So what is the buzz about Internet Phones? First it was Bell’s harmonic telegraphy which eventually led to land line phones, then car phones, then the stormy advent of mobile phones, and now the world is moving towards calling facilities based on the internet. They are not all that complicated to understand and use. In fact, once you get the hang of what they’re all about, they might just become your preferred means of communication.

An Internet Phone uses the technology of VOIP: Voice Over Internet Protocol for transmitting voice signals. VOIP can be used PC-to-Phone (or vice versa) or Phone- to- Phone. Internet Phones digitise your voice and send it over the internet to another phone or a computer through an adapter. Many companies have quickly realized the advantages of this system and have started offering various plans for residential usage as well as business communications.

One among its many advantages is that it offers highly advanced features compared to regular phones, proving useful for both home and corporate use. Caller ID and 3-way Conferencing facilities have become a thing of the past; now you can look forward to Call Recording (for saving sweet memories, reference or proof), Do Not Disturb facility (which forwards your calls directly to Voicemail if you so wish) and Voicemail access over the web- anywhere, anytime. For corporate plans, some services offer the IVR system- or Interactive Voice Response system- which puts large volume of calls in auto queue mode by giving pre-recorded options like “Press 1 for Features, Press 2 for Rates”. In fact, such corporate plans can even replace that very expensive PBX system.

Along with these smart features, the internet-facilitated phones come with much cheaper plan options. VOIP technology has been primarily responsible for the drastic and recent drop in international calling rates. Residential local plans may come as cheap as 5 pounds a month and international calling plans as low as 10 pounds a month! Considering the amount of phone bills you can save, especially if you have family living in other countries or many of your clients are based overseas, the new rage of Internet Phones is a rather tempting.

Many cheap and free audio conference call services use access numbers beginning with 08xx. The more common are 0871, 0870, 0844 and 0845 numbers. These number ranges are known as non-geographic or ‘NGN’ numbers. Whilst these are accessible from most landlines and mobile networks in the UK, there is no guarantee that you will be able to connect to them from overseas. There are a number of reasons for this, which are documented in this article.

NGNs and telecoms interconnect agreements

International telephone carriers such as British Telecom in the UK, AT and T in the US, Telefonica in Spain, and Deutsche Telekom in Germany sign up to agreements as to what type of traffic they will pass between each other. These are complex commercial and technical contracts called telecoms interconnect agreements.

All telecoms interconnect agreements include interconnection between ‘normal’ geographical numbers in the respective countries. For instance, you will definitely be able to call, say, a London number beginning with 0207 from any country in the world. It would not make economic sense for calls to London not to be supported.

In reality calls to all numbers beginning with 01 and 02 are supported as these cover almost all the standard phone numbers in the UK.However, calls to 08xx numbers are often NOT included in these agreements. Even when they are, the prices charged to connect are often outrageously high.

In Summary: There is no guarantee you will be able to connect to an 0871, 0870, 0844 or 0845 number from abroad and even if you can, you are likely to be charged an extortionate fee for the privilege.

The overseas NGN connection rip-off

One of the main reasons why overseas telephone operators do not like to connect to NGNs is the revenue sharing model around which they are based. When you call an NGN, your telephone company charges you and then passes on a percentage of what they make on the call to the owner (or renter) of the NGN in commission.The amount of commission varies considerably by number range from a few pennies a minute on the 0871 numbers down to a few fractions of a penny (or even nothing at all) on the 0845 numbers.

This mechanism works well within the UK since all the UK operators work within UK law and are able to pass commission payments around easily.The sums involved are often very small and hence it would be difficult to do this economically when you have overseas transactions or currency exchange to consider.

This cost and complexity when dealing with NGNs lead many overseas telecoms operators to not bother providing connections to UK NGNs. Those that do often charge very high rates for the calls to cover the extra costs and risks involved.

In Summary: Overseas operators often charge rip-off rates to connect to NGNs in the UK or simply don’t connect your call.

What are the implications for audio conferencing?

If you are using an audio conference provider which requires overseas participants to call a non-geographic number in the UK, i.e. 0871, 0870, 0844 or 0845 there is no guarantee that their connection will work and no way of telling how much it will cost without first checking with the telephone company in the country you are calling from.

Please note, it makes no difference which conference call provider you use. If they issue you with an 08xx access number, you will run into the issues above. If you need reliable overseas access then you must use a service offering which provides local and freephone access to overseas participants via our global virtual private network (VPN). A VPN can be thought of as a private telephone network for the use of our customers only.

To be competitive in the market place phone card suppliers come up with all sorts of ways to make their phone cards look cheaper. Unsuspecting customers generally buy their phone cards based only on the per minute cost of the phone call.

Calling card suppliers know this and try to hide the cost of the phone call in charges other than the call rate. These charges all add up to make the cost of the phone call breakeven after an average length phone call.

Some of the more common ways of hiding calling costs are:

• surcharges
• peak rate call charges
• monthly charges and weekly or daily maintenance or service fees
• quick expiry
• automatic recharge
• frequent or timed disconnections
• large billing increments
• credit card transaction fees

The surcharges are not the same as a connection or flag-fall fee. A surcharge is generally related to the length of a call and charged at a set time interval after you start speaking, so for example after 5 or 10 minutes a fee of 40c may be charged. This is because not everybody’s call is an average length and so the surcharge fee recovers the money for the cheaper call rate. This surcharge can vary depending on the destination you are calling.

If you buy a phone card based on off-peak rates it means it is only really the best card for you during the off-peak period. Most often these off-peak periods are the most inconvenient time of day like 3 am. They are cheaper because the phone card supplier can buy minutes cheaper when no one wants them. You should always buy your caling card based on comparing the peak call rates. That way you are buying the cheapest phone card for when you will actually be using it.

Some calling cards apply a daily, weekly or monthly service fee that eats away at your credit even when you are not using the phone card. With these phone cards it is better to buy the smaller denominations like $5 or $10 and use the whole phone card in one or two calls.

Phone cards have a life lasting from 1 to 12 months. After this they expire and any credit remaining unused on the phone card is lost. The average life of a phone card is 3 months. Any phone cards with a very short life of less than one month should be avoided.

You should be sure to check that your phone card is for a single purchase and that it doesn’t automatically charge your credit card again when it is empty to top up or replenish the minutes on the phone card.

If your phone calls drop out after a certain time and this is at the same point each time it probably has a call duration limit. These are often set to 1 or 2 hours. If they frequently drop out at random times this is due to poor line quality. Limited call durations are not only inconvenient but can be very costly if a fixed call duration is combined with high connection fees. You keep getting disconnected and when you redial you are charged another connection fee.

Usually phone cards are billed in one minute increments. This means that if you talk for two and a half minutes you will be charged for 3 minutes. Your standard telecom landline service is generally billed in 1 or 6 sec increments. Some cards bill in 10 minutes increments which means you need to talk for 10, 20 or 30 minutes to get the best value from the card. If, for example, you talked for 13 minutes your call would be rounded up and you would still be charged for 20 minutes!

Make sure you are not charged a transaction fee when you buy your card using a credit card. Sometimes you only see this on your credit card statement a month later. It will generally be about an additional 2% fee to recover the merchant processing fees the bank charges the phone card supplier for using their processing facilities.

To choose the right phone card and be informed of these hazards you need all your phone cards compared and reviewed on the same basis. Ephonecards provides this service free for the most reliable phone cards in Australia.

Another danger you must be aware of is that if you loose your phone card the company will not replace it. This is because someone else can find it and use the remaining balance. You should keep a record of the PIN number in a safe place in addition to details printed on the actual card. With online suppliers like www.ephonecards.com.au your PIN numbers are kept online in your account as well as being sent to you by email so you always have access to the PIN even if you loose it.