Free Local, National & International Phone Call Costs With VoIP
Since the publication of our recent article about VoIP for small businesses, we have discovered another good value (in fact free) VoIP provider that offers free local, national and quite a lot of international outbound calls, with no setup or monthly fees. The call provider is VoipCheapCom and it would be a perfect outbound complement to using SkypeIn for your inbound calls.
If you’re familiar with Skype, then you’ll probably recognise the VoipCheapCom interface, as it’s quite similar. Even the ‘options’ menu seems to use the same or at least very similar icons to Skype. It features tabs for the dialpad, history, contacts, ‘direct call’ and SMS. Sending an SMS is also very good value, at 5 eurocents per text (that’s roughly 3pence).
The only caveat is that you’re limited to 300 minutes per week of free calls, and mobile phone calls aren’t included (except to mobiles in the US). Whilst we haven’t conducted extensive tests of the service, we have tested it for a short while, and our initial reaction is that local and national calls are quite high quality, however international calls can break up a bit every know and again. I haven’t got to the 300 minute limit, and I wonder what happens whether you do – does it warn you as you approach the limit or do you just get cut off mid-conversation? Hopefully not, as that wouldn’t be very good for business!
Despite not undertaking extensive tests, with free calls and no setup costs, VoipCheap .com is definitely worth a try!
Written by Chris Pangburn.
I have used not only SkypeIn but also SkypeOut, Skype SMS and video conferencing facilities provided. Skype is not only cheap but it is also user friendly and rich in its quality.
Yes, the advantage of using voip is no monthly charges, no registration and lastly no need to divulge your credit card details.
BT customers in the UK make free international calls using 0870 and 0845 predials of some Cheap International Calls Providers, they charge mostly less then skype to phone international landlines and mobiles numbers (I saved a lot on calling Greece landlines with predials…)
That’s very true – the recent change to the BT calling package does mean that it can be cheaper / free to use an 0870 predial company. In that case you would just dial the predial access number first (0870 / 0845) and then the international number you require and you would be connected to that number. A bit like the traditional override providers (eg: 18185) but free on the BT package.