Calling home?
 

Simple one really - what's an easy and cheap way of calling a UK landline from NZ? Skype?

Re: Calling home?
 

Yep Skype, Facetime or sometimes I use a Yabba Card too - all cheap enough

Re: Calling home?
 

on Skype you can register your phone land line or Mobile and the number you wish to call. It gives you a local number (for me its 04 in Wellington). you just call the number and it calls the UK number

Re: Calling home?
 

Cool, I didn't know that, I normally use Google Talk from my gmail.

Re: Calling home?
 

If you are calling from an Android phone use NANU its a new app that is free and it claims to call free to anyone anyware. Download the app on Android.
read here
nanu

Re: Calling home?
 

Get Skype and put some credit on it. Stupidly cheap audio calls to any landline worldwide, if in wifi connection.

Re: Calling home?
 

If you are on Spark(Telecom)
dial:

0161 before 44(country code) this gives you cheap calls.

My wife uses this to ring the UK and can talk on the phone for an hour for next to nothing($2 bucks or so)

Re: Calling home?
 

Get a KiaOra card, available from the post office. You load it with credit, say $20.00 and you can use it anywhere even via your own home phone. Type in the local access number for your area, select language, put in your pin (on the card) and then the phone number.

To the UK it works out at 2.5cents a minute, so an hour will cost you $1.50.

So much cheaper if you need to use a landline (obviously skype is free).

Re: Calling home?
 

I use skype. I have a NZ land line Skype number and an England based skype number which is basically a land line no with a Liverpool area code. When I am in NZ my family can call the English number and get me in New Zealand.

That costs me I think £20 a year for the number.

For free calls worldwide, and the ability to divert skype calls to my NZ land line I have a Skype world wide subscription. That is around $5 a week, I think, and gives me unlimited worldwide calls to landlines in most countries.

With this set up, when I visit another country (e.g. UK) I can divert the Skype calls to a landline in the country I am in, at no extra cost.

It is also possible to divert the Skype calls to a mobile phone too, but that costs extra, so I don't do that all that often.

Obviously this is all based on telephone calls to telephone calls. Skype video call over wifi is free. The problem I find with that is sometimes it jumps or drops out because the Internet speed here is much slower than the UK.

Hope that helps.

Re: Calling home?
 

Can I ask what people think about this, as IMHO that is a common misconception?

To have a home phone + broadband package of a sensible data pack size (80GB or so) around here is in the region of $70-80.

It is my understanding that without that I cannot use Skype (or any other internet-based service such as lightbox etc). So, in what way is Skype free?

Through work I hear the same type of thing every day.. "the internet is free". I don't call $80 a month free. I'd call that quite expensive - for the user. And that's without taking account the cost to a website such as design, hosting etc.

Re: Calling home?
 

Probably because you won't just get that Internet installed just to use Skype :confused:

We watch the "free channels" on the TV, but hang on, the TV cost £x and uses £x amount of electricity......
In thus day and age "most households" have broadband as an everyday utility, for email/web/banking/expat forums/watching cats falling over etc etc.

Re: Calling home?
 

At 8 cents per minutes I make that $4.80 for an hour.

Call pricing - Plans and pricing - Phone Line - Telecom NZ Ltd

Re: Calling home?
 

I accept that broadband is considered a utility bill. Isn't a bill a sure sign that something isn't free? Skype uses quite a bit of data, upload and download. Data usage isn't free - so Skype quantifiably isn't free...

I make no claims about TV?

Re: Calling home?
 

Ok... You are right (Although this reply has cost me data usage, the light in the room and the need to recharge this device)...?

How do you manage with day to day life....

Re: Calling home?
 

I do know you know.

Do you mean how do I get by when people are making claims that are patently wrong and having to deal with that? Surprisingly well. And it's always a help when people pay me handsomely for what is not usually a terribly strenuous week.