Homesick Telecom legit?

I got a flyer through the door today.... 3.5p per minute to the US.... which is about £2.10? for an hour. I currently pay £5.40 (roughly 9p a min.) for an hour when I make calls using our BT landline :/ Here's the link:

http://homesicktelecom.com/index.php

I tried a google search and didn't find hardly any other sources for this place. I do use IDphonecard sometimes, which is 9.90 cents, roughly 5p a minute.



Or does BT provide cheap international rates I can add onto my plan without messing it up with extra charges?

This isn't what we use, but if you Google for it, you can find loads of cheap access numbers that offer rates as low as 1p/min to the USA.  Ours is an 0844 number, and we've been using it for 2 months now, so I can say that there's no catch & they charge exactly what they say.

Hiya,

I've mentioned this before, and like Aless says - doing a Yahoo or Googly should turn up plenty of other providers -

However, I use Swiftcall. I pay a flat rate of £19.99 per month, and ALL my UK landline & Geographic numbers, USA, Canada, Australia, about 15 European countries are all FREE. There's an 0800 freephone access number then a PIN to enter. You need to register the actual landline you'll be using with the service and it's the only one I can find who also allow a Mobile phone to be registered as well.

It's great for 'fixing' costs - the only other charge is Line rental from BT (or your cable provider) and 0845/0870 and mobile numbers.

Cheers! DtM - West London & Slough UK!

That's a really good idea Dennis.

How much do you pay per month in all (including taxes, etc..) for your phone?  Just wondering as we just moved into our flat and that's something we'll need to think about soon!

Thanks

Hiya Uber Yank,

I exclusively use O2 for my personal mobile phones and we use them across our business as well.
The reason is simple - O2 are the ONLY UK mobile phone company who 'INCLUDE' access to 0845 and 0870 & 0800 numbers in the bundled minutes on a pay monthly tariff.

I have 1000 minutes on one of my personal mobiles included, and it's registered to swiftcall, so provided I dont go crazy, as the 0800 access to swiftcall is included when I use swiftcall's service/phone system - it basically turns out to be 'free'

The upshot is I basically can call 0870 & 0845 numbers in the daytime and not give a 2nd thought to how much is this costing me.

Suits me fine so far, and I've had this serivce for going on 18 months or so. I'm due a hunt around to see if there are any other or better deals out there - but for now, it's great!

Cheers! DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Hiya
Similar topics have been posted before.. I use 1899 for my calls to the US its 2p a min to landlines. They also have great deals to other countries as well. You check them out at www.1899.com
Kaylesh

I don't know what kind of plan we have with BT but my calls to the US are only 2p a minute through them. You might want to just ring them and ask them about it.

I'll have to check O2 out as we have Vodafone and I made a bunch of calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers and it was extremely expensive! More expensive than from calling a landline to those numbers.  I can't believe it!

Grrr

Another source for cheap calls that has been mentioned before is the Post Office telephone card.  You can call the US for 3.5pence a minute.  But the really good special that will be going on in December....Every Saturday from noon to midnight using that card, you can call anywhere in the US for free!  Yes...that is 12 hours of free calling every Saturday in December.  Believe me when they offered this last year, I used all 12 hours every Saturday.  Sometimes had to wake people up to call them, but they forgave me!    Go to any UK PO and ask for the card - they come in denominations of 5, 10 or 20 pounds.  But all you need to get the freebies on Saturday is the 5 pounder.  Happy calling!

If you've got the right mobile network, there's plenty of companies who give you "free" international calls.

"Free" being included into your inclusive minutes (if you're on a pay monthly). An example, from a quick google search, is www.yourcallworld.com.

Essentially it's a 07xx number, which your mobile phone provider considers as another mobile phone, therefore includes it in your bundle.

It generally doesn't work with 3 or vodafone (which I've got  ).

Worth knowing though.

There are plenty of companies out there. We use www.18866.com who are pretty good and are usually 2p a minute to any USA landline or cellphone.

I use 1899 for my calls to the US its 2p a min to landlines.

The rates listed at the moment still show it as 1p. per minute, although the connection charge did increase from 3p. to 4p. recently.

Ahhh right Ta Paul.. they do chage a bit from time to time..

The reason is simple - O2 are the ONLY UK mobile phone company who 'INCLUDE' access to 0845 and 0870 & 0800 numbers in the bundled minutes on a pay monthly tariff.

Dennis what are 0870 and 0800 numbers ?
Thanks
kath

They are "non-geographic" numbers:

0800 = Toll-free.  Equivalent to American 800, 888 etc. 

0845 = Originally charged the same as a local call.

0870 = Originally charged the same as a national long-distance call.

The problem with 0845/0870 is that over the years the cost of calling a regular 01/02 number has dropped considerably, especially with bundled minutes and other package deals.  Most packages specifically exclude calls to non-geographic numbers, however, so despite the misleading claims by those who use these numbers that they will cost the same as a local/national call, the reality is that most people will actually end up paying considerably more.

Some of these numbers are also now effectively premium-rate numbers with the call recipient getting a cut of the charges.

See Technical issues, reply #8 for more.