The cost of phone calls from the World Cup in South Africa
Posted by Cloud Net on Fri, Jun 11, 2010 @ 03:56 AM
The cost of calling home from South Africa using Virgin, the most
expensive mobile network, is £1.70 a minute, reports the Times. T-mobile will charge £1.50 a minute just to receive a call from South Africa. Call charges from South Africa vary from 55p per minute upward, with texts costing between 25p and 50p. Moreover, Customer Focus has warned that thousands of England fans travelling to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa face huge bills for their mobile use. They say that costs for calls, texts and data use could add up to £100 on a match day, more than the face value of £55 to £80 for a ticket.
Whilst mobile charges in the EU are high, the cost of a mobile call is capped at 37p per minute, 9p per text and £42.50 for data roaming. But no such restrictions exist outside the UK and the mobile operators levy very high fees.
Hosted VoIP services, such as those supported by the business phone system company Cloud Net, are location independent. The phones neither know nor care where they are located on the globe. This means that Cloud Net users can make and receive phone calls within the Cloud Net network free and pay very low UK rates outside the network. The phone numbers remain UK phone numbers and the calls are not subject to the reception problems that some areas in South Africa may have.
What is more, because the location doesn't matter no one can tell whether you are in South Africa or not. So if you want to save the price of a ticket and still claim to be there no one will know. If you are there and want to call in ‘sick' to the boss he won't be able to tell either (and the call will be free). Although, Cloud Net would not condone such behaviour.
So, if you are going, pack your Cloud Net IP01 phone and if you haven't got one yet call us and we'll send you one for free by first class post. There is still time to get free calls to the UK. And of course you will enjoy all the benefits of the world's most powerful cloud-based PBX free whilst you are there and afterwards for less than you could spend on a single day's calls to the UK.
Written by David Hill, Chairman, Cloud Net