Cheap phonecalls

[Yump]

Now I know we've done this one before, but I couldn't find it and it probably needs updating anyway.

Looking to ring France now regularly.

I use Superline (http://www.superline.co.uk/compare.html) at present - 4p/min, which I think is OK really, but I'm sure one of you cheapskates came up with something even better last time around.

Ideally, I'd like a service provider that actually paid me for the privilege of making calls through their system
:)

[sully5059]

http://www.call18866.co.uk

I don't know what they're like as I haven't used them - calls to France are 1p per minute (plus a 1p connection fee).

[MTDay]

http://www.telediscount.co.uk/index2.php
No pre-registration - 0845 local rate number for many destination

They SAY it's also 1p/min evenings, but I dont know how that's supposed to work?

[John]

http://www.skype.net/home.html

Dunno what that is but if they have a PC it might be worth a look

[sentup.custard]

@ MTDay

Re Telediscount rates:

"They SAY it's also 1p/min evenings..."

From memory, you're on NTL aren't you? If so, it wouldn't be true for you - the actual cost depends, of course, entirely on what your provider charges for an 0845 call. BT droppped their evening rate for 0845 calls (on the standard price list, not just the "Together" packages) to 1p back in June, but NTL haven't followed suit.

Telediscount is nice and easy - no registration needed, and I don't think you'll better their 1p for evenings and weekends, I use them myself for Canada and New Zealand at the same price. For daytime use though, those "18866" people who Sully's found look better than anyone else I've come across - as long as you have a BT line. I suspect that they may actually be the same people as Telediscount, offering a different rate for those who don't mind registering their line - the website is suspicioualy similar, and they actually recommend Telediscount for non BT lines in their FAQ.

Edit:
Thinking about it, depending who you are calling (are they likely to be out or engaged?) "18866" could be better for evenings and weekends too. Theirs being an access code with calls billed by them, not BT, you don't get charged if you don't get through, whereas BT will charge you for the 0845 call as soon as you connect to Telediscount, irrespective of what happens thereafter.

[oldboy2000]

I use Equitalk mainly for my calls to Turkey....BT charge 67p minute....Equitalk charge 17p minute and I know it's true because I use them regularly for this call........How do BT manage to make it 50p dearer???

[Yump]

Well cheers m'dears
thanks for the info, very useful.

Oil be giving it ar bash soon.

But Oldboy, I looked at Equitalk some while back and never found them competitive. Even Superline, which I have found excellent for service, give the following rates for Turkey:

Calls to fixed phones 14.5 Calls to mobiles 27.5p

and from the evidence above ↑ ↑ that don't seem too good anyway.

[oldboy2000]

Must now look at Superline..and save more money on my Turkish calls!!!

[leathersley]

Onetel 4p min to France, 15p min turkey.

Found them ok up to now. use them for ISP as well.

[R de N]

Originally posted by sully5059
http://www.call18866.co.uk

I don't know what they're like as I haven't used them - calls to France are 1p per minute (plus a 1p connection fee).





thanks for link, Sully.

have been more than interested in low cost calls for yoinks, particularly to the States, Europe and Japan. - from the early days of 'rest tapping' ['40s through '50s] analogue uniselectors, whistling and blue boxes, to the first ISP phone services circa 1990s.

Used the Swiftcall service (£50 up front) in the early 1970s, they still owe me money-credits...!

Have used Skytalk 140 since its inception, 50% off BT charges, no problems.

Plus LineOne and all the derivations that lead up to Tiscali 1615, still using 1615 at 2p/min and still waiting for Tiscali to sort out my bill for past two years.

Joined OneTel for its 1p/min ISP and use it for backup but have not used the phone service since the PhonePal was introduced.

Superline gave a very good service and professional presentation of accounts but can not match 1615 for costs.


Sully, have just signed up with Call18866, quite painless and swift.

We have made half dozen calls already (Well Margaret has !) as she says "its only a 1p/min [inc vat] for local, national and to the USA and most of Europe. Plus voice message gives you the charge-rate as the call is dialled"


Will give an update next week.

James

[easigo99]

Since using superline I have saved a fair bit on my calls

The single rate charged for local and national calls is not bad but the winner is the 3p min call charge. You would be surprised how many calls you make that are around a minute's duration. Most telecoms seem to charge about a 5p minimum.

[Micky]

I use ukcall (press lots of buttons) for peak and 1615 for offpeak.

Call18866 seems too good to be true but 1p per min is 1p per min.

How long have they been in business?

[Richy]

i use alphatelecom to call the states. works well and is pretty cheap to the states.

[R de N]

Originally posted by Richy
i use alphatelecom to call the states. works well and is pretty cheap to the states.



Richy, just had over an hour to Gillian in the States, 65p inc VAT.


Dont think it will ever be cheaper - same duration cost me well over £20 back in the early '60s (luckily I could use my office phone, back in those days this was approaching a weeks salary !)


Regards, James

[R de N]

Originally posted by Micky
I use ukcall (press lots of buttons) for peak and 1615 for offpeak.

Call18866 seems too good to be true but 1p per min is 1p per min.

How long have they been in business?



Mickey, why do use only use 1615 for off-peak when it is 2p/min [plus vat] 24/7 ?


Agreed 18866 seems to good to be true but got it up and running in ten minutes today - have already made some pretty hefty overseas calls at a penny per minute - so will continue to 'make hay while the sunshines' Until the clouds appear over the horizon.


James

[Micky]

R de N

Smartalk Everytime peak = 3p per min national, 2.5 per min local, more expensive than Daytime Extra for peak calls but cheaper for off-peak. UKCall = 1.65p per min 24/7. All a bit irrelevant compared to 1p per min peak with Call18866 ...... better get the credit card out.

So that's Call18866 for peak and some off-peak, Tiscali for some off-peak, BT for the calls included in the line rental and UKCall for when I want to push lots of buttons :p :p

M

[R de N]

OK Gentlemen, promised update on 18866:-


First impressions were excellent, no problems and several long chats to USA and national calls all at 1p (inc VAT).

Easy monitoring of calls and duration costs.

So... spent an hour on saturday morning reprograming two auto-dial
phones [28 numbers] and checked all OK. Used several times saturday
evening, one or two were engaged [probably on the net ?]

Sunday midday - 'Margaret' "can't get through to my Sister, she must be having a long chat, permanently engaged for past hour"

2pm. 'Margaret' "just rang Pat on my mobile, she hasn't used the phone all day. Pat say's "it must be her Son using the phone upstairs and has just gone up to sort him out [as only she can do] !

2.15pm Pat rings back, " just had a barney with Michael, swears
he hasn't used phone all day - know that he is lying 'cos my phone bills are getting higher every time - told him I won't be able to feed him soon !"

2.30pm. 'Margaret' "just tried ringing Pat to tell her to take it easy on Michael, could be a fault on our phone, etc. Poor little devil... BUT I can't get through it's engaged... "


I tried, engaged tone... tried several other numbers, mostly engaged...

rechecked programming code on four numbers, all codes OK. but on dialup were engaged.


Finally from 7pm until midnight set autodial on '18866' - approx
90% of the time the 18866 immediately went in to engaged tone.

08.00 this morning, no engaged tones.


It would seem therefore that 'call18866' does not have sufficient
capacity to cope with the demand at peak times.


Edit: listening carefully on the monitor during dialout, the
BT engaged signal can just be discerned under the dial tones.


James

[leathersley]

What's the answer then James, you've right put me off 18866, signed up with them last night a well, sacked onetel this morning, looks as if I'll soon be back with wonderfull BT. Seems to be a touch of Gio about 18866.

Shall be very interested in future updates James,

Thanks

[R de N]

Originally posted by leathersley
What's the answer then James, you've right put me off 18866, signed up with them last night a well, sacked onetel this morning, looks as if I'll soon be back with wonderfull BT. Seems to be a touch of Gio about 18866.






Well, Pat, As a wartime kid, I was always taught not to throw
Anything away, Repair the Impossible And certainly Never burn your bridges behind you...

Thats why I still to have three garages full of Stuff that will come in useful sometime - a large Victorian flat up here in London that has four rooms that are almost impossible to enter because they are chockfull of Useful stuff 'built like battleships', much to good to through away !

And a retirement flat in St Leonards which is full to overflowing
with Stuff that Will come in useful sometime...


Plus three ISPs and four telephone suppliers -

BT which we use and pay D/D on quarterly basis and list our calls to get the maximum free discount,

then we have SkyTalk from SkyDigital which gives us 50% off BT rates.

1615 from Tiscali which we use most for national calls.

OneTel mainly for backup ISP and occasionally phone calls.

And now 'call18866' - at 1p [inc VAT] it is too good to miss.


So, Sir, answering your question - I will continue to persevere with 18866 - if we get an engaged tone via the autodialler
then we will immediately confirm by dialling '18866' to differentiate between '18866' or the subscriber 'engaged tone'

So far it only cropped up at peak weekend time, therefore I will
use SkyTalk for the 50% discount on BT rate if 18866 is busy.


I trust that my rambling long winded reply will give you a clearer picture (If not, I can always try again - probably be three times longer though !)



Interesting that you mentioned Gio - I had exactly the same thoughts last night.
Currently I am using the free Gio night service, no problems whatever, I login at 23.55 and if I login before 08.00 can continue to approx 09.30, no cutoffs.


Final thoughts, Pat... if I were you I would stick with 18866
for as long as it lasts, who knows ? It might improve its weekend
capacity.

THIS MORNING WE HAVE CHECKED CONSTANTLY, NO PROBLEMS.

I've just phoned Gillian in the States again in the past hour - "Dad,
you'd better ring off, all these calls must be costing you a fortune"

(What she really means is "Oh No, not Dad on for another hour...")


Regards, James

[leathersley]

Thanks for the reply James.

Yes I shall stick with 18866 and give them a fair try.

It will probably take 2/3 weeks to disable onetel CPS anyway.

At the moment I am dialling 1280 to force my call's throgh BT, then through 18866.

Just doing a double check to see that BT are not charging me as well.

Kind Regards

[Paul]

http://www.just-dial.com

not cheaper for france, but cheaper for some other countires (like turkey)

[R de N]

To PAT [and other interested parties]

Copy of reply from 'call18866' regarding engaged tones at peaktime on
Sunday - the final paragraph confirms my suggestion of lack of capacity at present - however I'm more than happy with the 1p/min
inc. VAT for all National calls and particularly the States and most other countries.

I would stress that we only met this problem Sunday PM, no problems before and since.
--------------------------------


Dear James,

Thank you for your email. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

If you hear an engaged tone immediately after dialling the 18866 code (i.e. you cannot even enter the UK telephone number) this could be due to your BT subscription. If you have a BT ‘light user scheme’ you will not be able to use our service. However we would advise you to contact BT to check which scheme you are on and if BT allows you to use Indirect Access codes.

Should you have heard this tone after dialling the UK telephone number it may be that this number is not known correctly on our system. If this is the case could you please let us know exactly which telephone number you are trying to reach and the date and time of the call in order to investigate this further.

At the moment we are also experiencing some capacity problems at peak times which will be resolved in the very near future. If your calls were made at peak times could you please try again on a weekday morning or afternoon? It would be much appreciated if you could inform if calls in the morning fail as well and which telephone number you were ringing from plus the exact date and time in order to investigate this further.

Thanking you in advance.

Kind regards,
18866 Customer Services

---------------------------------
www.call18866.co.uk


----- Original Message -----

Newsgroups: 18866.info
To: <>
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 7:22 PM
Subject: [#1015604203] (Q)Engaged


Regards, James.

[Richy]

damn shame they dont cover btl or id have signed up. I spent about 20-30 a month on alphatelecome calling the states.

[leathersley]

Thanks again James.

Nice response from 18866, I'm warming to them by the 1p/Min :lol

Everything satisfactory with the service up to present as far as I'm concerned.

Thanks sully5059 for the link.

[R de N]

PAT & other interested parties...

Signed up with call18866 on the 17th, so far it has been a very interesting experience as previously detailed !

Today I received the following email (duplicated):


-------------------------------------------------------------------


Dear James,

Unfortunately our credit/debit card acquirer has made a mistake by debiting your payment in euros instead of pounds. This may have caused some confusion on your credit/debit card statement as due to the conversion from euros to pounds the actual amount debited may be a few pennies different than the actual amount showing on your 18866 invoice. Furthermore the company name on your statement may be shown as Payplus instead of 18866.co.uk.

The difference you have incurred as a result of the conversion from pounds to euros has now been reimbursed to your Call18866 account. To compensate for the misunderstanding an amount of £ 1.00 has been credited; if you go to ‘customer login’ and log into your Call 18866 account with your customer number and registered telephone number you will see the credit under ‘compensation euro conversion charges’.

Any future payments from this date will be debited in pounds corresponding exactly to the amount shown on your 18866 invoices.

Our sincere apologies for the inconvenience.

Kind regards,
18866 Customer Services
www.call18866.co.uk



---------------------------------------------------------------------
Invoices
INVOICES ACCOUNT PRINT LOG OUT

CALL18866
PO Box 44714
London
SW1Y 4XD
Account 0360 5 360
Sort code 23 92 90
http://www.CALL18866.co.uk

Your current status:

OK! Your payment has been successfully processed. You can call as usual with 18866.
18866-customernumber 579******
Telephone number(s) 01424******, 0208*******


When you register for 18866 and accumulate £1.50 worth of calls we will collect the £ 1.50 from your account immediately to secure your registration.

Thereafter further payments of the total amount of your invoices will take place once a month. Should your outstanding invoice amount reach the maximum amount of £105.00 before the end of the month it will be collected without delay.

By logging in to "customer login" you can check up to date overviews of your payments, invoices and calls.



_________________________________________Login____ ___________
Totals Amount
Calls since last invoice £ 1.70
Credit £ 1.00
To be charged £ 0.70

Invoices Date Amount Status invoice
Calls since last invoice Pending
Invoice 1 21-9-2003 £ 1.50 Paid

Processed bank transfers Date Amount
25-9-2003 £ 1.00 compensation euro charges


_________________________________________Logout___ ______________



It is a very interesting service indeed !!!

James (USA 1p / min. Inc VAT)

[R de N]

Monday to saturday midday, no problems.

Saturday, 15.00, several engaged tones after dialler reached 18866 -

now at 18.00, complete dialup engaged tones.

Awaiting the promised increase in capacity.

James

[oldboy2000]

Sounds just like the Dial Up ISP's used to be in the early days...I've no doubt like them the phone calls will become ok in the end.

[leathersley]

James.

Call this afternoon 14.46 OK.

Now 18.32, engaged after 18866. The first time I have encountered this.

{scrub Gio, substitute Highstream}

[sentup.custard]

I think Dave is right - cheap phone providers are to some extent like cheap ISPs. They are often run on a shoestring, and one of two things usually happens. Either they get plenty of custom and make sufficient profit to buy more capacity before their initial investment runs out and become a good provider, or they go bust.

That is why, all though I'm a great user of these cheap companies, I keep my options open and have my line registered with a fair number of them - if the current cheapest option falls over and dies, I have something to fall back on without paying BT prices.

[R de N]

Originally posted by sentup.custard


That is why, all though I'm a great user of these cheap companies, I keep my options open and have my line registered with a fair number of them - if the current cheapest option falls over and dies, I have something to fall back on without paying BT prices.

Dave



My sentiments exactly, Dave.

[Micky]

1p per min is 1p per min, but it would be useful if the service wasn't engaged 50% of the time; no money up front so not as painful as several ISPs I've had the misfortune to use.

[leathersley]

R de N

Hi James,

Are you able to update us with regard to 18866, as far as I'm concerned they are No: 1.

Regards,

[R de N]

Originally posted by leathersley
R de N

Hi James,

Are you able to update us with regard to 18866, as far as I'm concerned they are No: 1.

Regards,



OK Patrick,
as you probably know I have two phone lines, St Len-0n-Sea and B.Hill - regularly switch between the two for several weeks at a time.

Down here at the South Coast absolutely no problems, terrific reduction in size of phone bill although the number of calls and duration has increased by an inordinate amount (Margaret talks daily to her Sister in London, usually for an hour or more. Also I am in constant touch with my Daughter Gillian in the States and friends on the Continent).

It is music to my ears to hear the auto-voice come up immediately after dialling, "your call is 1p per minute" [including VAT !].

However, up in London we have recently twice experienced a glitch -
immediately at the beginning of dialling any area code [after the 18866] a voice message intones " Sorry, 18866 does not cover the area
you are trying to dial to "

The first day it happened I sent an email to Support, No answer, but the full service was restored about three hours later.

The second time it happened was last thursday just as we were leaving BH to come down here - No time or point in sending an email, thought I will wait and see what happens down at St Len - arrived here, absolutely no problem. All calls go through immediately.


Pat, on a previous posting you mentioned Highstream...

Quote/ {scrub Gio, substitute Highstream} /Unquote


I use Highstream practically 100% - in the past couple of months
I think I've only once had an engaged tone, [Sunday PM]

I login and out regularly from 06.00 through to 02.00 on occasions - I think it is one of the best ISP's going - especially as it never costs more than a tenner per month, can use it from anywhere after changing the login phone number, And I've never ever used up my 300
odd hours yet.

Anyone want to try it let me know, I'm always happy to 'recommend a friend' and collect the month's free service !

{Helps stretch the pension - and I can say to Margaret; "look it hasn't cost us a penny this month")


Incidentally, Martin's Money Forum has now caught up with '18866'
and is listing it the number one best phone provider.

Hope some of this is of interest to you,

Regards, James / R de N.



PS: Guess what, just tried to connect to Highstream,

'the computer you are dialling did not answer'

my auto-dialler repeats after one second - straight through !!!

You see Pat, I report as I find, No Flannel.

[leathersley]

Thanks for the reply James.

Glad that everythings ok with 18866 apart from the odd glitch, I'm very happy with it.I did think after it was reccomended on Martins site it would be difficult to connect, but I must say it been ok whenever I've wanted to use it.

Highstream.
It was a disaster for me James, and also my friend who lives about half a mile from me. The price was good but in the evening it could take literaly hours to get on the net. to be fair they did return our subscription under thier money back guarantee. Since then I've been with Onetel £13.99.

Kind Regards,

[Bilbo]

Just received an email from 18866. Their rate for calling mobiles was 15p per minute. But now it's been cut to just 2p at weekends:

Weekend calls to UK mobiles will be charged at ONLY 2p/min!!!
Weekday daytime/weekday evening calls will be charged at only 10p/min!

Wonderful :)

[oldboy2000]

I use them a lot...... sounds excellent news to me

[MTDay]

And another one joins the party - Telestunt
http://www.telestunt.co.uk

1p/min anytime 0844 8610861 - to selected Destinations
(16.12.2003) More countries for 1p per minute!

Telestunt has updated the list of "1p per minute" countries for you! From now on you can call the following destinations also for only 1p per minute!

Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Denmark
France
Israel
Italy
New Zealand
Norway
Spain
United Kingdom
(and USA from the main list, though not repeated in the flash)

[karenjones1]

Hiya,

Have you tried Acomm Direct for international calls at national rate. Its quite good actually as they use BT lines. Their numbers are

0870 334 9350
0844 551 0206
0871 204 9986
09110 75 0206
09115 16 0206
09114 34 0206
09115 21 0206
09119 37 0206

They cover the whole world using BT quality. I spoke to them yest and they said they will offer more discounts very soon. See their website you will like it! its http://www.acommdirect.com

Ta,
Karen
:)

[R de N]

Welcome Karen, :)
may I suggest you try http://www.call18866.co.uk - I have made several posts on this thread relating to the 1p/minute national and international calls.

I now have six members of my family and three elderly friends listed onto my account who use 18866 daily (they do not have web access) their bills [when eventually I forward it to them ] are all under three pounds per month, compared with eight times that amount IF they were to use BT. They now use the phone daily at peak times for National calls. As for phone quality, I speak to my daughter Gillian in the States weekly for up to an hour a time [60p] she could be in the next room. :)

I just had a quick look at the Acomm site - have no idea of their countries or charges, 'Cos I don't want to pay for a national rate call just to read their country listings. :eek:

Regards, :)

R de N / James

[oldboy2000]

Yes I second that 18866 Service....a great money saver and so easy to you use...I use it all the time.

[R de N]

Morning Dave,

Your not replying from Turkey are you ?

The only minor problem we have is the occasional engaged tone at peak times - at first thought it was the number we were calling was engaged - the cottoned on that it can occasionally be 18866 - for a quick check if this is so, we just manually dial 18866, if overloaded, Bingo, we hear the engaged signal...

James

[oldboy2000]

No still in UK until two weeks time....then off for a couple of months.

I phone Turkey 10p minute on 18866 think it's 87p on BT !

Hope you are keeping well ...

[R de N]

No still in UK until two weeks time....then off for a couple of months.
I phone Turkey 10p minute on 18866 think it's 87p on BT !

* Hope you are keeping well ... *


Well, more or less, the answer must be YES...

The only thing that is noticeable to all and sundry is ....

" you're getting more like Victor meldrew everyday " :lol

I Must agree that I'm becoming very intolerant of the wealthy yobs that live around here (Buckhurst HIll and Chigwell) - Saturday, we had Three new silver Ferraris flogging around the local oneway shopping area in which we live - two police cars were haring around and eventually disappeared after twenty minutes without catching one.

The local wine bar, Blue Monday's, a hundred yards up Queens Road, was
jam packed and spilling out over the road. They had open topped Mercs,
Porsches, Saabs, red and silver ferraris, one Lamborgini, countless open BMW's - the one way system was blocked. The rowdiness of the girls driving some of these cars was unbelievable.

The female use of the F****** C*** expletive was shattering :eek:

can't wait to get back to quiet St Leonards. :)

James

[oldboy2000]

Know just where you mean....sit back "Victor" you can't win against them.

[Oldun]

When my daughter moved to texas, the wife started phoning her once a week and they usually lasted over an hour. The first BT bill came in and the calls averaged about £6 . Quickly went over to Superline and now her calls are in the £1.90 region . Checked out several others like Powergen , Onetel etc. .Am happy with Superline because it so easy to check the cost of calls within minutes of making them .
oldun

[leathersley]

Another cheap one to have a look at.

www.call1899.co.uk

0.5p min UK with 3p connection charge as opposed to 18866 at 1p.

OK for long calls or as a back up service.

[Yump]

Ooooooohhh!
Methinks the time is drawing near when they will actually be PAYING US to make phone calls :)

[oldboy2000]

Ooooooohhh!
Methinks the time is drawing near when they will actually be PAYING US to make phone calls :)

You want Jam on it too Yump :lol

[Yump]

sure, if they are offering . . .