Hello

I am thinking of switching to Sky Talk (£5.00 per month + BT Line) , most of my calls are 01 & 02 landline calls during the evening and daytime (About 250 calls per Month), I sometimes make mobile calls (About 10 per Month).
I dont make International calls or non-geographic calls (0870 etc).

Does anyone know of a better carrier for my circumstances.

Any help will be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Peter

Assuming you already have Sky then I would say that joining Sky Talk would be your cheapest option if you make a lot of daytime calls.

For mobile calls though I would consider using Call18185 who charge 5p/min daytime & evening and 2p/min at weekends for calls to mobiles.  These calls are subject to a connection fee of 4p though.

Thanks for your reply

Yes I am a Sky customer so I will consider Sky talk.

Will I still be able to use Call18185 after I have switched to Sky Talk

If you make quite a few mobile calls, it might be worth getting a mobile contract on 3, with 12 months free line rental.

It does include paying the normal line rental, then sending in a claim form on time, to get refunded this money by cheque, but it means the inclusive minutes can be used to call any mobile network or landline, so it can be used instead of 18185 for making mobile calls, and of course the added benefit of using it whilst not at home to call mobiles and landlines, rather than spending money of PAYG topups.

If you don't want the hassle of sending in claim forms etc, and you only make 1 or 2 mobile calls a week, then it may not be worth it, as the calls (if short) would only cost no more than about £1 a month.

I called Sky today (using the freephone 0800 5875707 number) and discussed Skytalk with them. I was advised that CPS (Customer pre-selection) would be set up on my line so that all calls would automatically go through Skytalk. I was also advised that this would not stop me from using a prefix number (ie 18185) to make calls through another provider. This seems a great solution, you can have all your 01 and 02 calls for just £5 a month and still use 18185 for mobile calls.  [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

Yes you can use the likes of 1899/18185 with any CPS service,its only if you take another suppliers line rental they can block it.

£5 a month is equilavent to approx 167 geographical calls a month on 1899,do you really make that number of calls? Couple 1899/18185 with Primus Saver 2 (FREE Evening and Weekend Calls at no monthly fee) and theirs more savings to be had,and unlike with Sky you dont pay if your not using it.

As mentioned by Orsonkart, you can use some other prefix operators like Call18185, 1899, 18866, etc whilst using SkyTalk because you are continuing to pay linerental to BT.

You can even dial 1280 and have any of your calls routed via BT which if you have BT's free Caller Display then you'll need to do this to continue to get the free caller display.  If this is the case, I'd recommend during the evening & weekend to route 2 calls a month via BT (6 calls in a quarter) to continue to qualify for free caller display from BT.

Apparently sometime in the future SkyTalk plan on offering linerental as well which I would personally recommend resisting moving your linerental away from BT because then you could lose access to other cheap prefix operators like Call18185, 1899, etc.

Remember, whilst your linerental is being paid to BT then BT have to allow access to other call providers which means you can always benefit from the cheapest providers and you are not stuck to a minimum term contract so can move as and when you want if other cheaper providers can beat Sky Talk.

If you move your linerental away from BT then you may lose access to other call providers and you may be stuck to a minimum term contract of generally 3months.  Some telephone providers (currently namely TalkTalk) insist that you move your linerental to them as well as this means TalkTalk can prohibit/block access to other cheap providers and this appears to be what they are doing going from forum reports I've read.

You may want to consider getting an Orchid Dialler box which would allow you to automatically route certain type of calls to different providers at different times of the day to ensure you continue to get the cheapest possible prices.  For example, you could setup the Orchid Dialler box to automatically route mobile calls via Call18185 instead of having to remember to dial the prefix first.  You can also use the Orchid Dialler box to block access to certain number types saving you paying BT to do the same!

You can get an Orchid Dialler box from here but if you read this thread on MSE you can get an extra 20% discount when ordering online.