Best Tips for International Calls



Overseas calls can get very fast, very expensive when you talk with your loved ones for a while using the service of your good old phone company.



There are some ways to get it cheaper:





Internet telephony

The cheapest way to make an international call is by Internet telephony, a method to make voice calls over the Internet (VoIP) with a software application like "Skype", "FaceTime" or "WhatsApp" installed on a computer or mobile phone, it makes calls to other users within the service free of charge worldwide.



Even if the called party is not in the service it might be cheaper to call its landline (more affordable) or even its mobile (maybe not so cheap) by VoIP. If you want to call a mobile phone or landline through Skype, it requires Skype Credit or a subscription.



Advantage: cheap or even free of charge, two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously are possible, that means with cameras (webcams) connected to the computer system you can also see your dialog partner(s) and vice versa. Disadvantage: the line might be of poor quality and might be disconnected anytime, though you can try to reconnect any time and even get lucky and get a connection with better quality.





International prepaid calling cards

Some telecom companies offer international prepaid calling cards for various foreign countries; the card is used to make phone calls at a rate other than the one charged by your local phone company (it make always sense to compare the fees).





Dial around

Dial around also known in some countries as call-by-call is a method to bypass your primary phone carrier and use the service of an independent phone company with lower fees for long distance and international calls.



It means when you make a call you dial first a given number by the cheaper service followed by the usual numbers. It looks like 0123-1-xxx-xxxxxxx, where 0123 stands for the dial-up the service of the independent phone company, - 1- stands for the long distance or international calling code and the rest "xxx-xxx" represents the area code and the subscriber number.

