I had to call AT&T to change something on our business phone lines the other day. Normally I refuse to listen to their pitches for this or that or the other, but I wasn't busy so I did. They convinced me to sign up for a flat rate long distance plan on a one year renewable contract that will save us 50% or more some months, plus lower the monthly per-line fee.

Yesterday I called Charter to drop some premium channels we never watch. They went over my bill, and discovered I was paying too much for internet service. Their new pricing is $10 less per month for 20% more bandwidth. Not sure why they don't just automatically upgrade you. Then I let them talk me into a two year contract bundle that reduced our total cable+internet bill by nearly half (counting the dropped channels, so it's probably more like 35% to 40%, but you can't really figure out how they charge for anything.)

With all the competition (like IP phones for AT&T, satellite TV for Charter), it appears both companies are concerned about customer retention and wanting to lock you in for a longer term at a better price.

I also switched our provider for virtual auto-attendant and voicemail on our business lines. Our long-time provider charged a lot but was reliable. Unfortunately they had been going downhill, including a recent massive outage and poor response. I shopped around and got a new service (VirtualPBX.com) that has more features and appears to save us about 80% per month (we'll see if there are any hidden charges and gotchas). Hopefully they won't be too flaky.