briwi

Anyone know the cheapest way to phone the UK from a landline? Going to be living in Sydney, but I still work for the UK and make up to 20 calls most nights, because of this a mobile or a phone card aren't hugely suitable, but does anyone know of the best landline company or deal. I've got to get set up the day I find somewhere to live so I can start work again so can't really take too much time to shop around.

Also, any opinions on which company sets up broadband the fastest?

DrWho

Check out Whirlpool for a lot of info on this...

Hutch

Yea, the Whirlpool forums are your best bet - you'll get full ADSL2+ in Sydney, so it's different to out here in the sticks. In the short-term I suggest you just use one of those cheap-rate calling cards, which you can buy in most newsagents. That should tide you over until you get your broadband sorted. We still run a UK based company and use Internode for our broadband and their VoIP package, Nodephone, for the telecoms. Can call the UK for an hour for about $3 on that, plus you get two phone lines and all sorts of other goodies. Apart from that you could use Skype with one of the new generation of NetPhones, or Gizmo, or Jajah, or any one of a zillion different providers.

yanH

We use Skype with a Phillips VOIP phone for calling the UK which works great . It has two walkabout handsets so is just like using a traditional phone. Strangely you can also receive two calls at the same time, one on one handset from a normal landline and another from Skype on the other handset. Good thing that the calls with it are so cheap as the OH spends hours talking to her sister

Katherined0

My "shout" $10 call card from the newsagent gives me over 700 mins in calls to the UK. We find skype a bit haphazard -- sometimes the call quality is awful with delays and echos so use the call card more now. We use optus for our internet but it took them 6WEEKS to connect us (despite a promise of 48 hours when we signed on the dotted line....) so I wouldnt recommend them if you're after a quick set-up!

yanH

For calling from the UK to Australia we registered for the a UK Number through the service that is advertised on this site. It allows people in the UK to call a UK number but the call comes straight through to your Australian landline. So they only pay for a UK call. So far it seems to be working well.

Hutch

Yea, we have several Skype-In numbers that do the same thing - one in the UK, one in the states, one here in Oz - they all ring on the PC and we either take it on there with a headset or on the phone.

hoofie2002

If you are calling the UK that much, you need your calls to go over the internet to keep your call costs down as low as possible.

For that amount of calls skype isn't quite going to cut the mustard, you need something a little bit more reliable and with better call quality. You probably need a headset setup as well. Also, are you going to receive any incoming calls also from the UK ? If so, you really need a UK number termination. [As someone mentioned before, calls to a UK number are transferred across to OZ at no extra cost to you, the caller just pays a little extra on their bill for the call].

Depending on who you work for in the UK, it may be possible for them to patch your phone set-up through their network and out through their phone system so they pay the call costs.

When you arrive, use a phone card. When you get broadband, use
Engin or something similar and get a proper internet adapter for a normal phone. There are other VOIP providers as well, but it can be considerably more complex setting it up than getting an 'all-in-one' solution. Note also that these solutions do not require your PC to be connected or even switched on to use them.

One thing to watch for, calls to landlines can be very cheap, but calls to UK mobiles over the internet will increase the cost, due to the cost of the UK landline->Mobile call.

yanH

I think that the Skype to Skype call quality can be a bit hit and miss however I haven't had any problems when using Skype Out (Skype to normal landline). But then I have got a special Skype Phone so it might be a different story if you are trying to use your PC speakers and microphone.

h2oskineil

By far the cheapest way (in our opinion) is to use www.jajah.com

Register the other user or get them to register and then calls between users are FREE for one hour every day.
After one hour... they can call you back for one hour, which = 2 hours a day for free. This is using normal telephones and a broadband internet.
After your free allocation, calls to the UK are 0.019p per minute.

You have to 'use' your account to keep the free calls active. If you don't use it in 2 weeks, you loose the free call status. To reactivate the free calls, simply send a text message from the web site which cost 0.03p to send. So in reallity you get 14 hours (1 hour per day for 2 weeks) for just 0.03p.

We use our Telstra landlines and DECT phones, and just chat as normal... no need to be tied to a PC. Also have head set and move around the house and garden doing all the chores while chatting.

Brilliant!!!

briwi

Thanks for all your advice - I'm very wary of Skype etc. Not least because I'm totally technophobic but also I'm a journalist and can't risk poor quality/signal as I have interviews set up with people at specific times and if I can't get through I miss the call and my deadline. It's also not possible to get them to call me as they just don't!!!

At the moment I'm in NZ and they have an 0161 prefix that you dial before the call that cuts it to 23c a minute from a landline, anyone know of anything like that.