There are many ways to save on international calls. The easiest way is of course to pick up your mobile phone and call 001-country code-phone number. But that is suicide on your phone expenses to say the least. The most common way for people I know in Singapore to call back home is to buy calling cards, those $10-value that are sold at $8, from whatever provider there are in Singapore. They are much much cheaper, some going as low as 5¢ per minute for a reasonable quality. I think you can get 2-3¢ per minute, but the sound quality will be bad, there will probably be echo and a certain noticeable delay.

One thing I hate about calling cards are I have to type in a lengthy 20-digit code every time I want to call back home, not to mention you'll have another set of 20-digit code once you've gotten a new calling card. I have been using FutureTel for many years, simply because they offer a post-paid scheme for the same price as their calling cards, which stands at 8.33¢ per minute to Jakarta land line phones. The quality has been very good thus far, and I only need to enter a six-digit PIN that doesn't change every time I call.

Lately, I have been trying out Skype to call back home, simply because it's cheaper, as well as I can sit in front of my computer, multi-tasking while calling back home. As the screen shot above shows, I tend to call home for about an hour every time, about once every one or two weeks, and that's a lot of time spent to hold a phone to my ear. Skype's rate for calling Jakarta land line phones are about 7¢ per minute, depends on how much your credit card bank charges you for EUR (or USD) to SGD conversion rate. The sound quality are as good as what I get with FutureTel, with the added bonus of having a slightly cheaper rate, being able to multi-task, and to use my PC headset (which means I don't need to hold a phone to my ear for an hour)

Anyone else here uses Skype to call back home?