Not Geeky!

Voip is especially interesting, or even more interesting, if you make international phonecalls.
Say you don’t care about the video (Skype) and don’t have a landline. Say the number you need to reach is a mobile phonenumber, and why not say it’s a close friend or relative. Forget Skype, forget Voipstunt too expensive, too much hassle. Move over: Rebtel is your choice!

I started using it years ago and then forgot about it because Voipstunt seemed like a better alternative. However, let’s face it, more and more people are ditching their landline and just have a mobile phonenumber and then Voipstunt can become a costly solution.

Rebtel has a pretty good alternative, in fact they allow you to make mobile 2 mobile phonecalls almost for free, providing you both have plenty of minutes left for phoning landlines. It takes a bit of preparation, setting up an account, put some credit in, and setting up a contact (the mobile phone number that you want call).

Rebtel will provide you with a landline number you can call and you’ll get put through to your friends mobile number. From that moment on you’ll pay a charge that is often already lower than Voipstunt. And then you can make it even cheaper by asking your friend to call back the number that appears on their display (also a landline number). So from that moment on you both phone a landline and providing, like said before, you both have enough minutes left, you phone for free!

From then on you can both make use of the landline number that was given to you. And some other good news: Unlike Voipstunt where your credit expires after a number of days, your credit doesn’t seem to expire!

Cheers,

Edwin

Lately I have been using both Skype and Voipstunt. I do have to Skype’s version 4.0 is a lot better than the old one. In some areas Voipstunt does win, but not in all!

For your convenience I came up with several. This should make it easier for a voip caller to make a decision on what to use or even better, what to use when.

1. PC to PC
When you’re making calls from your PC to another PC Skype is the better option. It is possible using Voipstunt, however it seems to take too much of your computer resources. To be honest: for this I prefer Google Talk. Google Talk is a small application and the sound quality is excellent.

2. Phone to Phone
In some countries Skype offers phone to phone calls. In most it doesn’t. And if it does it still requires you to have a monthly subscription, which is not needed with Voipstunt. In addition Voipstunt offers various ways to initiate a phone to phone call.

3. Dropping Calls
Skype is way more prone to drop calls,which I found really annoying. In this area I hardly have any issues with Voipstunt.

4. Firewall Issues
Skype manages to get through Firewalls a lot better than Voipstunt. So if you are in a particular area where you can’t make voipstunt work, you probably can make your call using Skype.

5. Mobile to Phone
See also item 2. With Voipstunt, If you do it the smart way you can program your phone in such a way it dials the number for you. In addition there are all sorts of mobile client tools that can help you reducing the costs. In the UK you have the 3 network that offers similar functionality on your mobile, however this is only in the UK.

6. Echo Cancellation
Skype has better Echo cancellation overall. In some cases Voipstunt echoes a lot, to the point where it becomes really annoying. This can  depend on your configuration, destination and time of day.

7. Costs to Landlines
Voipstunt is way cheaper than Skype, both to landlines and mobiles. Voipstunt is often, not always, free, Skype just isn’t. With Skype you can reduce the costs by having a subscription, but only if you make phonecalls for hours and hours per day this will be cheaper than Voipstunt. (2.95GBP to one country a month, only landlines)

8. Voicemail
Voipstunt doesn’t offer Voicemail facilities. You can forward calls when you are not on line. Skype does offer Voicemail. Voicemail is included with the purchase of any of their subscriptions or $20 for a full year.

9. Video
Skype has video calling build in, Voipstunt doesn’t. If you use X-lite combined Voipstunt it is apparently possible. Still Skype remains the easiest option.

10. Caller ID
Recently Skype started offering Caller ID services (free). More and more people first look on their phone to see who is calling. Some don’t even answer the phone if there is no caller ID (like me). With Skype you can set it up and upon verification and aproval it is attached to your account. With Voipstunt you can quite easily set a whole bunch of phone numbers (verification is required) or switch it (temporarily) off. With phone 2 phone calls you cannot always switch it off. In some cases it doesn’t work (Nokia N810) at all with Voipstunt. Funily enough Skype Caller ID does work on my Nokia N810.

11. Sending Text Messages
Voipstunt has very low priced text messaging service Skype offers it as well, but it is more expensive. With Voipstunt you can also send your text messages from their website or by using one of the many third party tools.

12. Inbound phonenumber
Both Skype and Voipstunt offer inbound phonenumbers. However, it really depends on the country. In some countries I would say Skype is the better choice, in others Voipstunt is. In the UK you can get an inbound number, which isn’t recognizable as such. In Holland for instance Skype doesn’t offer an inbound number whereas Voipstunt does. The downside is that the number looks a bit awkward, because it begins with 0857.

13. Games
Skype offers some games that you can play with your kids online when you are abroad. Nice feature.

Hope you found this info useful.

Cheers,

Edwin