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BigZoo folded, but OneSuite.com is still doing well.

Note that behind the scene, many carriers use voip and toll free number call charge in USA, is only 2 cents a minute. So most companies like skype, vonage can barely afford more than 2 cents a minutes discount compared to these discount carriers. In my own personal search, I have found that most broadband based voip service cost more than these discount carriers for international calls. As for calls within USA, I rarely exceed my free minutes.

Other international rates here http://www.onesuite.com/rates.asp You pre-pay for as many minutes as you want, and access is via a toll-free or local number.

Other international rates here http://www.onesuite.com/rates.asp You pre-pay for as many minutes as you want, and access is via a toll-free or local number.

onesuite.com is almost exactly the same as BigZoo. Some of the automated voices are even the same, and the domestic rates (I didn't check international, since we don't need it) are exactly the same. Same available features, etc.

Actually, you can just use this link to sign up and get the same referral deal.

I just discovered they offered the referral service that way.

Now I have to search for a replacement. Any suggestions for a landline 'virtual calling card' service at ~2 cents a min?

I've been using Onesuite for a couple years now. I've not paid much attention to their International rates, but domestic US is 2.9 cents/min. if you access them toll free, and 2.5 cents if you use a local access number. No monthly fees, connection charges, etc. Just straight up per minute charge.

They're not perfect; I sometimes have a problem getting connected on their toll free number. (That's very rare, though. It's probably happened to me a half dozen times in 2+ years of daily use.)

Over all, I've been very happy with them and I would recommend them. If you try them out use my username (digitalcowboy1) as a referral and we each get 20 mins. free.

If you just want to hide your number, not necessarily spoof your enemies, any calling card will do, like another posted mentioned.

I use OneSuite as my long distance service because their rates are excellent. Caller ID from OneSuite shows up as either Unknown or some random out of state number.

I use onesuite.com and pay 2.5 cents a minute within the USA. I pay that same rate for calls to China.

That means that for your "competitive" $25 a month, I could make over 16 and a half hours of calls (to just about anywhere in the world... from any phone... at any time of day... on a regular, echo free phone line no less... and no I don't have to enter a bulky code every time I call... calls from my home automatically bypass the need for a code).

None of the options presented here are that cheap and convenient and until they can at least come close, I will stick with my onesuite.com (which I've used for 2 years now).

Slashdot software failure? Seems to have posted nonsense before. Here is the correct version, edited from a previous comment to another story:

Internet-initiated regular telephone calls: Internet-initiated calls using Bigzoo.com's BigTalk, which cast 3.6 cents per minute to call the U.S. from New Zealand, for example.

Free VOIP: An option if both sides of a call have internet connections is Skype. At present it's free, and provides better quality than normal telephone. Skype is a great way to try VOIP without paying anything. Skype provides AES encryption of your calls, too. Skype can use port 80 for connections, so it can get past any firewall. (This shows the alarming lack of security of firewalls, and the need for a software firewall like ZoneAlarm that alert you when a program tries to connect.) Skype is brought to you by the designers of the original KaZaa program.

3.5 cents per minute, but free to the U.S. caller: If you want someone with only a normal telephone to call you in another country without paying, you can put $10 into a BigZoo.com or OneSuite.com account, and give them the PIN number. OneSuite only costs 3.5 cents per minute from the U.S. to New Zealand, for example, if the U.S. caller calls from a local number. With OneSuite.com or Bigzoo.com can have as many accounts as you have friends for whom you want to provide free calling.

Other ideas? Are there any options like this that aren't mentioned here?

Internet-initiated calls: It may be interesting to compare this to Internet-initiated calls using Bigzoo.com's BigTalk, which cast 3.6 cents per minute to call the U.S. from New Zealand.

Free VOIP: An option if both sides of a call have internet connections is Skype. At present it's free, and provides better quality than normal telephone. Skype is a great way to try VOIP without paying anything. Skype provides AES encryption of your calls, too. Skype can use port 80 for connections, so it can get past any firewall. (This shows the alarming lack of security of firewalls, and the need for a software firewall like ZoneAlarm that alert you when a program tries to connect.) Skype is brought to you by the designers of the original KaZaa program.

3.5 cents per minute, but free to the U.S. caller: If you want someone with only a normal telephone to call you in New Zealand without paying, you can put $10 into a BigZoo.com or OneSuite.com account, and give them the PIN number. OneSuite only costs 3.5 cents per minute from the U.S. to New Zealand, if the U.S. caller calls from a local number. With OneSuite.com or Bigzoo.com can have as many accounts as you have friends for whom you want to provide free calling.

Other ideas? Are there any options like this that aren't mentioned here?

Skype seems fine to me. It has much better sound quality than regular telephones. I use it to talk to a friend in France. Neither of us have ever seen any bad behavior in Skype, in several months of use.

For those who want to use the traditional communication device, BigZoo and OneSuite are excellent. OneSuite is 2.9 cents per minute from the U.S. to France. BigZoo is 2.8 cents per minute.

I'd like to have a USB sound card so that I could isolate the audio from the electromagnetically noisy computer, however. Any ideas?

Link: Skype

I've been using Skype to talk with a friend in France, from Oregon. The sound quality is excellent, much better than crackly old telephones. The link is computer to computer, and we both have high-speed internet connections.

Also, try OneSuite. 2.5 cents per minute to use a regular, scratchy traditional phone.

Both of these make me realize that the telephone companies are charging too much. When you talk, you are only transferring a few bits of digital information. Everyone's conversations are aggregated into a huge data stream that is very cheap to send by optical fiber.

It is more than possible to live on one income.

Also of note is that I don't have an iPod or a Tivo. There are no game consoles in my house, no XBox, no PS2, nothing. I have a PDA but it is an old Handspring visor that someone gave me for free. I'm typing this post on my "good" laptop which is a 350 mhz IBM thinkpad, my "good" desktop computer is a 1 ghz Athalon that I bought 4 years ago and during that time I have never payed more than $20 for a PC game. No, that doesn't mean that I pirate them all, that means that I wait till the price goes down, or I get them as gifts. I don't have cable TV or satalite. I get one local channel barely. My TV is a measly 19 inches and that was also a gift that we didn't pay for. It's so old that you have to use an adaptor to get a DVD player attached to it. We DO have a DVD player, that was a splurge a few Christmases ago, but hardly any DVD's. We like to get them from the Library. I didn't have a cell phone until work got me one and they pay the bill, I have never had a pager. We don't have a long distance plan. We use an internet-based calling card that gives us 2.9 cents per minute (it's called onesuite if you are interested). I do have to admit though, that I pay for broadband internet. That's my one splurge. I get DSL from Verizon for $35 per month, but hey, everyone has their vices right?

So, I'm not trying to say how great we are or anything, my only point is that people can afford a lot more than they realize if they take a good look at things. In my opinion there is nothing more important in my life than making sure that my children have a good home and to me that means that they have a mother that can be there for them. I'm willing to sacrifice anything that I have to meet that goal. Sure, it means that I may not have the latest geek toys when they come out, but it also means that when times come along like last year when I was out of work for three months, I've got the money to cover it with out going into debt or sending my wife back to work. Also please note that this is just what I want for MY family. I'm not passing any judgements against people in other situations, or single-parent families, or women that want to work. Just know that saying "I can't afford X" is a lot like saying "I don't have time for X". We make time for what we really want to do, just like we spend money on what we really want.

Internet-initiated calls: It may be interesting to compare this to Internet-initiated calls using Bigzoo.com's BigTalk, which cast 3.6 cents per minute to call the U.S. from New Zealand.

Free VOIP: Another option if both sides of a call have internet connections is Skype. At present it's free, and provides better quality than normal telephone. Skype is a great way to try VOIP without paying anything. Skype provides AES encryption of your calls, too. Skype can use port 80 for connections, so it can get past any firewall. (This shows the alarming lack of security of firewalls, and the need for a software firewall like ZoneAlarm that alert you when a program tries to connect.) Skype is brought to you by the designers of the original KaZaa program.

3.5 cents per minute, but free to the U.S. caller: If you want someone with only a normal telephone to call you in New Zealand without paying, you can put $10 into a BigZoo.com or OneSuite.com account, and give them the PIN number. OneSuite only costs 3.5 cents per minute from the U.S. to New Zealand, if the U.S. caller calls from a local number. With OneSuite.com or Bigzoo.com can have as many accounts as you have friends for whom you want to provide free calling.

Other ideas? Are there any options like this that aren't mentioned here?

I use BigZoo and they're pretty good. 3 c/min to call New Zealand. Also OneSuite almost as cheap per minute but no monthly fee.

OneSuite

You could always use a calling card. onesuite is pretty cheap. It's the phone equivalent of a proxy server and does its job just as good. Just hope they don't put you on hold for too long.

Strange how we have legislation for do-not-call lists and laws against automated sales calls, but we still have to resort to personally-enforced whitelisting to avoid spam. Imagine how different this would be handled if AT&T had problems with excessive phone calls and were requesting specific numbers or exchange codes from their customers and agencies to avoid random, recorded telemarketing.

www.onesuite.com no monthly fee, rates as low as 2.5c/minute.

Personally, I'd kill to have this, assuming it also covers international calling.

My gf and I are spending nearly $80/month on calls back and forth from .sg.