That way you ll be able to make an informed consumer choice. If you could somehow buy that car directly from Ford or General Motors or whomever, you d save the retail dealer s markup and save money. That s called buying wholesale. Wholesale is the price the dealer pays the producer of the product or provider of the service they re selling to you. When they mark it up and sell it to you, that price is called retail.
Long distance is the same way.
While they may boast rates that sound low, the small print mentioned earlier is where they make up the difference. And the difference comes right out of your pocket. There s obviously nothing wrong with making money in a free-enterprise market. But the way most long distance companies make their profits can be very misleading. The point here to remember is, no matter what rate you re being quoted, there s no way any long distance retail provider can offer services equal to or less than wholesale prices and stay in business for long.