Time has moved on (much quicker than it used to - or so it seems at my age) and my previous advice on residential telephony has been or is now gradually being overtaken by changes in the retail market. Hence, I have now deleted links to my previous 'pearls of wisdom'. I sincerely hope they helped save some of you money.
Got them OK on both adresses, must have been file size.
By the way, you can't make freeserve accounts any more, but you can change anything before the @ sign so each one is individual to that person/company.
Great for bank fishing mail as my bank has it's own address for contacting me.
I'm slowly driving myself mad trying to work out the best (cheapest!) phone solution - could someone help to confirm the conclusion that I think I have come to...?!!
We make a lot of phone calls to Germany & Holland (landline and some mobiles), plus UK landlines also - that's mostly it, just the very occasional UK mobile, 0870 etc. Last month (our first back in the UK for 4 years) the BT phone bill was almost £50 for International calls (almost all to Germany) plus about £10 for UK landlines, and a couple more pounds for the rest. I had just concluded that the best solution would be the Heinz programme, with an Orchid V4 dialler. I have now bought and received one (though it is not yet plugged in), plus signed up to 18185 and Primus Saver Option 2. But...
In our new house the TV reception was so awful that, somewhat reluctantly, we ended up a couple of weeks ago signing up for Sky. I now am now beginning think that for most of our calls the Sky Talk Unlimited package might be the best - for £5 per month, unlimited UK landline calls and landline calls to 10 countries (which include pretty much the only overseas countries we call). The only downside seems to be that the Sky overseas mobile rate is a lot more than 18185's (and there is a 60 minute limit before redialling, but we can easily live with that). So what I now think we should do is:
Keep the dialler, as I have paid for it already!
Sign up and use Sky Talk unlimited for UK and the 10 inclusive countries calls.
Programme the dialler to route all other calls (and German mobiles) via Heinz's recommendations.
I guess the 2 questions are:
1. Do you agree with the above solution?
2. How complicated would it be to get the dialler programmed to do the above? I've not used it yet... Is it actually possible to differentiate on the dialler between German landlines and mobiles (the latter would all start 0049 15, 16 or 17, and go via 18185; any other German prefixes could go via Sky)? Is there a limit to the number of rules you can set? It doesn't look totally user-friendly from the guide!
Go for Sky Talk unlimited - but leave Sky in no doubt you want their CPS (Carrier PreSelect) option and DO NOT want to hand over line rental to them.
That way you will still be able, as you obviously need, to use the likes of 18185 for calls such as to German mobiles (which are not included in the Sky offering).
My daughter has BT Together Option 1, Sky Talk Unlimited CPS, 1899, 18866 and 18185 accounts and I have programmed her Orchid V4 for her - to cater for using another carrier for calling German mobiles (yes, it is possible to set a routing rule to differentiate between German landlines and German mobiles and 18185 is, indeed, currently the cheapest of the prefix providers for those calls).
I could email you an Excel file showing her program if you email or PM me your email address.
Time has moved on (much quicker than it used to - or so it seems at my age) and my previous advice on residential telephony has been or is now gradually being overtaken by changes in the retail market. Hence, I have now deleted links to my previous 'pearls of wisdom'. I sincerely hope they helped save some of you money.
Hi Archie, please don't get put off the Orchid and think it's complicated, yes when you first see it it does look like it is but I was the same as you six months ago but with the help of Heinz it turned out to be easy in the end.
Any problems just ask, Heinz is very helpful and so are most of the others here.
Thanks to Heinz and BritBrat - I've now signed up to the Sky phone package, so will spend the next fortnight (the time Sky say it will take to be set up) reading the Orchid guide - yup, I'm sure it will be easier when it comes to actually doing it rather than reading about it. However I might be back here in a couple of weeks...!
First, can I thank Heinz for looking after Orchid config, it does make life simpler.... ;-)
I'm on option 2 primus Freetalk, which is the evening only call's, my understanding from looking at my bills is that I pay £2.99 for the service.
Can you confirm how long option 2 CPS has existed, this look like a free Primus service, I find it odd that i've not just been transfered to this new type of package.
Can you confirm if it is free? and if so any idea how long its been free?
I think the penny mobile rate is a good deal, between myself and my wife - we tend to make small quick calls mainly mid-week. I'll do some analysis to see how long the avg mobile call takes... i'm sure its longer than 2 minutes... ;-)
Replies
Could I see those Heinz, just out of interest.
CYPM
Strange, just got mail on it.
Wonder if they have a system problem and that is why I am not getting mail from BT and 18189.
I will send you same one just in case I typed it wrong.
By the way, you can't make freeserve accounts any more, but you can change anything before the @ sign so each one is individual to that person/company.
Great for bank fishing mail as my bank has it's own address for contacting me.
I'm slowly driving myself mad trying to work out the best (cheapest!) phone solution - could someone help to confirm the conclusion that I think I have come to...?!!
We make a lot of phone calls to Germany & Holland (landline and some mobiles), plus UK landlines also - that's mostly it, just the very occasional UK mobile, 0870 etc. Last month (our first back in the UK for 4 years) the BT phone bill was almost £50 for International calls (almost all to Germany) plus about £10 for UK landlines, and a couple more pounds for the rest. I had just concluded that the best solution would be the Heinz programme, with an Orchid V4 dialler. I have now bought and received one (though it is not yet plugged in), plus signed up to 18185 and Primus Saver Option 2. But...
In our new house the TV reception was so awful that, somewhat reluctantly, we ended up a couple of weeks ago signing up for Sky. I now am now beginning think that for most of our calls the Sky Talk Unlimited package might be the best - for £5 per month, unlimited UK landline calls and landline calls to 10 countries (which include pretty much the only overseas countries we call). The only downside seems to be that the Sky overseas mobile rate is a lot more than 18185's (and there is a 60 minute limit before redialling, but we can easily live with that). So what I now think we should do is:
Keep the dialler, as I have paid for it already!
Sign up and use Sky Talk unlimited for UK and the 10 inclusive countries calls.
Programme the dialler to route all other calls (and German mobiles) via Heinz's recommendations.
I guess the 2 questions are:
1. Do you agree with the above solution?
2. How complicated would it be to get the dialler programmed to do the above? I've not used it yet... Is it actually possible to differentiate on the dialler between German landlines and mobiles (the latter would all start 0049 15, 16 or 17, and go via 18185; any other German prefixes could go via Sky)? Is there a limit to the number of rules you can set? It doesn't look totally user-friendly from the guide!
Many thanks indeed for any advice!
Archie
That way you will still be able, as you obviously need, to use the likes of 18185 for calls such as to German mobiles (which are not included in the Sky offering).
My daughter has BT Together Option 1, Sky Talk Unlimited CPS, 1899, 18866 and 18185 accounts and I have programmed her Orchid V4 for her - to cater for using another carrier for calling German mobiles (yes, it is possible to set a routing rule to differentiate between German landlines and German mobiles and 18185 is, indeed, currently the cheapest of the prefix providers for those calls).
I could email you an Excel file showing her program if you email or PM me your email address.
many thanks - I've sent you a PM (I hope - first time I've done this!)
Archie
Any problems just ask, Heinz is very helpful and so are most of the others here.
Archie
First, can I thank Heinz for looking after Orchid config, it does make life simpler.... ;-)
I'm on option 2 primus Freetalk, which is the evening only call's, my understanding from looking at my bills is that I pay £2.99 for the service.
Can you confirm how long option 2 CPS has existed, this look like a free Primus service, I find it odd that i've not just been transfered to this new type of package.
Can you confirm if it is free? and if so any idea how long its been free?
I think the penny mobile rate is a good deal, between myself and my wife - we tend to make small quick calls mainly mid-week. I'll do some analysis to see how long the avg mobile call takes... i'm sure its longer than 2 minutes... ;-)
Regards
Nick