My other half is in halls of residence at uni, and at the moment we use Skype to stay in touch, but the Skype In service is not the best.

I'm looking for a similar service that we can both use to keep in touch. PC to PC and phone to PC calls are required.

Thanks in advance.

i use the tesco internet phone service and have had no problems with that, i always seem to get a good conection so im pretty happy.
but not sure if its suitable for your requirements.
but with calls at 1p a min its pretty good value. and like skype calls between tesco internet phones are free.

For VoIP to VoIP calls I may as well stick to Skype. Thanks for the suggestion though.

I'm looking for something that'll let me phone from my landline to her computer, similar to the Skype In service but vastly improved.

www.draytel.org works with an ATA or a softphone. There's no monthly charge, calls are from 1p and once you've credited £10 (which doesn't expire) there's an answerphone facility and geographic phone number - which can be your area if you have free local calls.
Last edited by Captain Cod : 22-02-2007 at 18:19

Take a look at Sipgate at www.sipgate.co.uk they give a free UK Geographic phone number for any area and you can recieve calls on the PC and a varity of other devices - see their website for more info.

with tesco internet phone you are given a phone number and you can indeed call it from any normal land line or mobile ect .

That you can, just Tesco VoIP along with Skype are two of the dearest VoIP services around.

i didnt think 1p a min (that's the extra rate) was too bad but i must admit i have only compared them to skype which is dearer.
how do they compare to other company's ? are there many that are allot cheaper?
would be interesting to find out i might switch

Ooh, I didn't realise that was the case.

Thanks everyone, I'll look into those suggested as soon as I get my internet connection back!

VOIP.co.uk is a good one and sipgate as mentioned earlier

VoipDiscount could be good for you. It has a Skype style softphone with free PC to PC calls. You would also get nearly free landline calls from PC at uni to your landline number. It only works out cheaper than Sipagte for the landline calls if you use it quite a lot. Effectively it's €30 (£20) a year for free calls with the €30 credit still available for other calls. Not bad.

If you want to be able to call uni at any time then get a VoIP phone like the Grandstream BT101 and set up a Sipgate incoming number. You can then call it using VoipDiscount even when the uni PC is not switched on. You'll need a router at the uni end for this though. If you want to have Sigate and VoipDiscount on one phone, either get the Grandstream GXP2000 or use Voxalot to register the single line phone and bring your providers together on one line.

these are all good suggestions, but i think he wants to call from phone to PC, preferably for free...

if you want to call from a real phone to the PC of your other half at uni, I would suggest THIS

it does mean you need a router, but you can call from a phone to skype just like a normal phone. it also supports the wideband audio that makes skype calls so cool.

it may not be out yet, but there are a few other similar [and definitely cheaper] design phones out if you search 'skype dect'

hope this helps
Last edited by 123immy : 06-03-2007 at 12:21

Good point 123immy. We might have all been barking up the wrong tree, but surely the price of phone to PC calls will always be set by your phone provider - nothing to do with VoIP.

If you want to call a landline number and be put through to a PC then I would suggest Sipgate with the XLite softphone.

If you want a phone in your hand rather than headset and PC then why not get a SIP phone or USB phone for much less dosh. The Skype phone is great but a tad pricey at £129 and you're stuck with Skype pricing plans forever.
Last edited by tomblandford : 06-03-2007 at 15:14

with the philips set it would be a skype to skype call. so it would be completely free. unless i've misunderstood what you're saying

...but yeah £129 is a lot of phonecalls

i think with xlite and a suitable account you can even dial an IP address and get it to ring.

after a brief foray with VOIP, i thought it was ok, but when you can get a 12 month contract mobile phone free of charge [after cashbacks] with hundreds of 01/02/07/08 minutes a month, if you give this to your OH you would have a totally mobile solution, probably better for student life

i would only use VOIP for something 'value add' like having really good quality audio, or just as an incoming landline number

back to topic - OP if you have a fast enough PDA with WLAN you could also run a this softphone - it was a bit clippy when i tried it, but i think you need >300Mhz

as much as we're adept at setting these things up, it's only as good if you have a bunch of people equally able to do the same thing at the other end. This for me, is rarely the case
Last edited by 123immy : 06-03-2007 at 16:26

One assumption everyone making is that the network provided to the Uni halls has the appropriate ports or proxy for SIP traffic opened at their firewalls.

it would be worth testing that using a softphone and an appropriate account. Xlite softphone and a sipgate account would be one of the easiest way of doing this - would be free to test as well.
Last edited by NobbyClarke : 06-03-2007 at 19:31

Voxalot now allows the use of other ports (2060, 3060 & 4060 I think), so this can be got around.

It looks as though Voxalot now allow you to turn off voicemail, that was something I had to stop using voxalot for, forced voicemail.
Last edited by SexyKitten : 08-03-2007 at 22:51

Also a whole host of other new features. See the Voxalot forum for details.