Hi there.

I've bumped into a guy here a couple of times in London (S Norwood) where I now live who's made me aware of the following:
cheap international calls
From what I can gather, you register and then can use most phones (although there can be problems with mobiles) to make cheap international calls; we're talking 3 or 4 cents a minute here for some destinations. For those without broadband internet this has to be 1 of the cheaper ways to make international calls? Of course this set-up uses internet technology in order to provide such cheap calls. Has anyone out there used this method before? Is the voice quality normally ok?
I assume though, that if you have access already to a Broadband machine you can get the cheap calls already.

I've used Skype for a while, it's sound quality is the business, but mostly I use "VoipCheap"...and have been speaking to basically everybody that I know for free, okay, I had to buy the Initial £10.00 or $10.00 or €10.00's worth of credit first during registration, but thereafter, I've been talking to one of my brothers in Canada for free, to people that I know in Spain over the weekend for hours & hours, also for free, my brother spoke to me a week ago, and worked out that it would normally have cost him $85.00 Canadian dollars for the call, but was quite FREE, and the sound quality was satisfactory, no real complaints, and even when I had to call a Bank here in London yesterday, (there are a few numbers which do cost, but much less than a fixed line) it still only cost a fraction of what it would have cost me on my BT line during the day, e.g it cost 17 pence for quite a lengthy call, instead of a lot more on the BT line, so again, no real complaints there, and I can top up my credit now & then using my PayPal account.

I can recommend using either Skype or VoipCheap, but try VoipCheap first..... www.voipcheap.com/ ...use PayPal to purchase your "10" £,$, or €, worth of credit, you get a free phone number (as with Skype) and people can leave long voicemail messages, (10 mins) instead of the lousy 2 mins max on BT.

Like Santi I also use VoipCheap and Skype and recommend them both. With Skype you are always paying a small amount on calls unless you are calling another Skype user. With VoipCheap I can call my landline customers in countries such as the USA, UK and Germany for free. I certainly recommend it.

Having a virtual telephone number is a good idea, especially if you are mobile alot. I don't use my VoipCheap number however (they don't offer you a choice of available numbers), I use Skype's version called SkypeIn, who allow you to choose your number (a more memorable one) from a list of available ones (albeit for £20 per year!).

The sound quality on VoipCheap is not the level of Skype, but its good enough for work calls.

On the subject of virtual telephony, if you use faxes at work and want to be able to receive them on your PC, I recommend www.efax.co.uk - Its a similar setup to all the VOIPs giving you a UK or US virtual fax number. The faxes get sent to your email address so you can view/respond to them on the go. They have a basic (FREE!) level where you can sign up to get an eFax number which will RECEIVE FAXES ONLY (20 pages per month limit). Useful if someone needs to send you the occasional document by fax. The next (regular) level up is about £90 p.a. which gives you send/receive ability and is unlimited.

Cheers,
Mark

Yeah, I agree with you on all that you said there Mark, except the "Voip-In" phone number allocation thing, which I got when I paid my £10.00's, I'm not bothered what number they give me really, it's an outer London number e.g. 0208 instead of 0207, but that don't matter to me, I'm just happy to add another number to my collection, for the ultimate level of reachability, I like to be as fully contactable as possible these days, it's good for business.


Cheers.....