I wrote the following for someone who was trying to work out the best way to call Ghana from the UK. It has slight bias based on the perspective of a graduate student calling from Cambridge University, but most of it should apply generally and for other destinations. Note that I've got the names of many suppliers below from Google or other sources: they should not be taken as either recommendations or that prices are correct.
It is very complicated because it depends on exactly what phone you are calling from and how often you call... First thing to say is that the people who have the best prices aren't always ideal because the sound quality is so bad... I call one country regularly and choose to pay 30p/min instead of 15p/min because I can actually hear the other person on the 30p/min line. So you might have to try several options. 1) Call with your mobile. You said you had a T-Mobile phone, is that right? Don't use T-Mobile to call, since on pay-as-you-go that costs 1.30 pounds per minute (ouch!). 20p for an SMS isn't too bad though. You can however pay an extra 2.50 pounds per month to reduce the cost to 80p/min, but that's still not cheap. 2) Calling cards. If you don't call often then you can buy a calling card from a shop (such as the newsagent on King's Parade) or on the Internet. You pay 5/10/20 pounds and receive a card. The card has a phone number on it, which you dial then enter the secret number (PIN) written on the card when asked. You then dial the international number you want to call. You can call from any phone but it is cheapest not to call from mobiles or telephone boxes (you can call from a friend's landline without it costing them anything). For example http://www.alphatelecom.com/uk/ has Ghana 10p/min landline and 11p/min mobile. If you buy from a shop they have posters displaying the rates to lots of countries. Another is: http://londonphonecards.co.uk/ and a calculator that selects the best card can be found at: http://www.cometcallingcards.com/best_rate_calculator.php (I'm picking these names off Google, so haven't tried any myself) One thing to be careful of about calling cards is that some charge a small fee per day (maybe 2p/day) and some expire after a few weeks, so if you don't call much you may find your card is empty even if you haven't made any calls. So read the rules carefully (usually in small print somewhere). Quite often the prices get cheaper if you buy a larger card (20 pounds instead of 5 pounds). But also some cards have a connection fee as well as a cost per minute (in other words, for a ten minute call at 5p/min with a connection fee of 20p you pay 20p+10*5p = 70p). Some have a large connection fee and cheap cost per minute and others have a low connection fee but high cost per minute. So which card is best depends on whether you make short calls or long calls. 3) These options generally need a credit or debit card to sign up, so you'll have to set up a bank account first. You get your bills emailed to you and they take the money from your card. While you do have to provide your address, phone number etc when you register they only send you a bill for the calls you make - you don't have to pay per month if you don't make any calls. The way they work is you dial a UK number first, and it will then ask you dial in the international number for Ghana that you want to call. Because you have registered your phone number with them, they know that calls from your number are to be billed to you. 3a) If you sign up at http://www.18866.com, you pay 9p/min to Ghanaian landlines and 12p/min to mobiles. On top of this is the cost of a UK call from your mobile (to a London 020 number), which can be from 30p/min to 5p/min depending on how much you spend on your mobile phone per month. (10 pounds=30p/min, 20 pounds=20p/min, 30 pounds=10p/min, 40pounds+ =5p/min) 3b) There's also http://www.1899.com which is cheaper at Ghana 5p/min landline and 9p/min mobile. You still have to pay the UK call charge as above. 4) If you make calls regularly you can also have a telephone line installed in your room. The wires are probably already there - you just contact the phone company (NTL) and ask them to connect you. Make sure you ask for a 'CU2' line as this is a special cheaper line for graduate students which costs 7 pounds/month. More details can be found here: http://www.ntlatuni.com/cu2/ (NTL have a special department to deal with CU2 lines: talk to their business department on 0800 052 0800 not their student department. And don't let them transfer you to their student department if they try.) I can't find out the call costs for this line at the moment (as it's 6pm and NTL's business department is closed) so I'm making a guess that call costs are the same as their other phone lines - it's worth checking these before you sign up (if you don't know how to do this, ask me). 4a) Anyway, to call Ghana with this line costs 75p/min (landline) and 95p/min (mobile) - not cheap. 4b) However you can then use another provider to make calls with. To do this you ring the provider's special number quoted on their website and then dial your Ghanaian number. Some examples are: http://www.telestunt.co.uk/ (3p/min landline, 6p/min mobile) http://www.telediscount.co.uk/ (10p/min landline & mobile) http://www.telesavers.co.uk/ (5p/min landline, 10p/min mobile) http://www.phonebird.co.uk/ (5p/min landline & mobile) There are hundreds more listed at: http://www.magsys.co.uk/telecom/tarifrsort2.htm Try putting their names into Google to find their websites which list prices. These systems differ from 18866/1899 in that with these systems the call is billed to your CU2 bill, while 18866/1899 email you a bill themselves. 5) Skype, and other Voice Over IP (VoIP) systems. Here you use your computer to originate the call but you can call either other computers (usually free) or telephones (paying an extra cost). Even if you call a real telephone it is often cheaper than the methods above. Sounds quality can be a problem if the internet connection is bad: I tried using an African internet connection to make VoIP calls and it was very poor quality. This is an expanding field and one I don't have too much experience with so I won't comment further here except to note that if your internet connection is provided by your college they may disallow or restrict VoIP calls.
Page by Theo Markettos (email at theo@markettos.org.uk), autogenerated 3 October 2005
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