cheapest UK landline to Norwegian mobiles?

pigeonpie

I call an elderly friend in Norway a lot. She only has a mobile phone, no landline as mobile phone tariffs in Norway are so cheap. I've been using my BT landline and the override operators sourced via this site, however not only are they 8p or 10p a minute (+ presumably whatever the connection charge is with BT?), but the calls usually or often drop. eg tonight I used 2 different override operators and on a 10 mins call, the call dropped 3 times :mad:

I think I need to retain my BT line for my ISP.
Can anyone help please as the bills are quite high? She doesn't have a computer so we can't skype.

billsavings

Have you tried these people? http://www.localphone.com/call/norway

Your not get the cost down really low its an expensive destination.

pigeonpie

do you know if their connections are reliable? They're the same price as the callchecker operators but the latter costs twice as much due to the dropped calls.
Calling a Norwegian landline is cheap. My friend was here and was using her mobile phone a lot so I asked about their roaming/intl charges - 2p a minute! I just feel bad about always asking her to call me, but along with the 0844/45/70 calls (some don't have geog alternatives) it's the major chunk of my phone bill.

Jemma-T

First thing came to my mind is: Why don't you buy a Norwegian PAYG phone? They may be cheap[er] even though it's going through the UK.

trickidicki

pigeonpie wrote: »

I call an elderly friend in Norway a lot. She only has a mobile phone, no landline as mobile phone tariffs in Norway are so cheap. I've been using my BT landline and the override operators sourced via this site, however not only are they 8p or 10p a minute (+ presumably whatever the connection charge is with BT?), but the calls usually or often drop. eg tonight I used 2 different override operators and on a 10 mins call, the call dropped 3 times :mad:

I think I need to retain my BT line for my ISP.
Can anyone help please as the bills are quite high? She doesn't have a computer so we can't skype.

Follows copy of my post elsewhere, please excuse. Point is, Dialnow is European with a "local" access number in Norway. You could set up a 10 Euro account on your friend's mobile and set up the access number, pause, and your landline number on her phone. Ask her to ring you back (bit difficult?) Cost your friend local rate and you 0.5 cent / min off the account that you could keep topped up. Sorry, bit complex!
For anyone with zero marginal cost calls, ie, inclusive ("free") minutes on mobile or "all-you-can-eat" inclusive on landline, DIALNOW.COM http://www.dialnow.com/en/index.html offers a good deal for international calls as their access number is a landline (Manchester!) 0161 number. Pre-paid, so it can't get out of hand, min credit 10 Euros, then most of Europe and many others free (credit doesn't reduce) or 0.5 eurocents / min, no connection fee. It works, and a lot less hassle than Skype, more like a normal mobile or fixed phone service. Also good value for calls to foreign mobiles. Run by same lot as 18185, whose web text service is much better and cheaper (1p to most countries)

trickidicki

Another thought following on from Jemma-T, set her up with a dedicated mobile with a roaming SIM, eg http://www.oneroam.co.uk/sim-cards.aspx or Google, also MSE article, that would receive calls in Norway without charge and be reasonably cheap for you to call on inc minutes or a landline deal. Be a bit careful, some of these int SIM numbers are a bit odd, Isle of Man or suchlike. Sorry, also a bit complicated.

pigeonpie

thanks for the suggestions. She's 85 so anything complicated isn't going to work and nor sadly is a second, dedicated mobile as she'll get confused. She's a text message fiend, which costs me 20p a text to send back so I'd rather call. I will check out dialnow to see if that may work. Right now, I'm not speaking to her as often as I'd like and when we do speak, she tries to keep it short as she knows it's costly.
I asked about getting a Norwegian mobile PAYG for me but you need to have it registered to a Norwegian address and account holder, so would require her son to set it up (which early indications are, he doesn't want to!) but will ask again.
As telecomms in Norway are so cheap, why's it so expensive to call their mobiles I wonder?
Does BT offer any all inclusive (landline and mobile) deals to the EU and Norway btw?