Machine

As the title says, what is the cheapest (and easiest) way to call England (landline and mobile) from an Australian mobile phone? We don't have a landline and want to call family back in the UK every so often. My other half has been using a spare mobile and some sort of deal where he pays x amount but it only lasts a month and we never use it up so I want to find any easier and better way of doing it.

We used to use TeleDiscount to call Australia from England which was so easy. I can't seem to find any easy way of doing things this way around. Everything here seems so bloody convoluted.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

naomilondon

I used to buy call card things at a petrol station. You call a number from your mobile and then input a code and it gives you a certain number of minutes to call the uk. $10 used to give about 5 hours worth of calls. This was when we lived here in 2005-2006 though but expect they still do something similar.
I tend to use Skype now to make free calls through the internet.

martin1978

I have a vodafone contract(not the best network for reliability but great on price). It costs $55 a month with my phone but I get free international texts and international calls just come out of the $550 credit or so they give me. I spend about 2-3 hours on the phone to home every month. It might be worth checking out.

martin1978

And to add for some reason that I do not why international calls on to the UK on a vodafone plan are under half the cost of a normal national call.

Hino

I use Amaysim.

Prepaid, 3c per minute to UK landlines and no connection charge.

The three cents a minute, no connection charge also applies to all Australian land lines and mobiles

I use one of their deals where my balance is topped-up whenever it drops below a certain level and if my credits are due to expire, then they text me to advise the expiry date.

All you have to do is to buy a $10 voucher from the supermarket and the $10 plus all your existing credit is extended for another three months.

Best of all no contract, I'm not sure of their UK mobile costs.

Machine

Brilliant, thank you all so much.

Ah Skype, yes well, don't get me started on internet connection. We cannot get the internet, there isn't the infrastructure. Currently tethering mobiles for internet use. Using a dingle, dongle thingy whatsit probably wouldn't offer us faster connection so haven't bothered. It's amazing you can get high speed internet in Outer Mongolia but not in the third largest city in Australia.

My 24 month contract has expired so will look into better mobile deals too. Telstra called to offer me a more expensive contract now that my two years with them had passed. Haha do they think I'm an idiot? Quite possibly.

Hino

p.s. I forgot to add that I told my wife, who spends half her life on the ****** phone about the Amaysim deal and she has now bought a $39 per month unlimited plan. I believe that it includes unlimited calls and texts to all Australian landlines and mobiles and no need to lock into a contract.

Her average bill has come down from over $170 per month to $39

Don't know how it works with UK calls though.

naomilondon

Where are you that you can't get internet? We have Adsl with Telstra really expensive and really poor service! It drops out every 10 mins or so. One skype call becomes about 4 where we lose the connection all the time!

naomilondon

I have persuaded all my relatives in the UK to get international call packages, my sister pays Sky £5 a month for unlimited calls to us and my dad has international calls package with Virgin costs 2p a minute to call us! Seem to get really good deals to call from there to here!

Amazulu

Try iinet. We have excellent service that is rarely down.

Telstra is good for cellphone use but that's about it.

alexswift

I get a mobile phone provided to me by my employer but I don't take the piss so I pay skype $10 per month.

It's called Skype To Go and works like this.
1) You pay Skype for an unlimited or whatever plan to call Europe or US as the qualified product ($10 all Europe is what I have chosen).
2) log in to the Skype webpage nominate your mobile / any number you will call from. This is to stop fraud on your account.
3) Tell Skype the international numbers you want to call.
4) Skype give you a new LOCAL Sydney number to dial, you can choose other cities.
5) You then just dial that LOCAL number and Skype do the rest.

Pros: You are making a local call so if your mobile allows unlimited / a big number of local calls you can chat for hours and hours for a few dollars.
No calling cards with pauses and keying in numbers etc.

Cons: 1 in 25 calls will just drop out but you can redial straight away. Been a a techie engineer I notice the CODEC changes aka voice quality.

Summary: Used it for the last year and I am happy, I can make a call anytime I want thus not rushing home to the PC etc and it just works as it should.

the4ofus

If you and your friends/ family have a smart phone then download viber, you get to call & text free anywhere in the world. I spoke to my mum in Florida the other day and it was like she was in the next room to me. I also speak to my friend who lives abouot 6km from me and it's not always so clear but its a great app

Lynn x

h2oskineil

Ditto the above..... have used Skype To Go for a couple of years and love it. Incidentally, we rarely have a call drop-out, it's always very good. (?)

$10.00 is the whole of Europe, I think it's $6.99 for UK only.

Just brilliant for calling the UK on the way home in the car, makes the commute more pleasant. Our home phone and Mobiles have unlimited local calls, so our local number in Perth is perfect.

Cannot recommend enough for the simplicity once it has been set up and the convenience of being able to make calls when ever you want.

brian.w

this sounds good the skype so am i right in asking you need to have a contract or credit on the phone to be able to take use of this with skype,to make the local call which is really overseas.

brian.w

I found this on another post is this better?what is the coverage like on them both who do they use?
vaya.net.au