Sin - Calling Home
 

What is the best and or least expensive way to call home (USA) from Singapore.

We are allowed to use the company's leased line which is a fixed price per month regardless of number of calls. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/smile.gif

But more seriously, one may think using the AT&T calling home service is cheapest. But a colleague once tried this vs. dial direct from the hotel (Westin at the time) and found the hotel cheaper.

Called the USA from the Four Seasons, along with two of my friends who used their USA international services. My direct dial call was by far the cheapest. Their cards had a connection fee that was almost as much as my 10 minute call!

If you are staying at a hotel and have a laptop, the least expensive way would be either Net2Phone or the voice function on Yahoo Messenger, if the other party has a computer and is online.

I have used YM's voice function with great success from all over the world, even on 28.8 dialup lines. If your hotel has free Internet access, then the 'call' is completely free. Sound quality is very good, but not full duplex.

Net2Phone can call any regular phone number, is even cheaper than most callbacks, but the voice quality is slightly 'otherworldly'.

Both of these options work best with headphones, otherwise there is feedback from the speakers to the microphone, making for an annoying echo.

I called home from the Conrad Singapore and for a three-minute-or-so call it was less than 1 SD. I wish I would have brought phone numbers for all my friends on the East Coast - it would have been cheaper to call them from SIN than from California.

It would be nice if U.S. payphones were as cheap to call across town as Singapore payphones are to call halfway across the world. A recent bar graph in The Economist indicated that SG had the second-cheapest long-distance rates in the world, and whoever #1 was wasn't much cheaper.

You can buy phonecards in 7-Elevens, which are everywhere. They come in a variety of dollar amounts but I've always bought SingTel SGD 10 cards. That bought me three longish phone calls to the US on SingTel (001 + country + number) with money to spare. I think other carriers are even cheaper; they advertise all over the place, especially 008.

Has anyone stayed at a hotel that offer "free" internet access?

Not to sure about the billing practices for broadband access in the US lately, but for instance the Keio Plaza Intercontinental in Tokyo and the Westin Chosun in Seoul have free broadband at least on their executive floors, and in a number of other rooms.
Connection is by Ethernet, set up for DHCP as used with a home DSL router without a fixed IP address.

Shangri-La offers free local calls for members of their (free) Golden Circle, which equates free Internet access if you have an ISP with a local POP.


[This message has been edited by monahos (edited 02-11-2002).]