derrick wrote on Jan 17^th, 2007 at 4:14pm:


I think I may have to move to one of the free in the evening and weekend outfits after this latest blow.

NGMsGhost wrote on Jan 17^th, 2007 at 4:43pm:


Not Sky i hope with its 0870 customer service number.   

Hopefully this will answer some queries raised here, but in no set order.
Answers given come from personal experience.

1 - It's 0.05 euro connection fee, about 3p, for callback ONLY. Ie you talk via your landline, but activated from your pc.

2 - Connection via pc softphone is free to all destinations.

3 - All calls charged at appropriate rate per minute, by the minute. ie 3 secs over = 1 min extra.

4 - 300 mins max free calls in a revolving 7 day period. Read it properly to avoid getting caught out. 7 day consecutive period, NOT a calender week.

5 - Calls will last a max of 60 mins. You will be cut off by the system. Redial, as many times as required, is permitted, at the appropriate connection fees. Points 1 & 2

6 - It's not Fineara any more. This set of services is now run by Betamax.

7 - Before joining any branch of this tree, look at http://backsla.sh/betamax. This is a very comprehensive table giving the price to call each country. List the countries you are likely to dial, then compare with the site for the most appropriate service to fit your personal needs. NOTE - THE PRICES ON BACKSLASH ARE IN EURO.

8 - If you can register from a foreign ip address, your stand a good chance of getting a free voip in number, appropriate to that country. Due to some telecom laws in some countries about actual location not being advertised on the call, you can't always get a free number. UK is now one.
eg - I joined voipstunt, got a free number based in Coventry. If I log in from Hungary and dial via softphone, it would appear on your phone that I was in UK, with little chance of locating me if the calls were abusive etc.
FROM EXPERIENCE you can register voipcheap in Hungary and still get a free number. This might still work for Eastern European countries that have yet to catch up.

One scenario
You have friends in Hungary.
It's still bldy expensive from there to here via normal lines. (Scratch cards do exist & are cheaper)
You register with voipcheap and get a free Hungarian landline number.
Give the friends the number.
Activate call divert from within your voipcheap settings to divert to your UK LAND number.
Diverted calls appear to be charged at softphone rates. So..... they can speak to my bird, 1500 miles away. from their land or mobile, for standard land rates as applicable to their personal tariff. The minutes come from your allowance.

9 - I think the bit about unique ip address is relevant to each branch of the tree. So you can't have 2 voipCHEAP accounts, but you could have a voipCHEAP and a voipSTUNT operating at the same time. Experience says that seems to work.

Think I've covered it, but reread point 4.
Scenario
Monday 01 of the month you make 200 mins of free calls.
Tuesday 02 of the month you make 100 mins of free calls.
You do not want to make a call until Sunday the 7th. All 300 mins used. You now pay at the going rate.
If you didn't do that call on Sunday 7th, but waited until Monday 8th you would now have 200 mins available.
Etc.
You really don't want to have to write down all the times you've spent. So allow yourself 42 mins per day if in constant 7 day use, and roll over any unused minutes towards the rest of the week, divided by 7.
For every day you don't ring you could carry 6 mins over on top of your average.

derrick,

What do you use as your PC telephone handset or headset?

As Very Nice Man points out you only pay the 0.05 euro cents connection if your using the callback from your pc.which i incorrectly thought you were doing.

However you they not continue to allow you to  get free calls for ever,at some stage they will stop them.They will then require you to purchase some credit, to buy free days to reach the free destinations.

"Registered members get a maximum of 300 minutes per week of free calls, measured over the last 7 days and per unique IP address. Unused free minutes cannot be taken to the following week(s). If limit is exceeded the normal rates apply. With your FREE DAYS you can call for free to all the destinations listed as free! when you have no FREE DAYS left the normal rates apply. You can get extra Freedays by buying credit "

derrick wrote on Jan 19^th, 2007 at 11:13am:


But you ought to be charged 5 Euro cents a call (about 3.5p per call) if you use the service in this way if I understand their terms & conditions and what others have said correctly?

Or does this only happen after you have exceeded 300 minutes of use in the last 7 day period?

A couple more comments about the Betamax companies -

As acezing already said, there is a certain amount of use allowed as a free trial after which you'll be expected to subscribe, so you can't expect to have free calls forever.

Once subscribed, and when using the callback, remember that it is two calls that are using up your 300 free minutes a week, so ...

derrick wrote on Jan 18^th, 2007 at 11:46am:

... I think you need to read this again. You can get extra Freedays by buying credit, so until you do you don't have 300 minutes a week. We'd be interested to know how long your free trial lasts though.