Cheap international phone calls

Posted by: TomK on 14 October 2009

I'm going to be calling the US a bit more regularly in the coming months and I'm looking at ways of minimising the costs. For the time being Skype isn't an option. I've found a site called Telediscount.co.uk which claims that by using their access number I can get calls at 1p per minute. No account needed, no credit card, no catches apparently. Being firmly of the belief that if something looks too good to be true it probably is, I'm suspicious. Has anybody used this or anything similar? There was a discussion a few years ago but I'm wondering if there's any more up to date feedback.
Posted on: 14 October 2009 by blythe
I have been using 18866.com for my international calls for some years (all my local and national calls too). www.18866.com
Although you have to register with a credit card to set it up, I have had no problems at all.

I prefix every number I dial with 18866 and all UK calls at any time are free - after the 5p connection charge.

The USA, Spain, Australia landlines etc. are all 2p per minute, plus the 5p connection charge.

I think you have to have a BT line to be able to use this service.

You can even set it so that a nice lady tells you the minute rate after you dial every number - serves as a useful reminder.

My average monthly bill is now only about £12 (plus quarterly line rental to BT as normal)
Posted on: 14 October 2009 by Dave996
Posted on: 14 October 2009 by Frank Abela
Right up until I joined Talk Talk I used to call Malta on a trunk call for 5p a minute (BT was 90p/m). I can't remember the operator but it was basically a system where you called their number appropriate to the country you wanted and then dialled the number when you got a dialtone. And they never charged me more than they said they would. It's a VoIP system so they're still making money off you and the sound quality is OK (if no great shakes). There are quite a few operators of this type avround on the 'net.

I went to Talk Talk because I can phone loads of countries for free for calls under 70 minutes long (and as many times as I like) and I get broadband and the line rental all bundled in at £20/month. In essence my phone bill has dropped to £20/month (or a bit over coz I also wanted caller-id).
Posted on: 14 October 2009 by Peter Dinh
quote:
Originally posted by TomK:
For the time being Skype isn't an option.


Out-of-curiosity - why Skype is not an option? I have been using Skype for the last couple of years for international calls without any problem at all and it is cheap.
Posted on: 14 October 2009 by Ian G.
I've used telediscount for some years. The catch is they are less reliable than some other providers (more bad lines, more disconnected calls etc). If I were doing business over the phone I wouldn't use them, but for personal calls the occasional inconvenience is tolerable (to me). YMMV

cheers

Ian
Posted on: 16 October 2009 by stephenjohn
I use telediscount too. It nearly always works for me and is very inexpensive