alternatives to Skype for making cheap international calls?

Using 1899.com they charge you 1p per minute even if you call from a UK mobile to a USA mobile, it's still 1p per minute.  I think there may be something like 3p connection charge.
There's no monthly fee, you can use it as little or as much as you like.

Does this work on all mobile phones?  Even PAYG plans?  Virginmobile?

Check out the price list page.  It does cost 4p connection for international calls and 5p connection for UK calls but as you can see it says united states (landline & mobile) 1p/minute
http://1899.com/rates.php

I have a contract mobile and it works but I'm not sure how it works for PAYG.  To use the service they have you call a geographic 0208 number first then dial the international number.  It may be that you get charged for 0208 number (outer London number) but I'm not sure.  Look under the FAQ and it should give you details.  Like I said, a contract mobile will give you free minutes to the 0208 number so you should definitely get that for free.

on my PAYG plan I pay 10p/minute....so not sure if that would be the connect fee or for beyond.  I will check it out on their site.  Many thanks for the tip.

Just checked out their site.  Looks like I've already got the best rates with our Sky plan (for our land line).  I wasn't able to figure out if using 1899 on my mobile for calls to the US would be a better rate than Virgin.  Actually, I probably wouldn't use my mobile to call to the US except in dire emergency when I'm not at home.

Wow, that's intense.  What year was that?  We didn't go through anything like that (tg).  Just had to show our marriage license, photos and some e-mails.  Maybe because we're older it wasn't as difficult (that was 2007)

This won't work for me, it tells me I need to add credit, I guess it knows I'm in the UK.

We have Vonage (we had it in the US too).  It's £7.99/month I think, plus an extra £5/month for the virtual US number which is really useful.  Believe me, friends and family are *much* more likely to call when it's a local number.  All calls to US and UK are free, except UK mobiles which are ~10p/min, and 0845/0870 type numbers which are ~4p/min.  I think it's really reasonable.

A flyer came through my door for something called Boss Revolution, they charge .05 pence a minute for calls to the US, thats a half a pence a minute. And you call a local number from your mobile and you can call the US. So I spent a fiver and got £6 worth of credit, they give you a quid free...and I got something like 2000 minutes to the US. I have been using it and the sound is great, no problems with connecting....give it a try.

www.bossrevolution.co.uk

A flyer came through my door for something called Boss Revolution, they charge .05 pence a minute for calls to the US, thats a half a pence a minute. And you call a local number from your mobile and you can call the US. So I spent a fiver and got £6 worth of credit, they give you a quid free...and I got something like 2000 minutes to the US. I have been using it and the sound is great, no problems with connecting....give it a try.

www.bossrevolution.co.uk

Thanks, do they charge a connection fee?

Nope, no hidden fees, nothing. Check out the website. It just came through my door.....as if by magic!

Not sure if this has been mentioned or not, Magic Jack! If you're already in the UK, then you'll need to have someone in the U.S. buy them and set them up, don't fall for the pay for 3 years service now schpell they try, if someone is setting it up for you they'll need to register it to an email address, it can be yours that way you can get your call waiting.  My MIL lives in Wincanton, she only uses cell phones so the extra fees we were being charged for them to talk was outrageous, so we set up two magic jacks one for my wife and one for my mil, (we don't have a landline either and only use our cells for home phone) you'll get a number for whatever area code the person setting it up has, so once you get it and plug it in, you can call any landline free, cell phones free though it comes off their minutes. And all this for $30 each once a year...one phone call to my mil paid for them both.  The only thing we've ran into that was a down side is for some reason my mil doesn't have unlimited internet, so once she's reached her limits then that's it, no phone calls till the next month. Hope this help all, this beats vonage, skype is cool because you can see the other person, but magic jack has been a life saver for us., when we finally make our move to the UK we'll be able to use it to call my family here in the states too.