Hello fellow low cost telephone rate hunters,

From my research it seems like companies like Cheapest Calls, Abroadtel (087, 084 numbers) are still the lowest cost alternative in making Long Distance calls.  But why so many companies?  Could it be that there are only few companies operating under different names?  A marketing scheme?  You hear almost the same recording on all these numbers.  Can someone explain to me how can so many different companies survive in this day and age where you only find one or two major companies dominating each industry?

Correct there are only a few companies behind all these brands.  They operate on the same basis as Procter&Gamble and Lever Brothers with their numerous washing machine powder and liquid brands.

If you want to know who is behind what brand then go to http://www.internic.co.uk and lookup who is behind each URL.  For instance Callax are behind Abroadtel, Phonebird and PennyPhone  The very aggressive and ever growing Swiss Finarea is behind Dialwise, Dialaround, Budgetcom, Bestmintes, Telestunt, Telesavers, Telediscount, TopUpNow, VoipBuster, VoipCheap, CheapestCalls 18866, 1899, 18185 and probably a few more as well.  Centrica (who owns British Gas) owns Justdial and Ratebuster.  Call2Call, Gem-Tel, Sipgate, JoyCall, 123Call, Lycatel, Simply-Fone and of course Skype all appear to be one off separate companies.

Are you aware of http://www.niftylist.co.uk where you can keep track of which of these brands is currently offering the best international fixed and mobile call prices?

A few more Finerea family members i have noticed recently are

www.mobileminutes.co.uk

www.sipdiscount.com

www.topupdiscount.co.uk

wrote on Oct 11^th, 2005 at 8:25am:

A few more Finerea family members i have noticed recently are www.mobileminutes.co.uk www.sipdiscount.com www.topupdiscount.co.uk

Clearly Finarea seems to believe that its simply a needle in a haystack job for the consumer so the more brands they have the more likely they are to get the business.  Using a single well known brand that gets a good reputation for cheap calls and which they actually advertise on radio and televsion never seems to occur to them.

But more incomprehensible are the completely different call prices charged by different Finarea brands.  For instance 18866 and 1899 don't cover Liechtenstein, where the Riiing SIM card is based, but Finarea NGN brands (using 084/087 and 09 numbers) do cover this country and Finarea's Dialaround brand now offers far cheaper calls to Spanish mobiles than all of Finarea's other many brands.

wrote on Oct 11^th, 2005 at 8:45am:

For instance 18866 and 1899 don't cover Liechtenstein, where the Riiing SIM card is based, but Finarea NGN brands (using 084/087 and 09 numbers) do ....

I asked both 18866 and 1899 about adding Liechtenstein mobile as a destination, but they replied (!) to say no and recommended Telediscount instead. Ok from a landline maybe, but not much use from a mobile.

Various 07744 call-through numbers do not seem to be providing this destination either.

As you kindly pointed out, Ratebuster's 0844 number routes to FL mobiles - it could do without carrying the cartoon theme over into the call announcements though.

wrote on Oct 11^th, 2005 at 9:07pm:

As you kindly pointed out, Ratebuster's 0844 number routes to FL mobiles - it could do without carrying the cartoon theme over into the call announcements though.

Careful there Andy.  After all you wouldn't want to end up accidentally paying me a back handed complement there now would you? ;) :o

Finarea's attitude to not offerring Liechtenstein on 18866, 1899 and 18185 is very odd when they do also offer routing to this country and its mobile numbers with its VoipBuster and VoipCheap Voip brands at 6.76p per minute.  I begin to wonder if there is in fact a franchise element to each of these different parts of the Finarea operation.

By the way the 0844 Ratebuster number supposedly for Liechtenstein landlines that also reaches Riiing mobiles is 4p per minute for anyone else reading.  And if one one doesn't wish to listen to "Greetings mortal and welcome to Ratebuster" each time you can store the number in a memory prefix on your phone with a# on the end and then press the prefix as soon as the Ratebuster 0844 number answers.  This cuts out the annoying announcement and saves wasted call time that otherwise costs you money.