LA Times story corrections
We’re thrilled that the LA Times included PhoneGnome as one of the three products discussed in their recent story Ready to hang up on telephone bills? There are a number of things the Times got wrong, however, that we need to clear up.
First, the story says PhoneGnome includes a “Free call area” of PhoneGnome members in U.S. and Canada. The truth is, PhoneGnome includes free calls to members in dozens of countries around the world, not just US/Canada.
The story also makes the following erroneous conclusion:
If you make long-distance calls to non-PhoneGnome numbers, you need a payment plan with monthly or pay-as-you-go charges.
So unless you are using the $100 device only to call local or designated PhoneGnome numbers, charges will mount up.
Did someone forget to take their medication? One of the other products featured in the story costs $300 more than PhoneGnome right out of the gate (the third product is in an entirely different category, requiring a phone hooked to a PC to make calls). That $300 will by over 14,000 minutes of calls to the US and about 18 additional countries. Based on the call patterns of real PhoneGnome users, that 14,000 minutes will last 70 months for the average PhoneGnome user! This is because, in real life, there are many ways to save with PhoneGnome, including the Reach Beyond service, getting the people you call most often on PhoneGnome, etc. Even assuming no free calls, and opting for the simple apples to apples comparison of the PhoneGnome $14.95 per month plan, it’s equivalent to 20 months of service, but without the risk of paying up front and hoping for a return down the road.
The author says with PhoneGnome “charges will mount up” but what the author misses is that in the competing case, $300 “mounts up” on day one, whether the person will ever use that much service or not. In the PhoneGnome case, the user has $300 to apply to non-free calls, including saving on calls outside the US (which will cost over and above the initial $300 in the competitors case), and a wide variety of ways to optimize the way they spend that money to match their real-world calling habits. We know from real PhoneGnome users that this money will last a lot longer in the PhoneGnome case – the vast majority of people will never come out ahead paying the extra $300 up front.
