an alternative is again Skype. you can buy a skype number in a number of countries

http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/feat...online-number/

i'm at work at the mo, and the site is blocked, but I would imagine that an Irish number is available

Thank you.I had a quick look myself.Looks like Uk only.

Thank you.

List of all countries for Skype number

* Australia
* Chile
* Denmark
* Estonia
* Finland
* France

* Germany
* Hong Kong
* Hungary
* Ireland
* Japan *
* Korea, Republic of

* Malta
* Mexico
* Netherlands
* New Zealand
* Poland
* Romania

* South Africa
* Sweden
* Switzerland
* United Kingdom
* USA

and use http://www.ukddi.com/ to get UK numbers for the folks to call. Free numbers, up to 10, from different parts of UK. Just use your PT server details. In the server details use [email protected]. So, friend pays to ring UK number (probably 0p if their package includes free geographic calls) and it rings in Aus courtesy of your PT account.

Tried that too a while ago - but found the call quality wasn't as good as sipgate, I'd be interested to know if they've improved.

Hmmm how much are calls to mobiles on that ?

Son has discovered girls and was on the phone one day last week for 5 hours to a mobile no in the early hours.... Hence I'm staying with my Pennytel 18.88 Aud per month as insurance.

Thats 100 pct free calls to 70 countries and Aus wide.... plus 500 mins or 150 Mobile calls per month.

Wife used to moan her head off about the Pennnytel quality. You can't tell 95 pct of the time now that it's a voip service.

Only real issue we have is at Xmas and Easter or when they do a system upgrade.....The whole system comes down when they do upgrades, sometimes for 3 days or more. When that happens I just switch back to IInet voip.
.

I was impressed. UKDDI gets good reviews on the forums, weak link is PT, but I think they are getting better. I have a Localphone number I got when it was free that most people dial. Use a few UKDDI numbers for those people that don't want to tire their fingers. Tried using my Maxotel account but the inbound peering didn't work, PT works straight-away.

I find PT great using a sipgate DID but when I tried UKDDI the call quality was noticeably poorer, this was a year ago so things must have improved.

Agree that skype is a reasonable (if more expensive for landlines) alternative for non-technical folk.