Just to update to the previous post, Briing has now also updated its Pakistan cheap call prices, to 7p/min. According to independent call comparison site CheaperInternationalCalls.net this now makes the cheapest rate to Pakistan Landlines 2p/min from Telesavers, and the cheapest rate to Pakistan Mobiles 3p/min from italk247.
For the full Pakistan call comparison list, go to: CheaperInternationalCalls.net
Many international call service providers have updated their rates over the last week for calling Pakistan. Unfortunately it seems that the prices have gone up for most providers – many providers are now charging 4p per minute to landlines and mobiles.
There are a few exceptions; briing has stayed the same at 3p/min to both landlines and mobiles, and now according to an independent call comparison website, telesavers (who are apparently notorious for not quoting VAT in their call rates) are offering 2p/min rates to Pakistan landlines – we recommend checking with your phone bill before believing this rate completely though.
There are a number of websites on the net that offer comparison services for finding the cheapest international call rates available from a BT landline phone to various international destinations.
Doing a search on Google brings up a number of websites; the main ones being:
However these four in my experience generally contain out-of-date information, the page designs are crowded, and it’s often difficult to get what you’re looking for quickly.
I found a new one today called International Call Checker, which apparently reviews and monitors over 10,000 rates to all available international destinations every day. The page design is neat, clean, and it’s easy to find which country you’re looking for, either using the country selector, or browsing the list of the best rates for each country.
Best of all, there’s a little box in the right-hand corner that tells you the BT rates for each country page – if you’re calling Pakistan Mobile, you can save 51p/min by using the top access number on the list!
Update: Via gumtree, I found a new one that’s a lot better than all of the above, cheaperinternationalcalls.net
Michael Mace argues that they are, and that they have been “crushed by a fragmented market and restrictive business practices“- and from my experience I would have to agree.
Various manufacturers, such as Nokia, have made moves towards open source mobile applications, with exciting possibilities opened up by the development of a web server that runs on your mobile phone, and porting of the Python and Perl programming languages to the Symbian operating system. This opens up many opportunities for application developers, but until there is some kind of standard adopted across all mobile phone manufacturers, it is a largely futile exercise.
How many times have you installed a mobile application on your phone to find out that it doesn’t work after the second run? Fring worked perfectly on my Nokia E51 the first time I ran it, but after that it crashed my phone every time. Google Maps does run almost flawlessly on my Nokia, but it crashes my wife’s Blackberry Pearl every time. How long until the speeds of 3G and HSDPA enable mobile browsers to run mobile web 2.0 applications? Both the AJAX in Google maps, and the web version of Google Talk work perfectly on my PC browser, so it’s not too big a stretch to imagine this working on a mobile browser too.
It’s perfectly logical that, just as the Google Docs and Zoho offices of this world start taking over the PC-based web, their convenience and ease of use will spread to mobiles and PDAs also. Why download a flaky mobile web application with all the hassles of installation and crashing, etc when you can use a decent native phone browser to access the exact same functionality?
The overarching question is when, not if, the mobile web will overtake mobile applications. I’d be willing to bet that Google’s Android platform will give us a good indication when we start seeing phones with operating systems based on Android.
Just noticed a new service from briing.com called ‘Mobile Instant’ that gives you cheap international calls directly from your T-mobile phone (PAYG and contract) – pretty neat service. A few of the rates on offer are below:
France landline: 3p/min (07755 220 908)
Germany landline: 5p/min (07755 330 908)
India (mobile + landline): 6p/min (07755 440 908)
Poland landline: 3p/min (07755 220 908)
There’s also a bunch of new, cheaper rates for Briing’s cheap international numbers for landlines.
Mobile roaming costs have always been a contentious issue in the mobile phone world. The EU last year moved to cut charges that mobile phone companies charged their customers for roaming in Europe to a maximum of €0.49 to make calls, and €0.24 to receive calls. This will decrease each year until it reaches €0.43 for making calls and €0.19 for receiving in the summer of 2009.
However this is still a sorry state of affairs for customers who travel a lot – either for pleasure or business. A short YouTube video explains an American perspective of the lengths you need to go to save money when you’re abroad. A UK mobile user on the Nokia forum explains the lengths people need to go to in order to get reasonable rates when in Barcelona – never mind the call charges; this user’s operator charges £7.50 per megabyte(!) for mobile data, which the EU apparently has no plans for regulating. Some operators are showing signs of cutting data charges, but with no compelling reason to do so, it seems unlikely that this will change in the near future.
Whilst saving money on your roaming mobile call charges is slowly getting easier, especially now you can compare roaming SIMs online when travelling from the UK, it seems that cutting costs on mobile data usage is still a difficult process that involves buying a SIM card abroad, which can be extremely difficult if you don’t understand the local language. For example Yoigo SIM cards apparently only charge €1.30 per day for unlimited 3G in Spain – but of course you have to speak Spanish in order to be able to compare this with other SIMs available on the Spanish market.
Just got a new Nokia E51 on T-Mobile, and I have to say that its Symbian S60 v3 Operating System is just awesome. The phone itself is lightweight but sturdy, with a decent battery, 3.5G mobile broadband, excellent wi-fi support and a built-in Nokia version of Google Earth.
The only downside is that this phone does not have GPS, but it does have bluetooth support for connecting to GPS devices for mapping and spoken directions. However with the flawless installation of third party applications like Google Maps Mobile, which can pinpoint your position using your network’s positioning data, this becomes less of a problem than you might think.
It’s much easier to use than a Blackberry, and although it only has a standard phone keypad and a small screen, it is a serious business phone disguised as a normal tough little Nokia phone.
Availabity is as follows, but you now have to send an email to get your access number: Read the rest of this entry »
Not wishing to dispell any ideas that Google are competing with PayPal, Google have filed a patent application for a product called ‘GPay’, a service that allows you to pay for goods using your mobile phone.
There are tons of useful websites out there that are compatible with mobile internet browsers, but relatively few people at present use these sites.
See the best the mobile web has to offer below, rated by usefulness, detection of mobile browsers, and usability…
