Jogja Ponsel

CHRISTMAS is the time of year for catching up with friends and family, and not just those living down the road. The holiday brings absent friends on distant shores very much into our thoughts, particularly given that tens of thousands of Scots live, work or have retired overseas.

The good news is that with a little planning it is possible to cut the cost of catching up with relatives in far-flung places.

According to uSwitch, the average Scot could save £40 on calls this festive season. Below is our guide to getting started.

Your existing provider

It is worth checking with your existing phone company what you are already signed up for, or if they have a package you could swap to that would give you cheaper international calls.

Steve Weller, head of telecommunications at uSwitch, explains: “For an extra £1 or £2 you can save up to 70%, and some providers offer free calls to a number of international destinations for a fixed monthly fee. So, depending on how regularly you talk, it might be worth signing up for a value-added package.”

Talk Talk customers upgrading to the Talk 3 package, which costs £9.99 a month, get free calls to 28 countries including the US and Australia. Over at BT, its Together customers can call 30 international destinations at 3p per minute for a subscription of £1 per month.

The key thing to remember with many of these call packages is to keep an eye on the time - with many, callers will have to hang up and redial after 59 minutes if they do not want to incur a charge for the call.

Cards and prefix numbers

Those who do not want to commit to a long-term upgrade to their home call package can still save money on calling abroad by using either a calling card or prefix number.

Weller says: “If you want to control your call spend then you can purchase pre-pay credit to call internationally by dialling a dedicated number and account code before making an international call.”

The call rates are much cheaper (see table) and, crucially for anyone on a budget, the amount a person wants to spend is arranged before they start dialling. This means there will not be any nasty surprises in January’s phone bill.

Callers who do not need to limit their call spend but would still like to make savings can opt for a provider who will allow them to dial an 08 number ahead of the international number they want to reach. According to uSwitch, someone calling Bahrain would save £20 on a one-hour call with a prefix provider.

Voice over Internet Protocol

Anyone with broadband at home can sign up to a number of providers that offer VoIP. Skype, which was bought by internet auction site eBay last year, was the forerunner in the market. To get free calls, both the person dialling and picking up must be Skype subscribers. It costs nothing to join. A caller simply has to log on to www.skype.com download a piece of software and then plug a microphone headset into their computer.

If the prospect of talking to great aunt Betty through the intricacies of computer to computer calling sounds too daunting, Skype customers can still make substantial savings on international calls by simply loading up credit on their account and then calling a regular land line.

It’s not free, but it is cheaper. USwitch estimates that using VoIP would save 86% on the cost of a call to Australia; a saving of £5.16 (see table).

BT and Tesco have since joined Skype in offering VoIP to customers. Tesco shoppers who have broadband can pick up the enabling software and either a headset (£4.97) or telephone (£17.97) with their groceries.

One plus point about opting for the phone - BT and Skype will sell them as well - is that as long as a user’s computer is turned on, the internet phone will ring when they have a call. If the computer is off, calls will go to voicemail which the user can then pick up later for free.

A possible downside is that Tesco and Skype users have to choose a new ‘internet phone number’. However, as Tesco allows you to choose any dialling code you like, you could choose a 0131 or 0141 prefix while actually living in Italy.

Tesco users who want to make internet calls through their existing home number will from tomorrow be able to purchase an internet phone adapter for £49.97 which will plug straight into a broadband box.

‘About £30 of call charges a month are gone’

CHRISTELLE Garcia has saved around £240 on her phone bill since she picked up an internet phone at the supermarket. She uses it to keep in touch with the rest of her family who live on mainland Europe and has virtually wiped out international call charges from her bill, writes Lindsey Rogerson.

“A friend recommended the Tesco phone to me,” said Garcia. “It was not something I had thought about before, but they said it was a great service.”

Garcia, who works part-time as a marketing consultant since having her daughter Anabella, found the phone remarkably easy to set up and cut her calling charges to France, where both her mother and father are based, in half (from 4p to 2p a minute), even when calling them on their land lines.

She then posted a second internet phone to her mother in France so that they could call for free.

In order to make free calls, both Garcia and her mother have to have their computers turned on, something Garcia says has not proved a hassle: “My mother always has her computer turned on.”

One further plus has come from the fact that Tesco lets customers choose their own number and, crucially, the dialling code for their internet phone.

Garcia helped her mother choose a 0207 code, which means that even if Garcia calls her mother from her mobile phone she will only be charged for a UK call, even though she is calling France.

Garcia is now about to post a headset, which at £4.97 is cheaper than the £17.97 cost of the phone, but still allows free internet calls, to her sister in Spain.

“It has made a huge difference to my bills,” says Garcia. “There are about £30 of international call charges a month that are just gone. I talk a lot on the phone and this means I do not have to worry about the bill.”

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