Firstly sorry if this is covered elswhere - i have looked in the search section but could not find it.

When we get to canada and want to phone home to england ( daily ) which is the best telecom company to go with - does anybody know if their packages also cover calling a mobile from a land line. Also any ideas what the charges are monthly for these anytime plans from Canada to UK.

One more thing that you may be able to help with - Mobile phones - we are all with Orange pay as you go and contract - will our phones and numbers work out there - can we/do we keep with orange or do we have to change to something else.

Sorry if these are silly questions - it's just that the mind boggles

Thanks

Dawn

I don't know what anyplans you are talking about so links would help us here give you advice.

As for Orange - why on earth would you want to use your orange plans in Canada? You will find that most people in Canada will think it is insane to have to call UK to contact you when you are two blocks away. Anyone in UK will only pay the UK cost of the call to ring you but YOU will have to pay the difference between UK and Canada and the rates are normally extortionate.

Get yourself pay as you go plans with Rogers or Virgin when you are in Canada or try convincing them to give you a pay monthly with a deposit so should you go to US your mobile phone will work there too. Just remember that in North America you ALWAYS pay for receiving calls as well as making calls on your mobile.

We have recently moved from the UK to NB Canada.

We have signed up for the cheapest landline plan with Rogers and added the international long distance plan including Europe for an extra $25 a month.
For that you can call UK 24/7.

You can call mobiles too but there is an extra charge for that.

If you don't make enough calls to justify the $25 plan then they have another one for $1 a month and the calls to UK cost $0.05 cents a minute.

I couldn't find another carrier that gave such good international rates.

Penny

It may be worth investigating IP (internet protocol) telephony services, such as Skype. Many of them now allow you to make calls to land lines and mobiles all over the world for the cost of a local phone call, and you can usually call people who are with the same company free of charge. Some of them also allow you to set up a number elsewhere in the world for a small charge. That would mean that someone in the UK would be able to call you on a UK number and only pay for a UK call.

You will need a broadband internet connection and some IP services work through your computer, meaning that your PC would have to be on for the service to work. If you have a wi-fi network, some phones & companies allow you to connect directly to that without using your computer.

In the UK, BT's service allows you to route your normal phone calls and IP phone calls through the same handset, but I don't know whether anyone offers that in Canada yet.

we use skype to call family in canada all the time and it only cost us 35-45p for 45 minutes good in my books

For a regular old fashioned phone line (ie not VOIP), primus long distance is probably the best deal off the top of my head for your circumstances.


$5 a month in total charges will get you 2c /min anytime to the UK and 25c to a UK mobile

http://www.primustel.ca/en/residenti...ngDistance.htm

If you call a lot they have an unlimited europe plan for $20 a month, not sure if it covers mobiles for free too though, and there might be service charges on top of the $20, like the extra $4 on top of the $1 monthly fee for the per minute plan?
http://www.primustel.ca/en/residenti...ted-europe.htm


The downside is you pay slightly more for calls within North America, as 6c/min compared to 5c for rogers smart plan, but the rogers plan that I use is 39c/min to UK mobiles.
http://www.shoprogers.com/store/cable/ld_SMT.asp

Skype rules definitely, when you get your head around using the computer to call people but definitely the cheapest and good call quality too, and you can call cell phones for the same price too, (around 0.02 cents a minute!!!) you can chat all day for that!!!!
Also good bonus if others in England have skype too can use for free and use webcam too feels like you have just seen them - helps cure the homesickness thing..... believe me I have been there!!!!!
All you need is a high-speed internet connection and a computer and a webcam and is ready to go!!!

Best of luck.....

p.s most telephone companies are now only offering digital phone home service anyway so you normally need a calling card to call UK ..... skype is cheaper by far....and you can buy a handset like a phone to use too.... about 20 bucks.

I guess it depends which Province you are headed to.

Most expats I know in Alberta use the Digital Phone Service from Shaw. $65 per month, unlimited calls to anywhere in North America and 1000 minutes per month to England (and a large number of other countries). This allows you approx 30 mins per day which should be enough for most people.

You can use Skype without a computer, just get a Skype handset that you can plug into a router or modem. Use it just like a normal phone, but everything is done via Skype. That's what we'll be using. No monthly charges, we won't actually be getting a landline at all. And call charges of 1.4p a minute. Of course if the person you are calling also has Skype then it's free.

We had skype at work. Typical conversation ended like this... "Can you hear me?.....CAN YOU HEAR ME?...Oh for ****s sake not again."


Maybe its got better since we ditched it.

If you live outside the city and dont have highspeed, or dont want to pay $100+ a month for it, its a non starter anyway.

We use Shaw cable as our phone provider. They charge us 4c per minute for North America & Western Europe (inc. UK)....and rental is cheaper than Telus (Alberta's primary carrier).

We then have our own UK phone line coming into the house which costs us no line rental. Outgoing calls cost me less than 9 pounds every 3 months for up to 300 minutes per week.
Free incoming line is provided by Sipgate (http://www.sipgate.co.uk)
Outgoing line provided by Internet Calls.

We did buy a little adapter that plugs into the router at one end, and has a regular telephone socket on the other side. That allows us to basically stick a cordless phone system onto the Internet. So we don't need to have a computer on to make / receive calls. We use this system to call the UK or receive calls from the UK almost every day.

Rob

Does britishexpats still offers a dial in service for people in the UK to call you as a local call?
http://www.fireflytelecom.com/ukxpat.asp

That's not actually uncommon on work networks due to the amount of other traffic going back and forth through it and the way they are often locked down by sys-admins to smaller packet sizes and transfer rates, but generally for home use it's more than adequate.

As the none technically minded wife of an It bloke I Can actually recommend skypE , I have never had any problems with It at all. I like the fact I Can mark myself as unavailable !

I think the upshot of all these discussions is that international phone calls are dirt cheap these days, and you'd be hard pushed to spend a lot of money phoning home unless you really tried. Just go for whichever option is most convenient for you.