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12:30 am
What are the international rates for the speakout service?
I made a quick 30 second test call to Australia from my phone and my balance went down over $2!
Anyone know the official rates?
12:51 am
I just called customer service and got the answer.
The international rate for outgoing calls differs daily. At the moment Australia costs $1.09 per minute. But you can receive international calls at the usual local call cost of 20c per minute.
I'm answering my own question, but someone else might come along and find this info useful. 🙂
1:05 am
March 31, 2007
Offline
Thanks, this is handy. I'll have to incorporate it into the FAQ. The best thing to do when making an international phone call with Speak Out Wireless is usually to get a phone card or other cheap long distance service. Then you're paying the local 20 cent fee + whatever the phone card fee is, which usually works out to a lot less than directly calling internationally.
8:02 am
Look at yakCell and yakCallback at yak.ca.
My Bell Mobility number had yakLD on the account which makes yak the default LD provider for the account. When I ported the number to SpeakOut that should have been ported too, at least it seems that way. SpeakOut is only deducting 20c/min when I call LD within Canada so I assume yak is charging me the other 3.5c/min. But I'll have to wait for the first yak invoice after the port to confirm. Then I'll try LD overseas to see if I can do that for 20c/min plus yak's low fees.
2:29 pm
Have you received your invoice yet? What's the verdict?
Thanks.
Tonya
4:01 pm
Tonya said:
Have you received your invoice yet?
Yes.
What's the verdict?
No charges whatsoever on my cellphone number 🙂
12:26 pm
Not even the 20c/min for airtime? And Yak is charging you its rate for those calls?
I'm looking at this post and thinking how significant it is (if I'm reading it right). Obviously we'd all sign up for Yak Cell and use a local access number for our LD calls, but it had never occurred to me I could make Yak my 1+ provider on the mobile phone.
Have I got that right? And would it work for Rogers? I can't imagine any of them, including SpeakOut, would forgo the airtime (but you say Bell Mobility did).
=aw
2:31 pm
Some background. Several years ago I made Yak my landline LD provider. That took a phone call to Yak plus faxing them a form to authorize billing to my credit card. A couple of years later I called them again to add our Bell Mobility postpaid cellphones to our existing account. All that worked smoothly. We could call LD using the standard 1 or 011 prefix and all LD charges went through Yak.
Not even the 20c/min for airtime?
I didn't say that. Of course SpeakOut charges their standard 20¢/min for airtime.
And Yak is charging you its rate for those calls?
I didn't say that either. I said that on the next Yak bill after making direct LD calls (e.g. 1-416-555-1212) on my SpeakOut phone I didn't see any LD charges on that cellphone number. Maybe the billing between SpeakOut and Yak is slow. Maybe it's really slow because there's a bug. I don't know, at least not yet.
Note too that in our situation we ported our cell numbers, which already had Yak as the LD provider, to SpeakOut. IOW we didn't do anything explicit to associate Yak with our SpeakOut numbers. It happened (or didn't) as a consequence of porting those numbers to Yak. That sequence may explain why I haven't seen any LD charges. If so, then if you're already on SpeakOut you may not be able to fall through that crack 😉
Obviously we'd all sign up for Yak Cell and use a local access number for our LD calls
Let me repeat before Yak gets flooded: So far they haven't billed me. It's still too early to know for sure if they will. All I know is that so far neither they nor SpeakOut have charged me for the few LD calls I've made in southern Ontario.
it had never occurred to me I could make Yak my 1+ provider on the mobile phone
You could call Yak and try. They could either (a) tell you they can't do it or (b) they do it but you get charged 30¢/min by SpeakOut only or (c) you get charged 30¢/min by SpeakOut plus Yak's LD rates. In cases (a) and (b) you haven't lost anything. In case (c) you'd have to call SpeakOut and request that they retrieve get your LD provider status back from Yak.
One more thing. One way to determine who is your LD provider is to call 1-700-555-4141 and listen to the message. When I do that from my landline the message says Yak. When I do it from a SpeakOut cellphone the message says "We cannot complete your call as dialled..." (and SpeakOut doesn't charge for the call.)
1:20 am
Folks,
YMMV~ I've mentioned somewhere here before, it costs me 29c per minute to call Hong Kong - NOT on top of the 20c per minute regular airtime! No, I have not made a mistake because I check my airtime balance frequently.
It happened in the summer when my aunt & uncle came to Canada for the friends / family reunion. One day, when they are in Quebec city, they have made a call DIRECTLY to Hong Kong, even though I have bought them a calling card. Then after the call, I have checked the balance... SHOCKINGLY low!
8:05 am
YMMV~ I've mentioned somewhere here before, it costs me 29c per minute to call Hong Kong - NOT on top of the 20c per minute regular airtime! No, I have not made a mistake because I check my airtime balance frequently.
It's great that this works, but people should be aware that what SpeakOut charges for International long distance is at their discretion. It could be 29¢/min to HK today but they could raise it to $2.90/min tomorrow without notice.
So by all means take advantage of this. Just be careful if you have to make a long phone call.
11:42 am
Bylo said:
YMMV~ I've mentioned somewhere here before, it costs me 29c per minute to call Hong Kong - NOT on top of the 20c per minute regular airtime! No, I have not made a mistake because I check my airtime balance frequently.
It's great that this works, but people should be aware that what SpeakOut charges for International long distance is at their discretion. It could be 29¢/min to HK today but they could raise it to $2.90/min tomorrow without notice.
So by all means take advantage of this. Just be careful if you have to make a long phone call.
Bylo,
Agree! Even at 29c per minute is still relatively expensive compares with the other alternatives like Yak, calling cards (mine cost 2c per minute with little catch like "admin fees"). But in a hurry or by accident, it has the convenience. Whether it will break the bank or deplete the balance in a single call, YMMV~ as I say.
12:27 pm
But in a hurry or by accident, it has the convenience. Whether it will break the bank or deplete the balance in a single call, YMMV~ as I say.
Just to be clear, my only concern is that since, unlike Yak et al, SpeakOut's international LD rates aren't published, they could change at any time, by any amount and without notice.
But to each, his own (or pwn, as the case may be) 😉
