ringing a person in Australia on their mobile

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holidayqueen

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My daughter is off to Aus and will spend 3 weeks in thailand first. I want to make sure I can contact her a cheaply as possible. She will have a mobile number that she has got to use in Aus. I have broadband so I can use skype I have never used this Do I need to buy a phone or head set to get it working if I do what is the best thing to buy. I do not know much about this but as she is off next week i want to get it set up now. What other uses does skype have can you phone mobiles here? Does the person you are calling need to have skype or can you call a landline or mobile with it?
 
- Hardware: I use the microphone/speaker built in to my computer. This depends on your own set up as to whether it is good enough. Test it by calling someone locally.

- If someone has a skype account you can call their skype account for free. This might be the easiest way for your daughter to call you. I'm fairly sure if she set up an account and you agreed a time to talk that you could call each others computers - I'm sure that she could do this from an internet cafe (lots of them have the head sets).

- You can call any landline/mobile - but you pay for it. It's about 1.7 (I think) cent a minute to call land lines in Ireland/UK/US. I don't know other places only because I don't use them. But it's on their [broken link removed] It is more for mobiles - but still very reasonable.

Setting up an account is easy, just follow the instructions. Try it out calling your own land line at home to see if you're happy with it. Don't forget, you're not tied in to a contract or anything.

It is possible to set up a skype "phone number", this is to allow other people call you as if you're in a particularly country. For example i've a friend in Asia, with an "irish" phone number. however, I don't think this sort of functionality is going to really be of use to you. But for people living abroad some nice features.

Oh - by the way, a neat feature is that your outstanding balance is always displayed, so you know exactly how much a call is costing you. I started out with 10 Euro - gets you about 9 hours of talk on a land line.

Best of luck - Dem
 
thanks I will try it out on my own phone I have a dell lap top and I am not even sure where the microphone is in it I will check and see.
 
My advice is make sure you both set up a skype account before she leaves, you'll both have a user name and password and once you have access to a PC with a microphone/headset you'll be able to chat for free. Alternatively the 3 Mobile phone network here is now selling mobile phones with the skype feature. Essentially they are a normal mobile phone but have skype on them too. So if you have your PC here to use and your daughter gets one of these phones she should be good to use it anywhere in the world! Talk to 3 though too and check this out before she leaves. My brother in Oz has a skype phone and we have one here at home and they're very handy. Good luck and hope your daughter enjoys her time away!! :)
 
I have recently started using another VoIP (voice over IP) service and find it very good. It is called Voipbuster (www.voipbuster.com), basically it works the same as Skype, except that it has an additional feature which allows you to patch the call to your own landline i.e. you enter in your own home phone number and the destination phone number, then your home phone rings, you pick it up and then the destination phone number is automatically dialled. To ring oz landlines there is a 5c charge for routing it to your own landline, but other than that the call is free.

Calls to Australian landlines from the pc are free and calls from Voipbuster to voipbuster are also free but like skype you need to purchase credit.

Also calls to USA and Canada mobiles are also free!

No association, just a very happy customer.
 
why dont you get a 20e call card.that way you can call her from your land line.theres some really good rates.just check the newsagents international calling card.
 
hey lialwarrior, thsast sounds like a winner. we call spain every wnd day so may try it out
 
hey lialwarrior, what would i need to do to set this up to phone from a phone from ireland to spain. it says that its free which seems too good to be true
 
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