Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Reliable offering cheap call rates to india

Though betamax companies are increasing their call rates to India, however we have found some alternatives for you. We promise you won't have to pay much for making voip calls to India.

Just like AirtelCallhome and Reliance India Call, Reliable Calling is offering 1 cent per minute calls to India. Reliable calling works just like other calling card providers like Airtel, Reliance, Trueroots. These are Phone to Phone calls which can be made dialing the toll free access number or the local access numbers.



Lets talk about the Calling plans offered by Reliable Calling.

Monthly Plan


The Monthly Plan is an exclusive offer where you can enjoy great Talk time for a period of 30 days. Subscribe to this plan with $9.99 which includes rental charges of $3.99, for the remaining $ 6, you get 600 mins at 1cent/min using local access number and 260 mins using Toll Free access number. Effective rate comes down to just 1.6 cents per minute (and this is Phone to Phone calling rates).

Refunds: No refund of talk time value, rental or plan value will be entertained under any circumstances.

Any talk time value left after expiry of validity will be automatically forfeited.

FortNight Plan

The Fortnight Plan is an exclusive offer where you can enjoy great Talk time for a period of 14 days. Subscribe to this plan with $7.99 which includes rental charges of $3.99, for the remaining $ 4, you get 400 mins at 1cent/min using local access number and 200 mins using Toll Free access number.

The calling rate to India in both the plans is 1 cent per minute however the effective calling rate is bit high (though the effective rate is also not much).

Some other features of Reliable Calling.



Your Call is routed to India using ILD providers.
Your caller id will be passed to the destination phone in India.
Lowest calling rate in the Industry
Quality calling at most competitive rates with no hidden cost
60 seconds rounding
No Connection Fees

Monday, April 27, 2009

Unlimited calls to landlines and cell phones by Betamax

We recently discussed about actionvoip, one of the cheapest VOIP Providers available however Betamax has just launched a new VOIP service called Telbo. Although, it seems that this service is by Dellmont Sarl. There is clearly a connection between Betamax and Dellmont Sarl. After a lot of bad publicity about the betamax brand, Betamax could be trying to rebrand themselves under the new name.

Lets leave that apart for now and look at what Telbo can offer. Telbo is mainly a unlimited VOIP service as they claim to offer unlimited calls from $1.00 onwards.

Telbo offers 2 packages,

1)Telbo.com Unlimited US & Canada: Unlimited calls to landlines and cell phones in the US and Canada for $1 per month. You can also call Guam and Puerto rico. The 3 and 12 months subscriptions also include a little credit so you can reach people outside of your subscription.

2)Telbo.com Unlimited World package: Unlimited calls to landlines in 36 countries worldwide. This does not include countries like India or Pakistan. Again, 3 and 12 month subscriptions plans are available.


You can always use Telbo to make calls at extremely competitive calling rates. Telbo charges 2 cents per minute to India.

As usual, Telbo comes with a FUP (Fair Usage Policy). We analysed some important points:

a) Calls to phones and mobiles are included in your subscription subject to a fair usage limit of 10,000 minutes per user per month, with a maximum of 6 hours per day.
b)no more than 50 different numbers in total can be called per day.
c) Once these limits are exceeded Telbo will charge normal rates and a connection fee for any additional minutes used.

10000 minutes per month in our opinion is a fair plan, which comes to more than 300 minutes per day.

How to use Telbo:
You can make calls using various methods such as Local access numbers, Phone to Phone. Unfortunately, Telbo doesn't offer SIP based VOIP service as their website doesn't provide any instruction to use SIP. however, if you ping sip.telbo.com it does give a response, so this could be working?

All we can say is $1 for 10000 minutes to USA/Canada is a good deal. $5.95 to 36 countries is definitely a good deal. The choice is yours.

If you are using Telbo VOIP service, do let everyone know your feedback and comments on Telbo.

3UK Launches SIM Card For Free Skype

3UK has deepened its relationship with Skype, with the telco rolling out free Skype calls in two stages: The first will start on May 1 when 3’s existing pay-as-you-go customers will not need to top up their credit to use Skype, and later 3 will sell SIM cards for £1.99 (US$2.92) which customers of other operators’ will be able to use to make free Skype calls on their unlocked 3G handsets. The free services include voice calling and instant messaging to other Skype users (ie, no data charges), but calls to landlines or standard mobile phone numbers will require payment—and it’s UK only reports ZDNet UK.

3UK CEO Kevin Russell said: “We believe that, once you come to 3 and use Skype, you will use other services on 3…We are targeting anyone who uses Skype today”. Many other telcos are banning Skype on their service, not agreeing with the argument that offering free or extremely cheap commoditized services will let companies profit from selling more valuable services—it will be interesting to see how 3 goes. Russell said that free Skype calls would help 3 differentiate the brand and the data traffic used would not be “significant relative to the investments [3 is] already making in mobile broadband”.

IDC analyst John Delaney gave some quotes at the briefing, saying that Skype calls would be unlikely to cannibalise voice revenue until the number of Skype-supporting phones increased significantly: “I’m pretty certain that most Skype calls at the moment go to PCs, so that doesn’t cannibalise voice revenues,” Delaney said. “As long as the user base remains relatively small, that makes sense [for 3].” Which is kind of like saying the service is great as long as it’s not successful. He didn’t think the Skype SIM card would entice people away from their current operators (why swap to 3 when you already get the free Skype?), but I think if people come to see the free Skype as a useful thing to have they may consider switching to 3 to avoid having to swap SIMs. Still, I agree with this Delaney comment: “The biggest benefit for 3 in all this is pissing other operators off”.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

IS-VoIS better and cheaper than Skype

Internet Solutions (IS) recently launched its VoIS Anywhere mobile softphone application, enabling subscribers to make and receive voice calls with the use of a hand- or head-set and the IS softphone client installed on their laptop.

"The softphone connects to a corporate account and therefore incurs local corporate VoIP rates, even if the user is overseas. This has a huge cost implication for businesses that either deal with international clients or who have a workforce that travels extensively. Local telecommuters will enjoy this service too," said Greg Hatfield, VoIS Business Unit Manager at IS.

A question mark hung over whether IS's solution could compete effectively on price when compared to services such as Skype, but feedback from IS suggests that its VoIP product is certainly much cheaper than many current competitors.

"VoIS Anywhere is significantly cheaper than Skype. Skype charges €0.055 (approx. R0.68 excl. VAT) to call an SA fixed line destination, whereas the VoIS Anywhere rates range from approximately R0.35 to R0.55, depending on the destination called," says Hatfield.

"Skype's rate to a mobile phone is €0.189 (approxomately R2.30 excluding VAT), whereas the VoIS Anywhere rate starts at R1.25. Aside from Skype-to-Skype calls which are obviously free, their off-net prices are exorbitant."

Hatfield points out that the service is part of "the corporate bundle", which means that discounts on call rates apply based on total company usage volumes. "With Skype there is no room to negotiate - you are treated as an individual," said Hatfield.

Better usability
Hatfield points out that the difference between VoIS Anywhere and Skype is not only focused on the cost of the call, but also on the ease of use and administration. "The VoIS Anywhere software is treated as an extension of the corporate office, and as such it is billed as part of the integrated voice and data invoicing that IS provides."

"With Skype, users have to pre-pay for airtime with their own credit card online, and then submit expense claims for their usage a month later, and probably only receive their reimbursement a month after that. Skype's fixed monthly subscription service is not available in South Africa."

According to Hatfield Skype is a consumer service while VoIS Anywhere is a corporate service in "its technical design, its pricing, and critically, the service wrap."

The initial software cost starts at R250 per client, but this price drops rapidly based on the number of licenses purchased, usage volumes, and corporate discounts. "Even without discounts, R250 is rapidly recovered out of the savings on the minutes," says Hatfield.

vodafone-cheap calls to romania

Vodafone has quite a spread network all over the world. This news is from Vodafone Romania.
Vodafone Romania has had a price cut on the international tariff by 27%.

Vodafone prepay users can now make international calls to European fixed networks as well as Vodafone mobile networks and partner mobile networks at EUR 0.40 per minute, down 27 percent from the previous price of EUR 0.55 per minute.

Vodafone has also launched its plan named Vodafone Europa, enabling prepay customers to make international calls to other Vodafone customers across Europe, as well as to Vodafone partner mobile networks and European fixed networks for a reduced tariff of EUR 0.18, versus the previous price of EUR 0.24 per minute.

Truphone-Free Mobile VOIP Service

Truphone,once a great Free Mobile VOIP Service lost the ground when they stopped offering free mobile voip calls to 40 countries. However they are now back in the VOIP market with a flat monthly billing Unlimited Calling Package which included 40 countries around the world including India,Pakistan, bangladesh and many more.

If you don't know what TruPhone is, its basically a Mobile VOIP Service that means you need to have a Mobile which supports Wifi and SIP. Truphone also works over GPRS, but the call quality could be poor due to lack of bandwidth. Most latest Mobile Phones supports SIP and Wifi, mostly all N and E series Nokia phones do support SIP and VOIP Calling.

TruPhone's TruUnlimited Landline package starts at $17, however it does not include all the countries and calls are restricted to Landlines only. Don't worry, They also have a TruUnlimited Mobile package which offers unlimited calls to landlines + Mobiles in all the countries including India and most other asian countries.

You have two options to choose from:

TruUnlimited Landlines ($17)


Unlimited calls to landlines* in 38 countries worldwide. Call any time of the day, any day of the week. No long-term contract. Also includes unlimited calls to mobiles in 9 countries including the USA and China as a bonus!

TruUnlimited Mobiles ($40)

Along with unlimited calls to landlines* this plan includes unlimited calls to mobiles* in 69 countries, including the USA, the UK, Germany and China. Call any time of the day, any day of the week. No long-term contract.

How can i use TruPhone in my country?

Well there are mainly 4 ways to use TruPhone:

1) Truphone over Wifi- If you are in USA, Singapore, UK or most part of europe, you would find ample number of Wifi hotspots to connect to. This should be your preferred choice. Wifi is often Free, if not then cheap.

2) Truphone over 3G- 3G would be almost equivalent in call quality as Wifi. However, 3g data usage can make you poor overnight. 3G data cost in many countries are way high, so unless you have a unlimited 3G data package don't go for this option.

3) Truphone over GPRS: GPRS is poor man's wifi, especially in India where Wifi and 3G is not existent. Truphone works over GPRS, but no guarantee than you would hear the other party clearly and vice versa :-)

4) Truphone Anywhere: You have no option to call, no wifi, no 3G, no GPRS, nada nothing. What will you do? you can use Truphone anywhere. it Works seamlessly in the background, If you dial an international number, the call is redirected at the handset to a Truphone access number in your country, which connects to truphone server which in turn automatically completes your call to the international destination.

What you pay for

* Domestic rate GSM call to Truphone server in your home country.
(Please note that data connections will be needed for iPhone and BlackBerry)

* Low cost Truphone call to your international destination.


Does truphone cap number of minutes or per month call usage?

Yes, like everyone else. Truphone has Fair usage policy. You can make maximum 3,000 minutes call per month and all calls are subject to 60 minute call duration. If you consider, paying $40 for 3000 minutes, it works out to 1.3 cents per minute which is a good rate for calling India, Pakistan or Bangladesh.

If you signup for this package, do let us know your feedback so it helps everyone to make a decision. We are really excited to see mainstream VOIP Companies offering rock bottom prices for asian countries and making VOIP cheaper than traditional phones lines.