Tesco Internet Phone - A joke

vinylmusic

What interests me about internet phones is the fact that I can call anyone in the world who's got one too for free
Not knowing which is best for me I thought I'd go down to Tescos for some advice. It was a joke

My main question was If I can call anyone in the world on the same service, must they have a phone bought at Tescos or do they have connections to other providers to achieve this?

No one could give me a straight answer, in fact I realized that they were just guessing at the answers. They said if I called people regularly in say Sydney, Paris and New York I should send each of them a Tesco phone and from then on we can all talk for free (I can imagine you must be laughing at this point). Surely this cant be the case. If so I find it a useless option.
I'm not going to spend money buying loads of phones and shipping them out to everyone I call, that would be ludicrous.

I thought Tesco was a sensible and professional company.
I sent them the same question by email 4 days ago and still wait for a reply

lemontart

they are currently running an advert that makes it very clear that in order to call for free the person you are calling must have a tescos internet phone wherever they are.

Tesos do have branches worldwide not sure exactly which countries though I know they are in thailand.

Beth

xx

BexTech

vinylmusic wrote:

What interests me about internet phones is the fact that I can call anyone in the world who's got one too for free
Not knowing which is best for me I thought I'd go down to Tescos for some advice. It was a joke

My main question was If I can call anyone in the world on the same service, must they have a phone bought at Tescos or do they have connections to other providers to achieve this?

No one could give me a straight answer, in fact I realized that they were just guessing at the answers. They said if I called people regularly in say Sydney, Paris and New York I should send each of them a Tesco phone and from then on we can all talk for free (I can imagine you must be laughing at this point). Surely this cant be the case. If so I find it a useless option.
I'm not going to spend money buying loads of phones and shipping them out to everyone I call, that would be ludicrous.

I thought Tesco was a sensible and professional company.
I sent them the same question by email 4 days ago and still wait for a reply

Not really ludicrous. Other than the fact you were interested in a toy town service, much like the toy town service from Skype.

When you aren't paying a monthly fee then how else do you think you are going to get free calls?

Tesco VoIP is a bit like Skype Hype you are stuck with their system, however with Skype you just download the software for free and then call anyone else on Skype for free, you can buy those awful USB toys (sorry phones) and use that to make a call.

You could however use a SIP standard, which means you can buy various VoIP phones, ATAs (Analogue Telephone Adapters) where you can plug in a regular phone and make calls WITHOUT the PC switched on, or a router with built in VoIP ports which again allows you to connect a phone and make calls without the PC on, you can also download free software and use your PCs speakers and mic.

A lot of people do start off on these toy town services such as Skype and Tesco, but when they start to see the light they move on to the real thing.

Many SIP VoIP providers allow free calls not only between their own customers but those of other VoIP providers too, and if you know someones SIP address or IP address you can call them free even if your SIP provider doesn't have a peering (interlink) agreement. You can expect providers to offer free calls to landline for no monthly fee as those calls cost them to carry, same way as BT or whoever don't let you call other numbers without a monthly payment.

As SIP is open, you could buy an ATA and call someone in another country, who may have an ATA or use software, you not tied to both having to use the same device.

https://www.sipgate.co.uk offers for no monthly fee a real 01 or 02 incoming number of your choice, you get as standard with SIP, call waiting, caller display, ACR and other services and if you call another Sipgate user or as mention above you can never spend a single penny on calls.

If you have an ATA/VoIP phone/VoIP Router, you could use VoIP Stunt, for €10 (10 Euro) every 120 days you get 300 mins each week to call landlines in many countries, plus you can use the credit to call chargeable destinations.

There are many other SIP VoIP providers out there. As Sipgate costs nothing, and you get a real number of any area you wish, not just your local one, you might as well get an account, test it with software and get your friends to test it too.

BexTech

lemontart wrote:

they are currently running an advert that makes it very clear that in order to call for free the person you are calling must have a tescos internet phone wherever they are.

Tesos do have branches worldwide not sure exactly which countries though I know they are in thailand.

Beth

xx

Yeah, and as they have no monthly fee, it would be a little silly to think they could offer free calls to landlines too, I know some people are generous, but I don't think they could afford to pay for everybody's phone calls.

vinylmusic

BexTech wrote:

Not really ludicrous. Other than the fact you were interested in a toy town service, much like the toy town service from Skype.

When you aren't paying a monthly fee then how else do you think you are going to get free calls?

Tesco VoIP is a bit like Skype Hype you are stuck with their system, however with Skype you just download the software for free and then call anyone else on Skype for free, you can buy those awful USB toys (sorry phones) and use that to make a call.

You could however use a SIP standard, which means you can buy various VoIP phones, ATAs (Analogue Telephone Adapters) where you can plug in a regular phone and make calls WITHOUT the PC switched on, or a router with built in VoIP ports which again allows you to connect a phone and make calls without the PC on, you can also download free software and use your PCs speakers and mic.

A lot of people do start off on these toy town services such as Skype and Tesco, but when they start to see the light they move on to the real thing.

Many SIP VoIP providers allow free calls not only between their own customers but those of other VoIP providers too, and if you know someones SIP address or IP address you can call them free even if your SIP provider doesn't have a peering (interlink) agreement. You can expect providers to offer free calls to landline for no monthly fee as those calls cost them to carry, same way as BT or whoever don't let you call other numbers without a monthly payment.

As SIP is open, you could buy an ATA and call someone in another country, who may have an ATA or use software, you not tied to both having to use the same device.

https://www.sipgate.co.uk offers for no monthly fee a real 01 or 02 incoming number of your choice, you get as standard with SIP, call waiting, caller display, ACR and other services and if you call another Sipgate user or as mention above you can never spend a single penny on calls.

If you have an ATA/VoIP phone/VoIP Router, you could use VoIP Stunt, for €10 (10 Euro) every 120 days you get 300 mins each week to call landlines in many countries, plus you can use the credit to call chargeable destinations.

There are many other SIP VoIP providers out there. As Sipgate costs nothing, and you get a real number of any area you wish, not just your local one, you might as well get an account, test it with software and get your friends to test it too.

Thanks for that.
I noticed that Netgear do a router with a built in adapter. It's similar to my DG834G. Would you know if its possible to get an adapter to connect to the router save having to buy a whole new router which would be a waste?

BexTech

vinylmusic wrote:

Thanks for that.
I noticed that Netgear do a router with a built in adapter. It's similar to my DG834G. Would you know if its possible to get an adapter to connect to the router save having to buy a whole new router which would be a waste?

You can use an ATA that you connect to one of the ports on your current router, this is what I use, you have to be careful not to be heavily uploading as your call could break up, and sound to the person your calling like when a mobile breaks up, some routers have a QOS (Quality Of Service) setting, to ensure that enough bandwith is left for a working service in this case working voice service.

I use a LinkSys PAP2 ATA, this has two VoIP ports, so you can have two separate accounts/numbers if you wanted, to this I connect my regular phones both corded and cordless, as I have cable broadband I dumped my old landline 12 months ago, each VoIP port has a REN of 5, so you can connect more than one phone to each line, there a a few other ATAs, but the PAP2 and the SPA range seem to be the ones most go for.

There is a LinkSys SPA3000 this allows connection to your regular line too, so you can use the same phone to make/receive calls on both the VoIP and the regular phoneline (PTSN / POTS).

https://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk , https://www.broadbandstuff.co.uk , https://www.dabs.co.uk with a few others I forget usually stock these items. Be careful they also supply Vonage locked ones, unless you really know what you are doing, it's not worth the hassle of trying to get one of these and try and unlock them, as unless you get it right first time, they are forever locked.

vinylmusic

BexTech wrote:

You can use an ATA that you connect to one of the ports on your current router, this is what I use, you have to be careful not to be heavily uploading as your call could break up, and sound to the person your calling like when a mobile breaks up, some routers have a QOS (Quality Of Service) setting, to ensure that enough bandwith is left for a working service in this case working voice service.

I use a LinkSys PAP2 ATA, this has two VoIP ports, so you can have two separate accounts/numbers if you wanted, to this I connect my regular phones both corded and cordless, as I have cable broadband I dumped my old landline 12 months ago, each VoIP port has a REN of 5, so you can connect more than one phone to each line, there a a few other ATAs, but the PAP2 and the SPA range seem to be the ones most go for.

There is a LinkSys SPA3000 this allows connection to your regular line too, so you can use the same phone to make/receive calls on both the VoIP and the regular phoneline (PTSN / POTS).

https://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk , https://www.broadbandstuff.co.uk , https://www.dabs.co.uk with a few others I forget usually stock these items. Be careful they also supply Vonage locked ones, unless you really know what you are doing, it's not worth the hassle of trying to get one of these and try and unlock them, as unless you get it right first time, they are forever locked.

Thanks for the advice. Thats a £40 or £60 outlay, more than I want to spend just now. I think I'll dig up my old mic and headphones and manage with skype for the moment. It gives me time to learn more and shop around.

I'm sure prices may drop in a month or two anyway if I havent grabbed a bargain in thev meantimewhich is something I've become quite good at

stiffnuts69

I have to say that I am mighty impressed with the tesco phone. i use it as a another line now and give out that number (which you get to chose from a list of landline codes and numbers from around the country, like sipgate) instead of my home phone. Call quality is good. My micky mouse handset might not be as good as getting sip but it does a damn good job.
You never need to give out your proper home number. Well worth 15 quid with £5 of call time and very easy to set up

BexTech

If you don't mind having to have the PC on to make and receive calls, they are OK, and as you say they don't cost much and you do get £5 credit, it's just their call rates are some of the highest, even dearer than if you call from a landline when using 1899 for example.

The Tesco phone (from memory) will work with the free x-lite software, as it is just a USB sound-card, with mic and speakers in a moulded case, then you can use cheaper providers.

iceburn

lemontart wrote:

they are currently running an advert that makes it very clear that in order to call for free the person you are calling must have a tescos internet phone wherever they are.

Tesos do have branches worldwide not sure exactly which countries though I know they are in thailand.

Beth

xx

here is the countries (it now cover over 50% of tesco total selling space

Europe
Ireland, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Turkey where they have 305 stores and over 61,000 employees.
Asia
Thailand, S. Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan and China where they have 343 stores and over 40,000 employees
They are market leader in six of the countries they trade in
The Tesco Group had turnover of £33,974 million ($59,454 million) with pre-tax profits of £2,029 million ($3,551 million) in the year to February 2005.
American
They will be moving to USA (West Coast) in 2007 using an express format stores.

lemontart

I got 3 of them at the weekend 1 for my laptop and one each for the pet teenager and her b/f so even it they use it only to speak to eachother (which I insist that is what it is for) I am cutting my phone bill so they will pay for themselfs in one month, also as she has a habit of not answering if I try to call her when I am out she will know it is for her if I use that number.............so more than happy. Her dad is now getting one for her computer at his house too.

Beth
xxx