http://www.webcalldirect.com/en/index.php

WebCallDirect is an innovative and simple way to make cheap phone calls without headphones, microphones or having to install any software at all. WebCallDirect connects two standard telephone machines, whether they are landline or mobile, local or anywhere else in the world, regardless if the owner is connected to the Internet or not. WebCallDirect is just like using your regular phone, only a lot cheaper!

Seems like all the Finarea VOIP entities are doing this too.

http://www.betamax.com/press_news.php?language=

KOELN - 23 D EC 2005: BETAMAX GMBH & CO.KG LICENCES FINAREA SA VOIPSOLUTIONS.
As a result of a previously signed letter of intent, Betamax has officially licenced the Finarea Voipsolutions platform and will start to rollout various VoIP (Voice over IP) products in the first quarter of 2006. "We are already beta testing different products and are hopefull they will be market-ready in the first months of 2006" says managing director T. Star.

Betamax is a telecom operator which provides affordable and easy-to-use telecommunications services to residential and small business customers. Betamax offers products and services in fixed and mobile telep hony and currently expands its footprint in the VOIP business. Finarea SA is a Swiss-based telecom provider with a strong position on different local markets, especially in providing low-cost telephony to residential customers.

For further inquiries, please contact our PR department at +49 (0)221-55405564

This is yet another of those sleazy companies that are trying to con people by making out calls are free when they are most certainly not.

I can't find out what the minimum credit cost is without registering (see what I mean about sleazy), but it's clear that what you are actually paying is Credit Cost / (12.86*300) per minute.

If you accidentally go over the 300 min/week limit you are charged a massive 1c minute (compared to 3p for as long as you lie with 1899).

Basically, these people are lying when they say calls are free.

LOL @ above comment, many are run by the Finarea group, which are the same people who run 1899, 18866, and 18185 as well as numerous call-thrus.

Yes you are charged 1c/min if you go over 300 mins a week, but don't forget there are several other countries apart from the UK you can call.

I no longer have a BT line, as was one of the first people to use 18866, then 1899 and 18185 when they launched their services.

Granted this service may not suit all, and this service is run by Betamax.

Yes, the way they've sneaked the connexion charge up on 18866 is pretty sleazy, too.


I don't quite see how the second clause relates to the first.


I don't understand this comment. How can the use of 1899, 18866 and 18185 mean you no longer need a BT line. They are override operators, not line rental companies.


It may suit some, but unless I was absolutely certain I was going to make less than 5hrs of calls per week, I wouldn't want to risk it.

I'd be interested to know how much the 'credits' cost.

1899 only charge 3p/call to UK 01 and 02 numbers, they charge a per minute rate to other countries.

The use of 1899, has nothing to do with not having a BT landline, I was just posting the fact I had used 1899 and co from the beginning, but no longer have a BT landline, as I have dumped it and gone VoIP only.

If you don't have a landline, how do you connect to the internet?

Cable broadband, comes through a co-ax cable, not over a phone line.

They have to make money somehow, nobody gives you ANYTHING for free!

On balance is seems very very cheap compared to normal home phone costs.

That rather depends on your calling profile.

I dare say it's cheap if you tend to make a large number of short calls, but if you just make a few long calls, 1899 will work out much cheaper.

What are they charging, out of interest?

I'm not about to sign up, and the sleazebags don't actually give you that vital piece of information until you do (which is why I consider them sleazebags - anyone who isn't 100% open about their pricing is trying, at some level, to pull a fast one).

Ahh, so you've still got a landline - it's just provided by a cable company. All clear now

No I don't have a landline at all.

You don't need a landline with cable broadband, cable broadband doesn't come down a phone line, it comes down a separate cable, hence why you can have cable broadband without having ANY landline service.

I dumped cable phone service about 5 years ago, and went to BT for phone line, but I have dumped that too. So I have no landline.

I use VoIP via an ATA to my router. NO landline.

No, the whole point about a cable is that it's a cable.

A line up and down which data travels and which makes its way by land from the cable company to your good self.

If you had no land line (BT, cable or whatever), then you would need some kind of radio link up (these are possible for normal domestic comms use, but hardly common).

You have a landline, it's just not connected to a traditional telephone exchange.

You make it sound like I do have a landline telephone service, which I do not, what you post is just being pedantic, people use landline for a telephone service.

I can't just get a phone and plug it into the BT phone socket, nor the cable phone socket (there isn't one at this address) so in that way I don't have a standard landline phone service.

For my phones to work I have to plug them into an ATA which plugs into a router, which plugs into my cable modem, which is then connected by co-ax to the cable broadband service.

I don't get charged by cable or BT for a landline phone service as I don't have such a service.

I only pay Telewest for broadband, as that is all I am receiving (other than free digital TV).

OK, I think I can see what your situation is.

You have a landline which connects you to your ISP, and you you need to use that landline to communicate with people via your house phones - it's just that you do it exclusively by VOIP, rather than by connexion to a traditional exchange.

You are still using your landline, though.

I have to say, I think it's you that is trying to be pedantic (or should that be perverse), by trying to claim you are not using a landline, when you evidently are.

No, on second thoughts, I'm not going to get involved in this nonsense.

Not at all, I think you are just missing the point entirely.

My ISP is Telewest broadband, it is connected via a co-ax not a telephone cable.

Therefore I don't have traditional landline, I use VoIP, I can't use traditional landline as I don't have it.

Yes it's connected by way of a cable over the land, but in Telcoms that is not a landline phone service.

Go to uk.telecom.voip and try and tell people that even thoiugh they don't have a landline they do, wait to be laughed down.

I think you're right to, he's just acting troll like, or just a complete idiot, should have seen that coming.

Sorry, Bexy, you're the one who's acting the troll.

There is a common distinction made between "landline", meaning a connection that is made using copper wire (or even fibre optic), and "mobile" telephony.

It's been around for years, and is well understood.

You seem to want to use a private definition whereby, although you are evidently using a landline, you want to claim that you're not.

It's you that is out of kilter with the usage that the majority of the rest of the country accepts.

Arguing that black is white, as you are doing, is the action of a troll.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landline
it means both, and if it's on wikipedia it's hardly a "private definition".

However in the context of telephony, landline means the definition that BexTech said.

It's a private definition in that it is one that is not commonly understood and is only used by a particular, small, minority of the population.

If you asked 100 people (selected at random) what they understood by the expression "landline", the vast majority would say it's a physical line from your phone (or its base unit)/computer system to the internet/telephone system.

So Bextech's definition is "private" in that it's only used by a small minority of the population.


LOL, that's just argument by assertion - sorry, you need to do better. The fact that you believe that it means the same as Bextech does not make it so.

I'm not disputing that there are people who use the term in the manner he mentioned, it is simply not what is generally understood by the vast majority of the population.

And, like it or not, the majority of the population have logic on their side because (unless he's using a mobile), when Bex makes a telephone call, it travels from his house, initially, through a physical line carried over or under the land.

Most people use the term in the manner I posted, I've not known anyone other than you not use the term this way and this includes the people in the uk.telecom.voip newsgroup.

Plonk.

Again, that is arguing by assertion.

Again, you'll need to do better.

A lot better.

That suggestion, that "most" people use the term in the manner you've posted is quite the most ridiculous one I've seen on this forum. Most people would struggle to tell you what VOIP meant, if they had ever heard of it at all.

The vast majority of people consider a "landline" phone to be the "opposite" of a "mobile" phone. One that works by having a cable running from your house to the outside world.


Oh, I do like to see someone who admits to being a plonker.