Cheap UK calls with Iberbanda

[teralin]

I have recently been connect to Iberbanda and can now access internet and make calls to the UK with the phone line that they provided. According to their literature, I pay around 9 cents a minute to call the UK. Does anyone know of any cheaper way of calling the UK via Iberbanda (perhaps using a prefix number)? I have heard of Skype but as I am a total technophobe, this sort of communication goes right over my head!!!

Also another question, since I am fairly new to Spain, can anyone tell me how I can identify whether telephone numbers are local, national or premium charge as you can in the UK eg in UK I think numbers that begin with 09 are charged much higher than normal calls. Is there anything similar in Spain that can alert me to the fact that I am dialling an expensive number.

Thanks

[rafiki]

7 TEL Communications

902 055 111

4 cents/min offpeak
6 cents/min peak

both +IVA

[Beachcomber]

The numbers 903 to 906 are premium rate.

http://www.andalucia.com/travel/telephone/numbers.htm

[teralin]

My thanks to you both

[Beachcomber]

One other site that may be of interest to you and others is Infobel.

This is a reverse search facility that will tell you the general area in which a certain telephone number is located.

It use to give the name and address of the subscriber as well but they had to curtail this feature because of the Spanish equivalent of the Data Protection Act.

[neilinalcaucin]

My mother in law and soon my wife is in spain -
i currently use skype to converse on video with my mum inlaw and I have skype enabled on all my laptops etc for ma and my wife- skype is superb for communicating to other skype users free of charge and if you put credit on skype call costs are lower than any other system i believe.
If you got the same 512kb iberbanda i have just had fitted you should have 300 free mins of calls nationally but otherwise i'd go for skype.

if you get skype you may also want to download SAM which is a free voicemail service that connects to skype,
Finally another great benefit of skype is that you know when the others on skype are online .

PS - let me know how your iberbanda is as ?i will work from uk 4 days a week and be in spain working twice a week, with my wife in Spain and working online from Spain I am hoping iberbanda works very well or i am in trouble at work!!

regards
NEil

[Raquel]

Hi I have iberbanda I didn't bother with the phone just the Internet and use a company called voipcheap to make calls its similar to skype but better and cheaper as calls to landlines are FREE anywhere for as long as you like. The way it works is you buy 10pounds of credit and once you have credit calls are free to landlines and 15p per min to mobiles anywhere.
You can also send text messages to anywhere for 5p (vodafone charge me 60c) you also get a free phone number as well. Its really simple to use, you download it for free you use either a voip handset or headphones and a microphone and is always on.

www.voipcheap.com

I found this company on martin money guru he recommended it.

www.moneysavingexpert.com

[teralin]

Thanks to Raquel for the voipcheap recommendation. I have signed up to it and it is working really well. I had to put a minimum of 10 euros on my account and then I can make calls to most european and US landlines for free. Calls to mobiles in Spain are 10 cents a minute and only 6 cents a minute to mobiles in the UK. Fantastic!! In addition, Voipcheap also allows you to use your own telephone to make the call rather than sit at the computer with headphones and microphone. If you choose to do this, then a small fee of 3 cents is deducted from the balance of your account with them. The computer then calls your telephone and when you pick up your phone it then proceeds to connect your call. So I can make a long call to a landline in the UK from the comfort of my own telephone and the total cost is 3 cents. I have already recommended this to three other friends and I can recommend it unreservedly to my andalucia.com friends.

[rafiki]

Thanks for that. I just signed up and used my Spanish address and paid in Euros. This works fine from our UK phone too and costs less than signing up with a UK address. Quality is fine and I just called Germany for 20 minutes on my land line phone at a cost of 3cents. Far better than that dial prefix I posted in an earlier message. This is much cheaper!

[fearfulfred]

Tnanks
for the info on Voipcheap..we are using it ..only thing i havent seen mentioned here is that the initial 10 euro deposit in credit is only good for 3 months..I am using it to call places that are free but realize that the deposit of 10 euros will go even if I only place free calls ..Still at 3.30 Euros a month is very cheap for the calls I am making into a hotel !

fred