ADSL - at last - change of supplier

[Ron Avery]

[quote]I tend to avoid posting “the best deal is …” type of posts as I believe there is no such thing as a “best deal”. Different people have different requirements and what suits one person may not suit so...[/quote]

Ian

In all the fog on here now I am totally confused about what you are saying about phone lines to the UK.

 You have not advocated VOip buster, another poster has, so did you mean VOip Buster when you were talking about your free calls?  Isn't VOip buster like Skype out, a PC to phone line system which requires a microphone?  Or were you talking about another deal that "gives you your UK calls for 1.4 cents per minute off peak, 2.8 cents peak, no prepayment, no account to setup, nothing (landline to landline, just use it on your standard telephone in France? "

 At the moment I use Tele 2 which is much cheaper than FT and free at certain times within France, but not it would appears as cheap as some systems to the UK.

Thanks

[Liz]

[quote]Well our bit of the back of beyond now comes up with goods speeds for ADSL when I do a line test. We have Tiscali/Alice 56K which we have no problems with at all. FT say we can have up to 8 mbits - 1 ...[/quote]

Di, I wanted to know how much notice Tiscali require as well.  My understanding of Para 1.4.2 of the Conditions Generale is that, if you are on Forfait Illimité, after the first year you have to give 2 months notice.  What I haven't found is the means this has to be done but I would certainly send it registered.

Liz (29)

[Deimos]

[quote]Ian In all the fog on here now I am totally confused about what you are saying about phone lines to the UK. You have not advocated VOip buster, another poster has, so did you mean VOip Buster when ...[/quote]

Ron, “You have not advocated VOip buster, another poster has, so did you mean VOip Buster when you were talking about your free calls?”

The post to which Benjamin referred was when I mentioned VoIPBuster in a post some time ago where people were claiming to have “the best deal on earth” and I raised it as an example of an alternative that was cheaper (thus Benjamin was waiting to see if I would re-post the info). VoIP buster is like SkypeOut except that you do NOT PAY ANYTHING for calls to UK landlines (and many other countries). Thus unlike SkypeOut which costs 1.7 cents (plus VAT) per minute to a UK landline, VoIPBuster is free your PC to a UK landline.

However, some people prefer to use their normal telephone handset to call and talk to others. Thus there are low cost alternatives. The 1.4/2.8 cents per minute is a landline to landline system (those rates being for France to UK and many other countries and does not involve any PCs). You can use it to call mobiles, etc. in e.g. the UK but it costs a bit more.

And to introduce a few other possibilities

These days there are loads of such deals around. Loads of things to help you contact people and people to contact you hat are very easy and cheap. Unfortunately the “well publicised ones” that everybody talks about may not always be the cheapest (in fact some are complete “rip-offs” but some people love them and think they are great).

Another example is to get yourself a UK non-geographic local rate number and divert it to wherever you happen to be (e.g. France, UK, US, etc.) The person calling you in France just pays 5p per minute (no account, no set-up, etc.). There are cheaper deals in the UK but callers need to subscribe to them and have accounts. Some people (e.g. running gites targeting UK residents or running businesses in France to UK based customers) might find it easier to publish such a number (UK local rate). The caller pays just UK local rate (5p per minute) and if you move around you can change divert your number via the internet, have an answerphone which e-mails you the voice message, etc. To do this can cost you the total sum of £0.00 (i.e. £0.00 to set-up and £0.00 to operate). You can do the same for people caling you from the UK.

There are loads of these things if people are prepared to realise that the market is continually changing and you can always find something better than you have at the moment.

Ian

[Ron Avery]

Thanks Ian, but is the low cost phone to phone supplier a secret? You can PM me if you do not want to be shouted down.  Just for clarification I investigated VOip and found

"You can now make FREE calls to several countries. These calls are limited to 1 minute per call.
If you want UNLIMITED calls to our FREE destinations, all you have to do is go to our website and buy $5 worth of credit.

So is that free unlimited calls if you have a $5 credit or are these free calls limited to one minute? 

[Juswundrin]

you can call the UK for 1.4 cents per minute off peak, 2.8 cents peak, no prepayment, no account to set-up, nothing (landline to landline). Just use it on your standard telephone in France.

It's (presumably) http://www.telerabais.com/index2.php

We use, and would recommend, the service.

HTH

[Deimos]

TeleRabis is the 1.4/2.8 cents per minute landline (France) to landline (UK and other countries). I use it quite a bit and it works wel (no set-up, no account, no pre-payment, etc.) Negatives are that you start paying for the call when you connect to their system so also pay for ringing time and if the number is engaged, no answer, etc. (but the cost is low so for me this makes no difference).

VoIP buster required to have some credit on your account to get unlimited free calls duration to UK (and elsewhere). I just put $5 is and have left it there. I could use it on chargeable calls (e.g. to mobiles, etc.) but have just written it off (unless I ever get round to using it). What is offered at any point can change so always check the deal at the moment in time you sign-up. I started using a lot of these things some time ago and there is nothing to say that they have not changed their offers since I last looked.

Deals continually change and people start and stop offers, which is why things that do not require signing-up for and accounts (e.g. telerabis) have spin-off benefits. It is easy to start using them but it is also easy to stop using them (and they know this). Once you have an account with people like phone-expat, Tele2, Cegetel, etc. they know you will probably stop bothering to look around (particularly if you have allowed pre-selection, when it can be quite difficult to move around). Similarly, if you take out or get some telephone deal with your internet connection in practice you are paying for it so you probably have little choice but to keep using it. 1.4 cents per minute is not cheap if you are already subscribing to a different service !!!

Ian

[Iceni]

We have signed up with Alice. It looks a reasonable deal for internet access which is what we are after and includes free local/national phone calls.  If mobile/international call costs are outrageous we won't make them - an option seemingly ignored by other posters. But thanks to one and all for your comments.

BTW I don't understand the need to provide UK callers with a route to cheap phone calls to US but each to his own as the bishop said.

John

not

[Deimos]

Quote: “BTW I don't understand the need to provide UK callers with a route to cheap phone calls to US but each to his own as the bishop said.”

The system I mentioned (that allowed calls to be diverted to most countries free) included the US as your UK local rate number can be diverted free anywhere. Thus, if you live in France, great, anybody in the UK can call you and they pay only UK local rate. Go on holiday to the US and you can divert it there for a bit, go to Australia for a bit and divert it there – all the time the UK based caller pays only UK local rate and you pay nothing (for nothing to receive the international calls, nothing for diverts, etc.) It is one of those things that you don’t have to use but if appropriate then is unbelievably useful.

For example, Iceni you have a web site that clearly targets UK customers. On that site you publish a telephone number 0033 65 etc. Anybody in the UK who dials that number (even with most company based least cost routing) will be paying for a more expensive international call. However, get yourself a free UK non-geographic local rate number and you can instead publish your telephone number as e.g. 0844/0845 xx xx xx and anybody calling you from the UK will pay only local rate. You use a web page to set the divert on your 0844/0845 xx xx xx number or your real 00 33 65 etc. number. You go on holiday to friends in the US yet want to keep business contacts going so using the web you activate the e-mails based voicemail system and when you arrive in the US you use the web to change the divert to the phone you are now on – all the time any caller just pays UK local rate and you pay nothing. People calling you from the UK will be telephoning a UK local rate number.

(There are methods to do the same thing with US local numbers diverting to e.g. France, UK, etc. so US customers need only pay for a local rate call).

Some British people running businesses in France targeting UK customers find using UK local rate phone numbers makes people far more prepared to contact them (maybe in preference to others, maybe existing customers, etc.).

There are just so many of these things/deals around these days but they tend not to come with the mainstream ISPs.

(This is one aspect to why I just don’t bother to make these types of informative posts any more – its just such hard work).

Ian