It is hard to find a bargain in the communication industry. The growth of internet and VOIP is bringing tons of options at our hands. Yet, today I found that at the rate of 13 cents per minute I am overpaying twice when I call my parents in Ukraine with WDT (my current provider). So much for being a pro- bargain hunter! ;-)
If I were to stumble upon JustVOIP in my web browsing I would move on. The website design looks cheap and important pieces (like About page) are missing. I did not however. It was my friend who recommended the service to me today claiming he has been using it for some time and is happy with the quality. So I jumped right in.
To begin with, rates to Europe are really low. Many countries are on the free list (below) meaning it doesn’t cost anything to call if you use the computer for your part of the call. Rates to other countries are very competitive too. (Ukraine was €0.05 + call initiation charge of €0.05). Here are the free countries:
| Argentina | Hungary | Portugal |
| Australia | Ireland | Puerto Rico (+mobile) |
| Austria | Italy | Romania |
| Belgium | Japan | Russian Federation |
| Brazil | Latvia | Singapore |
| Bulgaria | Luxembourg | Slovak Republic |
| Canada | Malaysia | Slovenia |
| Chile | Mexico [guadalajara] | South Korea |
| Colombia | Mexico [mexico City] | Spain |
| Cyprus | Mexico [monterrey] | Sweden |
| Czech Republic | Monaco | Switzerland |
| Denmark | Netherlands | Taiwan |
| Estonia | New Zealand | Thailand |
| France | Norway | United Kingdom |
| Germany | Panama | United States (+mobile) |
| Greece | Peru | Venezuela |
| Hong Kong (+mobile) | Poland |
You need to install software to create an account. The program runs on Windows and is similar to Skype. You can use it for calling but you don’t have to. If you prefer the old-fashioned way of calling like I do then you can do it by initiating a phone-to-phone call from the web-page. Login to your account, enter where you are calling from and where you want to call to and JustVOIP will call both numbers and connect the call together.
In addition JustVOIP offers a US based call-in number that can act as a gateway for international calling but it didn’t work well when I tried it. I heard the prompt but dialing the number didn’t connect me to the party I intended to call.
After you create an account you can buy credits €10 a piece and enjoy the savings. Don’t buy credits if free service is all you plan to use. Ether way if you give it a try - please leave a comment and let everyone know how it has worked out for you.
Relevant reading:
There’s a “click here” for MAC or LINUX users and then it says those users have “less (sic) payment options”.
What do they mean by that? What payment options do they have? They don’t say, and there seems to be no way to ask them.
I can’t find the text you are referring to. Is this when you buy the credits or somewhere else?
Ohh, I see it now. I guess this is a way to sing up w/o downloading the software (since it only works with Windows). I never went that route so I don’t know. Here are the options they have on the ‘Buy Credit’ page when you sign up the usual way:
Visa
Visa Electron
MasterCard/Eurocard
ChinaUnionPay
PayPal
MoneyBookers
Click & Buy
Regular Bank Transfer
UKash
Western Union
Resellers
Redeem Voucher
Its very good web site.
Please tell me how to use Justvoip.