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Long-distance options run the gamut from nonexistent to downright economical: With companies like AT&T offering wireless customers a 10 cents a minute domestic-long-distance rate, cell phone calling can be as cheap, if not cheaper than, land-line services. Be ever-vigilant, however, in watching for extra expenses. Some companies charge as much as 40 cents a minute for time in excess of your plan, including time racked up when people call you.

These companies didn't grow to be industrial giants by accident. They know, as do the majority of the 70 million U.S. cell phone owners, that once picked up, the little buggers are virtually impossible to put down. Highly nonessential chitchat proliferates...and bills skyrocket.

Our informal survey of 50 cell phone users proved to us that even occasional talkers find it tough to limit their calls to less than two hours a month. Though tempted at first by those low $29.99-per-120-minute monthly fees, excess talking time will very, very quickly produce a bill of $100 or more.

Then there are roaming charges. These costs go into effect once you leave your "home" area and can increase the bloodletting at a clip of up to 60C a minute. Oftentimes this can be avoided by choosing as your home area the place from which you make the most calls. If you're commuting and find that you're using the phone mainly at and around work, then you might want to consider choosing your work area as home base. But keep in mind that this will turn calls from where you sleep into roaming calls.

Still, price wars among the giants are forcing prices slowly downward. GTE, for one, has begun statewide services offering flat rates with no roaming charges. Nextel claims to have gone around roaming charges by introducing their "Direct Connect" option into their Motorola phones. The only problem there is that everyone you want to "direct connect" with has to have a Motorola phone. Even Sprint PCS and AT&T Digital One Rate offer plans with no extra charge for roaming, but again, be wary of the fine print. If you stray from the Sprint network, for example, and make a long-distance call outside the network boundaries, you're still charged a roaming fee.

Given all the different types of phones and plans out there, with a bit of legwork you should be able to find a service that will cater to your individual telephone needs,

A good option that most companies are selling is "off peak" minute packages for weekends and evenings. If you make a lot of "off peak" calls, these can be very attractive bundles that don't use up the minutes on your base plan. Sprint, for example, offers 600 "off peak" minutes for $6.99 a month, defining that time as 8 P.m. to 7 A.M. Mondays through Thursdays and 7 P.M. Fridays to 7 A.M. Saturdays. Likewise, AT&T sells 500-minute weekend packages for $9.99.

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