Experiences with "poke talk" for free int'l calls?

NonGeographicalMan

I like the fact that poketalk.com is an entirely new Israeli based company and not part of the many tentacles of the mysterious multi branded Finarea/Betamax empire as www.nonoh.net/en/about.html quite clearly indicates that it is. But on the other hand it is well established that Betamax and Finarea actually know what they are doing in telecoms and on the whole can deliver a high level of reliable call quality. The comments about poketalk.com call choppyness and the flaky state of their website seem to indicate this may not be the case? Also the www.poketalk.com website is extremely unreliable about appearing at all today, whereas this is not true of www.nonoh.net

Perhaps Betamax are also more helpful about customer issues than the parent from which they have now apparently separated (Finarea) as at www.nonoh.net/en/about.html they willingly show address and phone number contact details.

nohnoh.net is however clearly the usual Betamax Voip model as it then clearly says in their free calls section:-

Free* calls with NoNoh

NoNoh offers free* calls to any regular land-line in various popular destinations (see panel)



To counter misuse of our network we have limited these free* calls for our trial users. If you want to enjoy longer free* calls to these destinations, just top up your account by buying credit.
NoNoh Freedays

Buying credit entitles you to 120 Freedays (unless stated otherwise). This means you can call all countries marked as "Free" in our rates list for a period of 120 days at no costs. When the 120 days are over, the normal rate will be charged for these destinations. You can get more Freedays by topping up your account with credit.
Fair Use and Restrictions

New users can try NoNoh out for free for a total of 60 minutes. During this trial period you can only call the destinations marked as free. Register your account by buying credit in order to extend your free calls.

Registered users get max 200 minutes per week of free calls, measured over the last 7 days and per unique IP address. Unused free minutes cannot be taken to the following week(s). If limit is exceeded the normal rates apply. During your Freedays you can call all destinations listed as "Free" for free. When you have run out of Freedays, the normal rates apply. You can get new Freedays by buying credit.

Can I also assume the 120 day period after making a credit is consecutive and not just 120 actual days on which you can make phone calls? But 200 minutes per week is not bad depending on the minimum credit for each 120 day period? It seems that using 18185 for any long daytime calls would still be a good idea though.

Whereas Poketalk says:-

We at PokeTALK have great ambitions to provide free phone calls to the entire world, however to provide our service to as many people as possible we have instated this free-4-all policy.

Multiple User Accounts

By definition an account is defined as a single phone number. Users may not register multiple accounts to use with the same phone number. The advantage by having one central account is that it allows you to store contacts, view recent activity, and many more options that make the usage of PokeTALK convenient.

10 Minutes Per Call

When PokeTALK was originally released calls were limited to 5 minutes in length with some destinations being 2 minutes per call. This was later upgraded to 10 minutes which is the current length for most countries. Frequently there are bonus systems to add time as well, allowing calls to be 20 minutes in length or more.


5 Free calls per day

Free accounts may only place 5 free calls per day. This helps share the free calls amongst more users. For additional usage upgrade to our Pro service.

Unanswered Calls

PokeTALK's system registers a call when a user presses call. The reason being is that once a call is initiated the system calls you or the number that you entered. This also applies to a call which reaches an answering machine, voicemail, or any other form of call initiation.

30 call quota

After making a total of 30 calls, you'll need to upgrade to our PokeTALK Pro program to continue to be eligible for the 30-free calls per month quota.

PokeTALK Pro

For users who wish to make additional calls the Pro version is available at little cost. Calls are sold at wholesale rates and have no limitations imposed. The free calling quota is still available with the Pro version, and the calls are only billed after the free time is used up. The Pro version also allows calls to be made from any country, not just the 'from' destinations, so that anyone around the world can utilize PokeTALK.

What I'm not clear on is what PokeTalk's Pro call rates are as it doesn't seem to be possible to access them without registering an account.

Does anyone who has regularly used both services have an opinion on which works best and which is best value for money? As PostOffice Homephone don't provide an Anytime calls plan at any price I have every possible incentive to try and avoid paying their very excessive weekday daytime call rates. If they ever block Indirect Access then these Voip calling systems would be my only remaining alternative.

Poketalk only seem to charge 1.84 US cents a minute from a UK landline to a Spanish mobile. This is a very good rate indeed if the call quality is not too bad.............. The cheapest competitor rate is over 12 US cents a minute plus connection fee.

Blue_Max

Difficult to say which is the best.

I use pokeTalk in addition to couple of other VoIP providers. Many countries are free but to call India and couple of others that I am interested in I paid for their PRO Service. With pokeTalk, remaining credit do not expire like some from Finarea.

PokeTalk website was revised recently. It is a great improvement. I have never had any probs accessing their website. Yes they are small in comparison but are smart cookies and growing fast.

I have a subscription with one of the Betamax varients, but I have had problems and lost money with some setups belonging to Betamax and Finarea. Their customer support tend to ignore your messages unless you are able to offer some sort of carrot for more business!

Had a look at nonoh.net which is a service from Betamax GmbH & Co KG. A variation that does not is not attractive to me but may be others. Depends on personal requirements, I guess!

localphone.com is also worth looking at. UK based and run by the same folks who started up eBuyer.

With some VoIP phones such as the ones from Siemens Gigaset range, you can have upto six VoIP service providers registered and active. You can then assign each number to a particular provider best for the country u are calling. Siemens Gigaset models are bit expensive but are high quality and has plenty of useful features.

allfrey

I've been using both Poketalk and Nonoh for some time, mostly for UK calls, as I need a service that uses my landline. (I get unusable delays with my broadband connection.) I have found Poketalk unreliable - I do not always get through so would not put money in it. I think they have changed their rules and are only allowing one lot of 30 calls a month unless you upgrade. (I have just been told I am over quota when I have made very few calls. When I checked their rules they seemed to limit you to 30 calls in total.) Nonoh has worked well for me but Betamax companies do have a terrible reputation for service. The quality of calls is sometimes poor but I have the same problems using BT.

NonGeographicalMan

allfrey wrote: »

Nonoh has worked well for me but Betamax companies do have a terrible reputation for service. The quality of calls is sometimes poor but I have the same problems using BT.

Its interesting that quality is often so poor with Nohnoh and other Betamax Voip based companies when the call quality from their founder company before they split - Finarea - continues to be excellent on its indirect access https://www.18185.co.uk brand that I am now using in anger again for daytime calls after switching to Post Office Homephone from yourcalls.net

I have been toying with buying a pair of Siemens Gigaset Voip phones but if the call quality is as dubious as you say it is then it doesn't sound worth it and I am better off paying 5p per call with 18185 and making as many calls as I can in the evening or at the weekend when they are free with Post Office Homephone.

However perhaps I will still give NohNoh's paying service a try to see if it is any good.

Blue_Max

If a VoIP phone such as Siemens Giagaset is not used, then PokeTalk is a good alternative. Cos it rings you back on your normal landline after you initiate the call from their web page.

To make those free 30 calls per month, no deposit or buying credit is required with Betamax variants. A password is required and that can be obtained by registering; and that is free also.

At their website they state, "We at PokeTALK have great ambitions to provide free phone calls to the entire world...."

They hope to get an income from ads and the PRO service. I hope they succeed.

AndysDad

I've been using Poketalk for a while now but today can't make any calls as it says I've used my allowance of 30 calls up.(No calls made in last 3 weeks) and now need to sign up to ProTalk and credit my account!.Does anyone know if they have changed their conditions for 'Free' calls,as I was getting 30 Free calls a month.

Dagobert

Same here. I had not used it for a while. A couple of weeks ago, I received an email requesting me to verify my account. But when I clicked on the link, I was just taken to the login page.

Jemma-T

Dagobert wrote:

I received an email requesting me to verify my account. But when I clicked on the link, I was just taken to the login page.

A little tip, NEVER click on links within emails unless it's from someone you know 100% and even then check the bottom of your's browser's status bar to see it's actually going where it says (HTML emails can take you anywhere ie hover your mouse cursor over this www.martinlewisisgorgeous.com -see?

I reckon most trojans at the moment are being injected via site visits from emails. Some very nasty trojans too which require a full clean install of your operating system. Maybe a recovery will do it if you're lucky.

Jemma-T

For those who don't know where to look, like this http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/8617/20620920.jpg

Dagobert

AndysDad wrote: »

I've been using Poketalk for a while now but today can't make any calls as it says I've used my allowance of 30 calls up.(No calls made in last 3 weeks) and now need to sign up to ProTalk and credit my account!.Does anyone know if they have changed their conditions for 'Free' calls,as I was getting 30 Free calls a month.

You've completed your 30 free calls trial!
Upgrade now and save up to 95% on your call costs.

• Continue to receive 30 free calls per month
• No monthly costs - pay only for the time you speak

When you click "upgrade" you are taking to a payment screen. I don't know what the min. deposit is but you certainly can't make free phone-calls anymore without making a deposit.