For the full Pakistan call comparison list, go to: CheaperInternationalCalls.net

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.

Doing a search on Google brings up a number of websites; the main ones being:

• niftylist.co.uk/calls
• moneysavingexpert.com
• cheapestinternationalcalls.com
• loiol.co.uk

However these four in my experience generally contain out-of-date information, the page designs are crowded, and it’s often difficult to get what you’re looking for quickly.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

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.

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.

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.

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.

More info can be found at www.briing.com

See the best the mobile web has to offer below, rated by usefulness, detection of mobile browsers, and usability…

1. m.google.com – the King of them all, clearly, and the best mobile (beta) search currently available for phones. The portal to the not just the normal web, but the mobile world too, as validated by its inclusion in almost every phone network’s default homepage.
2. bbc.co.uk/mobile – News, sport, weather, traffic, TV, radio, learning – just about everything you could want from the BBC.
3. google.com/gmm – The Java application that you can download to make better use of Google’s fantastic maps service when you’re on the move. Still missing some potentially useful features, but head and shoulders above any similar service. And it’s free.
4. gmail.com/app – a fantastic mail application built in Java and stripped down to the bare basics, but at the same time with almost all of the email features you could possibly want in the palm of your hand.
5. facebook.com -the immensely popular social networking site automatically adjusts its layout for most mobile phone browsers.
6. m.wordpress.com – a very neat and simple way to blog when you’re on the move.
7. m.box.net – fantastic, intuitive web 2.0 online storage solution that gives a 1GB account free, has a mobile web interface so you can upload/download files from or to your phone!
8. m.gmail.com – not quite as fast or handy as the Java application, but still a good port of email into the WAP world.
9. calendar.google.com – still missing a Java applet, Google’s online Calendar works well on a reasonably sized phone screen, but is let down slightly by the long URL, which isn’t very mobile-friendly. This has the potential to be great if and when a Java application is released.
10. m.yahoo.com – Yahoo’s mobile phone portal to their main services, including their address book, email, calendar, messenger and more.
11. go.yahoo.com – a fantastic application download from Yahoo that offers all of its best services (ie search, finance, weather, sports, etc) straight from your mobile without the need to load up your mobile’s browser.
12. amazon.com – automatically adjusts itself very well to fit on a small screen, and with Amazon’s 1-Click ordering, is a very easy place to shop on your mobile.
13. m.youtube.com – nascent mobile service from Youtube. Probably the biggest mobile video contender at the moment, but until everyone has 3G, its appeal will be limited.
    
14. go@blogger.com – an email address you can send content to if you have a blogspot blog – miles behind WordPress’s mobile offering.
15. m.flickr.com – an incredibly lightweight version of flickr, with search conveniently placed on the front page.
16. moblog.co.uk – online camera-phone blogging site. Take photos or videos, and then send them to a special email address allocated to your account. Currently lacks a mobile web version of their site (or at least one that automatically detects you’re using a phone).
17. bloglines.com – decent mobile interface for this RSS reader.
18. reader.google.com -a very nice, clean mobile RSS reader.
19. mobile.live.com – a very half-hearted attempt by Microsoft to port their most popular services (including Hotmail) to mobile phones.
20. mobile.live.com/maps/maps.aspx – inexplicably hidden from their main mobile portal, MSN / Live maps for your mobile.

And 21, not that it can be viewed in a mobile phone with ease, MobileCrunch is a great resource for other fantastic mobile websites.

If I’ve missed any sites out or you feel a site above has been unfairly judged, please comment below