what voip should I go for? help please!

foreign_correspondent

Hi,
I am a newbie at this, and would appreciate any advice.
I am currently staying between the uk and the netherlands, however, for work purposes I need to set up a phone line, where I can be contactable in either country, (from uk landlines) and on which people can call me without paying extra charges.
At the moment, people can call me on my mobile, but this is prohibitively expensive, so I am looking at whether voip would be a viable cheaper option. I was considering Skype, but have just looked on here, and seen all the alternatives, and am wondering whether another voip would be better for this purpose?
I have a home pc and am just in the process of buying a new laptop.
Any advice would greatly appreciated!
thanks

Heinz

Some may not like it (I certainly don't because I could call a Dutch landline for 4p connection and ½p/minute and a UK landline for 4p connection and 0p/minute) but, if you're not willing to pay for diverting a UK number to a Dutch number (or vice versa) because the cost of the diverted part of the call would be payable by you, why not get an 0844 number so your callers pay 5p/minute and you control where the call goes.

Googling '0844 divert' finds a number of companies which provide such a service - THIS is one.

utilitybroker

If you have a Netherlands Landline,and a UK one. You can get a FREE 2p a minute ,24/7, 0844 number from these people. https://www.cheapercallrate.com, and and switch its final destination to suit yourself.


Or you can get a FREE UK Geographical Number from these people it will need you to credit your account with £10 for calls, and it will cost you to divert it to Netherlands Landline 2p a minute, UK landline 1p a minute,and 15p a minute peak UK Mobile.

http://www.voip.co.uk/res_products.html

redux

You mention a home PC, so you probably have a phoneline and internet access here (correct if wrong). Do you actually have a Dutch landline as well, and are you mainly home/office-based or mobile?

At either end, you could either use the PC or install VoIP hardware to use the phone even when the PC is off (this option not possible with Skype), and have both UK and Dutch incoming numbers.

It's possible to use VoIP with the PC anywhere, using a mobile phone as a modem, but the data cost, especially when roaming, tends to make it too expensive, and diverting the call when mobile/offline would probably be better, and not too expensive to mobiles with some providers.

When you said calling you on your mobile was too expensive, did you mean for your callers or for you? If people are happy enough to call, but you meant you are incurring roaming charges, then you could also look into cheaper options there (depending on which UK network you're on), but a landline incoming number is probably more sociable in the long run.

foreign_correspondent

ok, thanks for the advice. I dont have a dutch landine, but I do have access to a wireless internet connection in the netherlands, thanks to a kind neighbour! (he is happy for me to use his connection when he isnt online)

Basically, I am looking for a way people can call me here, preferably via the pc so I dont have to get a landline installed.
Its not too much of a problem if I need to have the pc switched on as I can specify when I will be 'in the office' to recieve calls.

If I could also recieve calls via the same system when in the uk that would be a bonus as it would save missing any calls, or having to give two numbers out etc. (I will be taking a laptop with me, if thats any help).

The main thing I am concerned about is the cost for people to call me in the netherlands from from the uk. (I have a dutch sim card for my mobile phone, and though it works out cheaper for me, its still expensive to call me on it from the uk).


Thanks for your input so far, but can I ask for some clarification please? (like I said, I am a newbie and confused!:rolleyes: )
Heinz - is this via a landline?
Redux - would this be possible using a laptop and connecting via wireless or ordinary broadband when travelling?

many thanks:T

redux

Ok, the Dutch end sounds ok for internet access while on the neighbour's wireless network. Can you manage something like that in UK as well?

It would have been possible to use a mobile as a modem with a SIM that had very cheap data roaming, but at the moment it looks like the tariff has gone up a lot recentlly, to something like most other networks, so I won't suggest that for now.

But other people have posted on here that payg SIMs from T-mobile and Orange have a £1 a day capped fee for data, which you could opt in on a daily basis; I think you'd need to make sure you had 3g or EDGE coverage on these though, as ordinary grps speed probably isn't fast enough for VoIP. Finding wi-fi coverage for the UK would be better

For the mobile, if you have more than one, I think you might also look at a roaming SIM with an Isle of Man number. Many providers count this as a UK mobile, and Voipcheap.com currently has a €0.07 + vat tariff to call it, and 10c + vat for Dutch mobiles.

Although Voipcheap don't have a VoIP-in number at the moment, there are rumours this faciity may return in some countries. But in any case you'd be able to find a free or about £2 a month incoming number in both countries.

So you'd have UK and Dutch landline numbers, perhaps with a softphone in the PC that handled more than one account so you could have different providers for incoming and outgoing calls. Or with the Voipcheap softphone and a couple of other providers' numbers forwarded to that account. When offline forward to either your mobile or voicemail, depending how much forwarding costs you want to bear.

I'm still pretty much a VoIP beginner myself (though you can get by without understanding much), so I hope others can add to this, but have a browse through the stiicky thread at the top or perhaps a forum search for voip to give more ideas of what's possible.


As well as all that, I hope that you've looked at the MSE Callchecker for cheap calls to Dutch mobiles, and are aware that some mobile networks here can use callthrough numbers to reach European mobiles via 07744 or 0870 via their contract inclusive minutes. There are articles and threads about that, and we can add a few pointers later if you wish.

This would mean that you could brief some of your most common contacts that call you from their mobiles about this, but wouldn't advertise it.

I'm hoping your Dutch SIM is from IDT, Lebara or Ortel with their 11 or 12 cent calls to UK (are there any more?), or that you use a calling card via freephone numbers from one of the others

patwa_2

I have a similar issue, but on a slightly larger scale as I operate numbers in multiple countries. What I've done is have a DID (virtual number) in each country, then I divert the 'landline' number in each country to the DID (which is also a standard local number in that country) then divert each DID to a central location, e.g my SPA-3000 or voip-phone wherever I happen to be.

So someone calling me from Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, wherever notices no difference, despite the fact I'm taking the call in a different country, and it's just costing me a few pence for the previlage. Most local to local diverts in most countries are free, but I only have two scenarios where I actually need to factor a physical landline into the equation, that being in the Netherlands and Sweden. The others are all virtual local numbers that often cost the caller nothing to call.