The Cost of Staying in Touch !

I think it would be fair to say that most if not all of us have cringed at the cost of keeping in touch with loved ones in the Philippines, at some point or other. And I know some of you on this forum have a very poor view of Skype, but I always treat as I find and if a good slagging off is warranted, then they get both barrells.

Anyway I received an email telling me about cheap calls to the Philippines using "Skype to Go", now I had never heard of this, so I had to find out what it was all about.?

This is what's on offer;

Call through Skype to Go

Pay as you Go

Call rate = $0.146 USD / £0.10 GBP


Subscription @ $12.99 USD / £9.12 GBP / month

Call rate = $0.108 USD / £0.076 GBP

​

I just tried this out for 30 mins chatting to my wife in Surigao and it was clear as a bell, although Smart did drop the signal once & I lost the connection. This was a mobile to mobile call that cost me £0.076 / minute. I opted for the 120 mins @ $12.99 subscription which works out to 10.8 cents per minute.

Simple get online and login to Skype or create a new account, you need to register your mobile number with them & verify it. Then they will send you a free "Skype to Go" number that you can call to add contacts.

Or just skip all that and do it all online as I have just done, once logged in scroll down untill you see the image below, then click where it says "Skype to Go" & follow the on screen prompts. When you add a contact in the Philippines, Skype will send you a London based number to call instead of your contact's Philippine number.

​

This is a great service & fantastic value for money

I am suffering K calling her mother on Skype to her mother's phone... I must get this under control as it will soon be cheaper to buy her mother a laptop and a pocket wifi...

Yes I am aware of the option to use your Sype credit to call a mobile / landline in the Philippines, but that requires you to have access to a computer / laptop with an internet connection.

In my line of work this is not always possible (hardly ever in fact). All that is required to use "Skype to Go" is a mobile phone once you have completed the setup process. I thought this would be of benefit to the other truck drivers on here especially as it is almost 2p / min cheaper

A Smartphone with a Globe SIM card is all that's required with a top-up of say Php1500 a month. Each month she sends "SUPERSURF 999" to 8888 and that'll give her one month's internet connectivity.

We are currently using Skype to make calls. I have several spare laptops and I would go that route with a laptop and pocket wifi, apart from the fact that in our case, its actually not such a bad thing that people can't easily call us. It isolates us from the daily drama...

My Mrs. lives in the middle of nowhere, with intermittent mobile connection at best.

We just use the Globe free facebook (and facebook messenger) to exchange photos and the occasional confirmation from me that I'm still breathing.

If I really need to talk... like NOW, I'll phone her from my house phone for about 10p a minute on one of those cheapo numbers, and hopefully she'll actually have a phone signal at that time.

I didn't realize that you and your other half lived in different countries. That must be difficult. No plans to apply for a visa and bring her over?

Same issue my wife has with her family. She now uses www.dail123.co.uk I think, seems to be the cheapest most stable provider we've found so far. Every now and then, and I mean every now and then she will get through on facebook calling messenger the same as your mrs. Its a real pain not having semi decent comms in the middle of nowhere.

I think not.

Perhaps you mean www.dial123.co.uk, do you have a dyslexic keyboard?

Close enough. 2nd day getting onto night shift and its taking its toll

Fortuntely, when my wife calls her family it's usually to argue about something so she can't wait to get off!

The other day she got into an argument and decided to call back just so she could slam the phone down! She was well annoyed to discover that the person she was calling had turned their phone off!

She used Planet Talk, but the dial123 site looks quite a good idea.

Planet Talk is cheaper per minute (10p to mobiles compared to 13p) but there is an extra fee. And quite often she has to call several times before getting an answer and I think that means a connection fee each time.

Planet Talk goes straight onto the phone bill too, which saves faffing about with top ups.

She doesn't call too much - maybe 30 minutes on a Saturday morning each week - so it's not a major issue.

Looking at our phone bill, Planet Talk works out at about 20p a minute once the extra fee is added, so quite a lot more expensive.

With the O2 sim, does the credit expire if you don't use it all within a month or can it carry over? That looks quite an interesting idea.

I didn't realise we were spending twice as much as we need using Plant Talk.

Thanks.

Maybe worth giving it a go then.

The extra charge is a fairly common problem that a lot of people don't realise happens as it the connection fee just gets lumped on to your phone bill so in effect you could be paying nearly double the stated rate. Alot of the rates stated by these companies are for BT landlines so if your provider is different then there could be additional charges as well. Dial123 is the best I've found so far for calling the provinces. The top up can be a bit of a faff but its only 2 mins and its done.

Do they need a O2 international sim at their end (philippines) as well?
Edit.
Do they need some sort of internet signal (3G say) as well for this?