Cheap Calling with Access Numbers

Tech, TV, Mobile, Internet and Geek Corner
1
Best rate I found for India:

Budget Tarife :

Festnetz/Land phone: 5Rp/min (Connection charge 10 Rp/Call)

Mobile: 3 Rp/min (Connection charge 0 Rp/Call)

update 2009-09-30:

No connection charges anymore for India, also both mobile & landline has same cost 3rp/min

The topic of calling back home comes naturally to all of us. Be it US, Australia, UK, within Europe, Far East or to the sub-continent. Being expats means you have friends and family back home, with whom you would love to keep in touch.

Some of us have figured out ways to do that: Calling directly from home phone, using SIP numbers, Skype, Yahoo/MSN/AIM and other IM clients, or may be some other thing which just works.

It is not my intention to turn this thread into "which one's better". Calling from normal phone with access numbers is perhaps pretty easy for any "noob"- the term can denote both being new to the country or not so technically inclined.

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(Skip the part between the dotted line if you know already how Access numbers work)

For uninitiated, you dial a phone number - 08xx xxx xxx, or 09xx xxx xxx, an automated voice informs you of the call charges , then you dial the destination number. At the end of the call you pay

connection charges (if any) + no.of. minutes * call charges/minute as blue above + no.of. minutes * call charges/minute for your normal phone line.

Another variation of the same: if when you buy a phone card with prepaid calling value, and use the access numbers which are specific to those cards. This is the easiest option when you do not have a phone at home on your name, but the charges mentioned while buying vary from time to time and I have encountered serious 'rounding off minutes error'!

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I wanted this thread to be a home for comments from users who may find cheaper and best rates amongst those available at the moment for different countries. Of course the dilemma remains if all of us use only these numbers then who is going to scout for cheaper and better rates! For that I trust our inquisitiveness from other sources, and some work in updating this thread with new information. I know it sounds like a big project for such a small thing. But I for one (being ill informed of course) spent a LOT on phone calls on my initial period!

I thought this thread makes more sense when the information is written on the first line, with country or region specific. Search option would find this out easily in Telephony section. But I am open to suggestion from the mod or any other user, how can this be improved. You may write what you want in this thread, but just know that more then number of comments giving rates of calls, the more its of use to people who need them!

If there are enough people who need this information, perhaps it could be made a sticky, who knows! If not, then I don't mind spending this last half an hour improving my English creative writing skills!

Disclaimer: I am NOT anyhow related to the websites which is presently giving the best rates. Just a ripped of chap trying to help other "going to be ripped off" folks.

2
Loads of the tariffs I see are more than double other non calling-card tariffs.

With this "budget" deal you pay the 0900 fee for every call - even when the number can't be connected. They also round to the nearest 10 Rappen.

Come on then, what is the cheapest you can find to "Aussieland"?

3
Yes you are partly correct. But as you may have read, I wrote those are the cheapest I found for "India". You may know of some other cheaper rates for some other country /region, lets say US, then you are more than welcome to write in the cheaper rates here.

Of course, one may argue there are too many countries in the world to cover in one thread . I am no expert, nor do I know much about telecom sector, but lets gather all the cheapest possible rates here. One can always search for his/her own country/region then.

4
For calling land line phones, yes you do pay 10Rp every call. Fortunately for me, I connect 99% of the time, whether it is the service or is it the ease of reaching the number I am calling, I cannot comment. But this is my experience with them.

Also I am very sure the costs are not rounded to the nearest 10Rp, since I have been using these services for more than a year and have gone through the bills pretty extensively before I thought about posting this here.

Sorry I think you may have misunderstood me. I did not claim to find the cheapest for any specific country. I wrote we all can contribute what we know to be the cheapest and when someone else knows better, then he/she posts here. It would be nice place to exchange this information amongst ourselves. No one gets cookie points to find cheapest rate!

Enjoy your evenings folks!

5
This should indeed become a very useful thread!

We are moving to Switzerland in January and I have been researching rates for calls to fixed and mobile numbers in Romania and Holland (my wife's and my family).

The following came up:

Tieftarife.ch

RO fix 0.02

RO mob 0.05

NL fix 0.04

NL mob 0.30

Raptel

RO fix 0.03

RO mob 0.04

NL fix 0.04

NL mob 0.30

TeleSwiss

RO fix 0.02

RO mob 0.04

NL fix 0.02

NL mob 0.30

Helvatel

RO fix 0.03

RO mob 0.10

NL fix 0.04

NL mob 0.10

Conclusion: it seems shopping around can make a big difference and you may want to use different providers for different countries and/or fix vs mobile.

In the above samples, Helvatel is at least twice as expensive for calls to mobile numbers in Romania but it is one third of the price for calls to mobile numbers in Holland.

I would use TeleSwiss for all calls apart from to mobile numbers in Holland and Helvatel for the latter.

I suppose there can be situations where you would use many different ones to get the best deal.

Another issue apart from price is quality/reliability/cheating on costs etcetera.

As we haven't actually used any of these services I cannot say anything on this front, but maybe others can add their experiences in this thread.

6
I just looked at this one for actual charges.

Swisscom charges to 0840 numbers are 8 rappen per minute, so be sure to factor this in when comparing. Rounding up to the next 10 rappen or even 1 franc per call instead of actual duration can make them expensive. The rouding isn't clean on their website. Instead they tell you to ask your fixedline operator

For the Swisscom business number charges, take a look at:

http://www.swisscom.ch/res/festnetz/...land/Index.htm

HTH

7
You might want to have a look at http://www.rebtel.com

CH to India is CHF 0.034 per minute for landline or mobile. You can call from your landline or mobile.

It is an easy system to set up and the phone quality is excellent. I think that they are the largest provider on calls from the USA to India.

Disclaimer: I am not associated with the company.

8
I use a dial-out only SIP service from Worlddialpoint Australia, Melbourne for 8c untimed 24hrs a day to Oz landlines. A$50 of credit has yet to expire after 13 months in Switzerland. ( http://www.worlddialpoint.net.au/ )

9
Cablecom charges 4 Rappen per minute.

10
Thanks . Yes this is the kind of thing I was hoping to create. Getting the still hot rates from fellow users.

I had used Rebtel and has temporarily switched to Budget tarife since their offers were cheaper. But with 50% off on the Rebtel rates, ofcourse thats what makes sense "now", and I would switch back!

11
With cablecom one also has the option to pay 5CHF a month so that all festnetz numbers are free, I believe it includes the 08xx numbers too, but can someone confirm?

12
Switzernet's complete Rate Grid in PDF format. India, eg, for 6 rappen both landlines and mobiles per second billing.

13
[quote=Verbier;355640]You might want to have a look at http://www.rebtel.com

quote]

Which proves the point that each provider can be different for each country you want to call to.

Rebtel costs for Romania 12 Rappen landline and 33 Rappen mobile, which makes it about 600% more expensive than others...

Shopping around per calling destination is essential!

14
On Cablecom website:

In the case of free connections, calls to chargeable service and business numbers (e.g. 051x, 058x, 0869x, 0878x, 18xy, 084x, 090x) as well as internet dial-up numbers and access numbers for prepaid and calling card offers are excluded.

And:

added value services with rate splitting084x National fixed network price

So the 4 Rappen unfortunately remains.

15
Not bad option if you can afford the inflexibility of getting a phone contract (sometimes additionally other than Cablecom or Swisscom).

If you are vouching for the quality of calls and billing, I might take a dip and test it.

16
Quality of calls excellent IMHO. Can't say the same about the support service from the company though

CHF 9 monthly for min 12 months ( beats CC and Swisscom ) gives you untimed calls 24hrs gratis to landlines CH, DE, FR, UK, US, SG and cheap rates ( as per rate grid above ) to mobiles and to other countries. Have been using it for 12 months now, and installed for 30+ others in CH with a ATA gateway.

17
Just tell me when you find one that can beat:

www.10787.ch

18
Sorry movingtozug, but 10787 may be best for the country you are calling, but perhaps not for others. E.g. for India it is 8rp/min, which is twice that of the cheapest.

I know it sounds shallow to talk about "twice" when you are talking about rappen, but if you want to chat for long and frequent, then it does make a hole in your pocket!

19
Not so difficult to beat: with 0.39 to RO mobile it is 875% more expensive than the cheapest offer and with 0.34 to NL mobile it is 240% more expensive.

Fixed numbers to these countries are "only" 50% more expensive.

20
I've been using www.helvatel .ch .... the cheapest I could find..