[stymie miasma]

Quote:

Originally posted by rycet Stymie, Go to chinatown, near the Firehouse, there's a shop which sell phone card, I'm not sure whether they have this phone card but try to ask for GYC Sino (Blue color) or Sampar. The listed price is $20 but you can buy them for $14-$15. For Australia, they are reliable and for that card you can talk, if I'm not mistaken, around 3-3.5 hours, but that's for a home phone, don't use it to call cell phone.

Ohhh...thank you rycet - I have been in Philadelphia for 4 months and still have not had a look through Chinatown. This should give me a good excuse to go wander...

 

[stymie miasma]

Quote:

Originally posted by legoman I've been using BigZoo for years. Pretty reliable, no connection fees, you get detailed billing (so you know where your money goes and minutes do not just disappear) and you can program in pin skip so I don't have to punch in all those numbers when calling from my home or office. In the old days there used to be periodic problems when there was an influx of new customers, but these days problems are usually gone in 5 minutes, except on holidays when everybody tries to call home. Only real problem is that I know one person who has a weird phone system that when he picks up the phone emits exactly that tone (#) that tells Big Zoo to disconnect and to allow you to make the next call. Rates vary, some are unbeatable, others (India I think, e.g.) are too high. I just put in $10 at a time, so my risk is minimized if somebody manages to look over my shoulder at airports. Try it, you only have $10 at stake.

That is good to know lego - thank you. The BigZoo rates look very good, and the whole system appears quite professional and easy to use. Cheers!

 

[Gergor]

Quote:

Originally posted by Gergor I used similiar service like net2phone and deltathree before. Both have unreliable and low quality phone to phone service. net2phone is the slightly better one of the two. Never use dialpad before, I'd be interested in trying it.

I checked out dialpad a little more, and found out that the card expire in 120 days. I don't call that much so it could be a problem for me. This is the reason I don't use the really cheap calling card because most of the really cheap ones expire in a month or two. Is there any calling card (with OK rate and good quality) which has longer expiration date?

 

[mclaren20]

Quote:

Originally posted by stymie miasma Now we need a nerd smiley!

 

[legoman]

Quote:

Originally posted by Gergor I checked out dialpad a little more, and found out that the card expire in 120 days. I don't call that much so it could be a problem for me. This is the reason I don't use the really cheap calling card because most of the really cheap ones expire in a month or two. Is there any calling card (with OK rate and good quality) which has longer expiration date?

That reminds me. Bigzoo also has some expiration date, which I don't remember what it is (3mths?). Also there is a .75 cent monthly fee which doesn't matter to me since I use it all the time, but might matter if you do very little calling. I don't have a long distance provider and use BigZoo exclusively with another expensive but reliable card as a backup.

 

[Gergor]

Just came across with the tracfone web site, has anyone used it?

 

[stymie miasma]

Calling Card Update

Well, it has been a little while since some of you made some great suggestions regarding cheap calling cards, and Gregor's ressurection of this thread reminded me that I needed to share my findings:

To cut a long story short, I tried several phone cards including the generic 7-11 card, the OTC Philadelphia Platinum and another whose name I can't recall right now - i think it was one that I purchased at RiteAid. The OTC gave good rates to Australia, but absolutely piss-poor conection quality, the worst I have heard. 7-11 cards had less attractive rates, and the service quality seemed to vary between the 3 cards I tried. In fact, the last 7-11 card that I used was on par with OTC in terms of 'quality'. Not happy

I also established an account with BigZoo which has been, as its name suggests, a complete Zoo. Connection quality was slightly better than OTC, but only by a bee's dick. Often I will dial a number and receive no indication that the number was ringing, only to be greeted suddenly with a confused "hello - hello?!!" at the other end. Drop-outs were frequent and the delay was simply appalling. It really made even the most simple conversation a chore. Once again, not happy

So it was with some reluctance that I returned to Verizon, my tail between my legs, and requested that my local Verizon service plan be extended to include international calling. With my current plan, the rates are not that bad (10 cents/min) and the connection quality is almost always 100%. Actually, the rates are significantly better than the 7-11 card!


And Gregor, I don't know much about the site you mentioned, but I would be keen to hear of your experiences

 

[Gergor]

Quote:

Originally posted by stymie miasma And Gregor, I don't know much about the site you mentioned, but I would be keen to hear of your experiences

Sure, I'll give it a try after I finish up my current card.