International & UK CallChecker discussion

NonGeographicalMan

chappy wrote: »

Also 18185 can anyone tell me how good these are,

Call quality on 18185 these days is excellent and doesn't seem any different from BT. They had some technical issues a couple of years ago but these have long since been fixed.

The great advantage of 18185 is that if you decide to stop ringing at say three rings before the phone diverts to voicemail you pay nothing. On Phone cheap and all the other 0844 companies you have paid the connection fee and also for the first minute of the call too and this will be 12p or 13p in total or something like that each time you don't connect. The 0844 companies seem to set up their equipment to deliberately fail to connect a lot so that they get a lot more money from calls that are useless to you than you were expecting.

So with 18185 if you think your son has left his mobile in the bedroom ring a couple of times three times. He then hears it in the distance and grabs it and the next time you call you get through. Or better still get him to turn off any voice mail service whilst he is away on holiday so the phone will only be answered and you the caller charged if he is available.

The problem with true Voip not using the phone network at all is that it is complicated to get working initially on any service and there are lots of technical issues to achieve a reliable setup and stable call quality. However if you are calling someone overseas regularly it is undoubtedly the cheapest method.

Heinz

Remember, calling from a Virgin cable line, he'll have to use the 0808 1 703 703 gateway number.

However, is it a Spanish mobile he'll be calling or your UK mobile roaming in Spain?

The former will cost 4p connection + 11p*/minute at all times.
The latter will cost 5p connection + 10p/minute weekdays and 6p/minute weekends.

* That's 3p/minute more than it'd be if you had a BT landline and he could use the 18185 prefix.

NonGeographicalMan

Heinz wrote: »

However, is it a Spanish mobile he'll be calling or your UK mobile roaming in Spain?

This information was already provided by the OP in their initial post.

chappy wrote: »

I am looking for the cheapest way for our son to ring us from our uk landline, which is Virgin, to a Spanish mobile

chappy

Many thanks for the quick response,

So 18185 is the best option, I will take a longer look on there website later on when I have a little more time,

Can you tell me what this gateway number is that Heinz mentioned 0808 1 703 703 ? little confusing

Now all I need to do is switch off the Spanish moblie voicemail, which is with Moviestar network, can this be done through the mobile phone,

Many thanks again
Jayne

Heinz

chappy wrote: »

Can you tell me what this gateway number is that Heinz mentioned 0808 1 703 703 ? little confusing

Only BT must allow access to the likes of 18185 via its 5 digit prefix although one or two other line rental providers do as well.

Cable providers (Virgin Media now almost the only player, of course) never allowed such access and 18185 set up freephone and geographical gateway numbers to allow customers access to their system. Their call charges vary for those using those gateways though (because they have to fund them).

http://18185.co.uk/mobilerates.php

jhp

chappy wrote: »

Many thanks for the quick response,

So 18185 is the best option, I will take a longer look on there website later on when I have a little more time,

Can you tell me what this gateway number is that Heinz mentioned 0808 1 703 703 ? little confusing

Now all I need to do is switch off the Spanish moblie voicemail, which is with Moviestar network, can this be done through the mobile phone,

Many thanks again
Jayne

If you have inclusive UK geographical minutes on Virgin. You can get a uk access number from http://www.localphone.com/call/spain which will point at the mobile and call it direct.

No contracts or monthly fees, and no connection or service charges. 6.7p a minute as opposed to 18185 11p a minute and 4p connection.

But only cost effective if you have inclusive Virgin Media geographical minutes.

NonGeographicalMan

jhp wrote: »

No contracts or monthly fees, and no connection or service charges. 6.7p a minute as opposed to 18185 11p a minute and 4p connection.

18185's normal rate to a Spanish mobile is 8p per minute. Where are you getting 11p per minute from?

Heinz wrote: »

Only BT must allow access to the likes of 18185 via its 5 digit prefix although one or two other line rental providers do as well.

Post Office Homephone still allow 18185 access for no additional charge as do the majority of companies who offer line rental plans based on BT's Wholesale Line Rental product such as Primus. Companies that tend to block such access are those with LLU equipment in most large phone exchanges who also route phone calls only over their own trunk phone network from the exchange onwards. These include both TalkTalk and Sky.

NonGeographicalMan

chappy wrote: »

Now all I need to do is switch off the Spanish moblie voicemail, which is with Moviestar network, can this be done through the mobile phone,

This may help with changing the voicemail menus to English.

https://www.granalacantplaza.eu/forum/showthread.php?7637-Movistar-voicemail-on-mobile

Heinz

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

18185's normal rate to a Spanish mobile is 8p per minute. Where are you getting 11p per minute from?

The 18185 website (although, to be fair, the MSE International Callchecker produces the same result when the correct data is entered).

NonGeographicalMan

Heinz wrote: »

http://18185.co.uk/mobilerates.php (although, to be fair, the MSE International Callchecker produces the same result when the correct data is entered http://callchecker.moneysavingexpert.com/intcallchecker/spain-mobile/virgin/all).

That's a jolly large surcharge for using a line where 18185 access is blocked. I thought they used to only charge 0.5p per minute extra for using the 0808 number on Virgin, TalkTalk and other similar lines that block the 18185 access code.