Dialling UK from abroad

[rodpat]

Hi All

I know very little about VOIP and have SKY talk so local/national calls are included on my home phone.
I travel to the US 3-4 times a year and am there for 1-2 weeks at a time. I am just looking for a cheap way to phone landlines (maybe mobiles) from my laptop.
I currently use a calling card however that can get expensive.

I always have my laptop online from my hotel so I think I need a USB phone and then a VOIP account. I will literally only use it 3-4 times a year so just want the cheapest way to do this.
Can't see me using more than 300 mins a week whilst abroad so just looking for some advice on which phone to buy and which account to sign up for.

cheers Rod

[Steve Collier]

The cheapest way is simply to install Skype on the laptop and just use the built in mic and speakers, or a cheap headset. You can dial out to UK numbers from Skype, including mobiles. I do it all the time from Norway and even to mobiles it is very cheap. This depends of course on your having a net connection in your hotel or wherever. Use the country code and drop the first UK digit.

[Matt Horne]

Have a look at www.voipdiscount.com it includes free Uk landlines as part of the countries... all you need is to add the minimum credit to get 120 freedays of calls to 42 countries.


Matt

[v23nb]

Voip discount looks interesting. 2 questions:

1 - is voip discount an open provider, i.e. you can contact other open networks?

2 - what's the minimum call credit you can buy to get the 120 days free calling?

Thanks
Ian

[Matt Horne]

10 Euros minimum (~£8)

Not sure on the open provider bit... but for incoming call I use www.voipfone.co.uk which has links to other providers, gives you a 0560 number for nought and a host of other features like conference calling/voice mail etc etc etc.

Also with Voipdiscount the need to ring other providers is shrunk abit as you can ring landlines for nothing...

Cheers

Matt