Localphone - Web Calls

malc_b

I recently found https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mobiles/free-international-phone-calls/ which is rather old and could perhaps do with an update although all the companies listed still exist so that is good.

I've recently converted my old mobile to be a "house" mobile using localphone as land charges are ridiculous.  For the cost of anytime for free daytime calls I can have a mobile contract with free call anyway, if you have signal that is.  Unfortunately I find my signal in my house is poor and Lebara doesn't offer wifi calling.  My broadband includes evening and weekend calls so it just the odd daytime call.  Hence the plan is to use Whatsapp for weekday daytime calls to family and localphone for calls to other phones.   The cost of the access and 1 minute on my land line is near 50p and on localphone that would be a 25min call!

I had some problems getting localphone to work correctly so for anyone else having problems here are my tips:

1.  CloudID in the localphone app is the email address you registered on the web site, not your account number (ID suggests a number to me).

2.  After entering my ID and password I had server error (I clicked ok to that), then invalid certificate (I clicked trust to that).  When app started I got another invalid certificate which I click trust on.  If you click the dot in the top bar then app status is shown.  My displayed registering and then error which just repeated.  If I tried to make a call the app just said trying and nothing happened.   The fix for this I found to be go into settings, network, and enable legacy rtp (I was using an old mobile, android 5.02), then go back to main app screen.  Then in the app notifier where it says registering/error click exit.  Also go to the recent apps and close localphone app there.  Restart localphone app and check status.  In my case the app now said registering then registered and I had no server error or invalid certificate.   And more importantly phoning now worked.

3.  Calling a uk mobile on localphone should say 1.5p/min but I found it said 19p/min.  The fix is change mobile numbers from 07xxxx to +44 7xxxx which convinces localphone it is a uk mobile.  For some reason it is happy with 01xxxx landline numbers and you don't need to change those to +44 1xxxx although either will work in uk and +44 1xxx would be what you need to dial from abroad.