the forwarding call costs. You also thus avoid paying the forwarding flag-fall rate.

Having the fixed cellular terminal in your office or home also gives you other benefits. Calling your office or home from your cellular phone, or calling your colleagues on their cellular phones from your home or office can be a lot cheaper if you take advantage of the fixed cellular terminal.

When calling your home or office from your cellular phone, you dial the number of the fixed cellular terminal, people in the office or at home receive it as a normal call, but at a cheaper rate. And when calling your colleagues on their cellular phones from the office you also make use of the terminal again, and will be billed as a cellular-to-cellular call also.

Ray Smith, the managing director of Powertec, confirms that the device is compatible in any country using the GSM system.

"There are three types of frequencies used in the world at the moment, and our Cellular Diverter is compatible to all three of them," he says.

One piece of good news for an end-user who does not like the hassles of having to send for professional technicians to install any new equipment, is that the Cellular Diverter comes complete with antenna, power supply, phone cables and requires no professional installation. Just plug it in and it is ready to use.