Internet Telephony: Completely Free Calls Worldwide Article Discussion Area

CoolHandPuke

Ok as a long term user of voip I thought I would ad to this post my experiences.

Firstly, the companies there sare many and I mean MANY, what I have found however is that there is a strong possibility that these companies are "mostly" subsiduries! To see what I mean look here www.voipcheap.co.uk and here www.freecall.co.uk VERY similar dont you think?

Although the rates do tend to vary quite considerably from provider to provider which seems very odd.

with that aside the main thing I am interested in is making free calls to landlines as my mobile contract includes sufficient minutes for mobile calls.

So CURRENTLY I am with voipcheap recently switched after finding that the FREE calls on VOIPWISE had disappeared and were now 1 cent per min (not much I know but still it defeats the point)

So on to voipcheap the initial load up is anything from 1.50(via text message) or mainly £10 + VAT (19% i might add) 12.50 ish. Included within this you get 90 what are known as FREEDAYS. What this means is that any of the calling locations that are included as free in the rates page http://www.voipcheap.co.uk/en/calling-rates.html are free as long as you have free days so it will cost approximately £4.24 per month inc vat for free local, national and SOME international calls! also bare in mind though that you also have an ever building balance of which you can use to call mobiles should your mobile phone minutes be getting close to the limit (or even when home use the voip when out use the mobile) or if you just fancy calling some premium numbers for the hell of it then go right ahead lmao!

SO all in all I think you will agree that the idea behind this is not bad at all? But I hear you ask what is the quality of the call like? Well to be truthful Iit depends on how you are actually making the calls for example I have invested in a very smart phone!http://www.cordless-phones.uk.com/voip-phones/voip-dect-phones/siemens-gigaset-s685ip Now to keep things simple, this is basically a router that connects via ethernet to your current router. you enter all of your VOIP account information into this new router, connect your BT land line to this new router and bang you have instnt access to VOIP or FIXED LINE dialing all in the convenience of an easy to use lightweight cordless handset! Some other things that are very good here are that it is blutooth capable so its as simple as send contact from mobile phone to cordless phone over bluetooth and bang EASY phone directory too!

Quality is exceptional and you wouldnt know any difference I moved to this purely for the convenience of not having to sit in front of the computer to make my calls!

Nothing Else I can think of immediately but if there any questions do not hesitste to ask. Bye the way shop around for the handset if you are interested in it there are some amazing deals to be had!!!

laters

CHP

BexTech

The vast majority are indeed the same company, this being the Betamax group, different brands have different rates, different free locations and different number of free days.

One of the brands I use the the .com version of VoIPCheap, as up until recently the .co.uk version had dropped 'free' calls to the UK, also the .com version was giving 120 (now 90 I believe) free days for a €10 (Ten Euro) + 19% (German VAT, used to be 16% until last year when Germany increased their VAT rate). I also have a very good local incoming number with VoIPStunt.com when they issued local numbers and they have still 120 freedays.

http://www.backsla.sh/betamax has a comparision chart.

I have several account with the different brands and also with other VoIP providers, such as Sipgate, VoIPTalk and Vyke.

Vyke don't have an incoming number, but calls to many destinations are just 2p per call, however long the duration.

CoolHandPuke

Thanks for the betamax comparison thats a great help, would also be very interested if there is a FREE DAYS comparison or the chap that does THIS comparison can have this added or at least suggested to him?

Did not even think about comparing the freedays from various companies but am interested to find that .com is 120 days where .co.uk is 90 ????

Anyway my next mission is to find out who offers the most FREEDAYS. Pity is it seems you need an account at each provider to be able to access the buy credit page and find out! Unless you know of any other way to find out??

be good

CHP

Lancastrian

Thanks to you BexTech for past info. I tried Smsdiscount and Smslisto. I believe, and have seen no mention of this, that once your freedays are used up you can spend your credit at a very reasonable rate. See the FAQ's in 'listo and check the "charges". I have 60 days left but only half my credit as I call some worldrates so I may not find out. Does anyone have any experience of this please?

Lancastrian

BexTech

Lancastrian wrote: »

Thanks to you BexTech for past info. I tried Smsdiscount and Smslisto. I believe, and have seen no mention of this, that once your freedays are used up you can spend your credit at a very reasonable rate. See the FAQ's in 'listo and check the "charges". I have 60 days left but only half my credit as I call some worldrates so I may not find out. Does anyone have any experience of this please?

Lancastrian

You believe correct.

Once your freedays are up, you can continue to use the service where you are charged (usually 1c per min / 1p/min) for the 'free' countries. You can top up again when you wish and when you do this is added to any credit remaining and you have your freedays back.

BexTech

CoolHandPuke wrote: »

Thanks for the betamax comparison thats a great help, would also be very interested if there is a FREE DAYS comparison or the chap that does THIS comparison can have this added or at least suggested to him?

Did not even think about comparing the freedays from various companies but am interested to find that .com is 120 days where .co.uk is 90 ????

Anyway my next mission is to find out who offers the most FREEDAYS. Pity is it seems you need an account at each provider to be able to access the buy credit page and find out! Unless you know of any other way to find out??

be good

CHP

Seems VoIPCheap.com is 90 days now, however VoIPStunt.com is 120 days.

If you go to the various sites and click on FAQ on there it will say something like:

What's the deal with the Freedays?

Buying credits entitles you to 90 Freedays (unless stated otherwise). This means you can call all countries in the free* destinations list for 90 days at no costs. When the 90 days are over, you will keep your credit, and the normal rate will be charged for these destinations.or something like:What's the deal with the Freedays?

Buying credits entitles you to 120 Freedays (unless stated otherwise). This means you can call all countries in the free* destinations list for 120 days at no costs. When the 90 days are over, you will keep your credit, and the normal rate will be charged for these destinations.
The otherwise stated is you get less free days if you top up via SMS text message for example as you aren't added on as much credit, so might only get 33, 47, 66 or 94 freedays depending on top-up amount.

jinkssick

Just to let people know on what technique Im using to contact UK numbers from the USA as I am currently on holiday.

1. I have a 18185 account and people can dial from the UK with 0808 number or 0207 from the UK and call any landline here in the US (i.e. my hotel). I get charged 1p per minute as its my 18185 account and its free for whoever is calling me.

If outside of my hotel, we text from our mobile phone back in the UK to tell them a landline payphone here they can call. the text is 40p but its convenient when your out and about. 1p aswell.

option 2. we use justvoip.com which is a service I have not seen mentioned which gives you 120 days of free USA calls, then 1.5p after. We use the internet provided at hotels.

*Bad thing is the incredible time difference, im in Los Angeles and its 8 hours difference. So when im going to bed, there just waking up.

BexTech

justvoip.com is one of the many Betamax VoIP services mentioned on here from time to time.

Not a Betemax service but another VoIP service is Vyke which charge US$0.04 (2.1p) per call (that's per call, not per minute) to the UK, USA, Canada and many other countries.

savetilibleed

I have just bought a headset, downloaded VoipCheap and got it to work OK. A friend in NZ who has a restricted bandwidth for her BB (only 1Gb/month) was wondering if typical Voip calls use a lot of allowance. I don't have that problem as I have an unrestricted one.

Anyone any idea how much say a 15 minute Voip call would consume?

phantom69

Maybe not of specific interest to everyone on its' own, but InterVOIP is way the cheapest to call a Danish mobile from UK pc; about 7p compared to around 15-20p with most providers. Even when Tescomobile were doing double time for free it was still costing 10p/min. If you are looking to call Europe mobile, maybe have a look on this site.
If anyone can find a cheaper deal let me know.