What's the best way to call internationally, for example, to and from Moscow or St.Petersburg? There lots of ways. You can use a regular phone and get a toll-free U.S. phone number that your family and friends can call, or you can use an Internet-phone service, and maybe even get a regular U.S. phone number. But first...
Here are the best times to call between the U.S. and Moscow or St.Petersburg:
Pacific time Mountain time Central time Eastern time Moscow/St.P. time
5am-11am = 6am-12am = 7am- 1pm = 8am- 2pm = 4pm-10pm
- or -
7pm- 9pm = 8pm-10pm = 9pm-11pm = 10pm-12pm = 6am- 8am
This will avoid waking the other party up in the middle of their night!
What is "Voice over Internet Protocol" (VoIP)? It's using the Internet for long-distance, even international phone calling. Several companies sprang up over the past few years - Net2Phone, Dialpad, FreeCall and others. These companies started free, but soon began charging. And because they used the "client-server" model, as their customer (client) base grew, their server equipment couldn't keep up with the volume, so voice quality and connectivity dropped off.
A newer VoIP service that avoids this server overload problem is Skype, a distributed or "peer-to-peer" VoIP network that uses the computing power of all the personal computers currently online and running Skype (from 5,000,000 to 8,000,000 users are online at any time), so as their customer base grows, their computing power also grows. The voice quality is excellent, the best of the six or eight VoIP programs I've tried. You can download the program for free, and call any other Skype user for free. Call ordinary phones anywhere in the world from your computer for the price of a local call with SkypeOut: for calls between the U.S. and Moscow or St.Petersburg you pay about $0.02 a minute (prices are in euros).
You can also receive calls from old-fashioned telephones on your computer with a SkypeIn number: you get a local phone number (in the U.S. or 20 other countries) so people without Skype can call you, and they’ll throw in voicemail for free. Also, SkypeIn lets you have call forwarding to almost any phone in the world. This means that if you're away from your computer or it's not running Skype when someone calls you, it will ring your landline phone and/or cellphone. So if you only have a dialup Internet connection you can receive incoming calls on a regular phone. SkypeIn costs 30 euros a year (about $3.00 per month) with no per-minute charge if you answer on your computer. Forwarded calls cost the same as SkypeOut calls.
Skype runs under Windows, Linux or Mac operating systems, even on the PocketPC O.S. - so it works on many hand-held PDA devices - and requires at least a fast dial-up connection, preferably an "always-on" Internet connection such as DSL or cable. An "always-on" Internet connection means you can always receive incoming calls for free on Skype, which saves you the cost of a separate international phone service. Skype also offers handsets that plug into your Internet connection, including a wireless model that works as an Internet phone and as a regular phone.
If you don't have a fast Internet connection (or even a computer), or you just want inexpensive long-distance service, check out IBN InterTelecom. This service offers rates as low as 2.5 cents a minute for domestic U.S. long-distance calls, and 2.5 cents a minute for calls from the U.S. to Moscow or St.Petersburg.
For a few years, my wife and I used Dial-Abroad, a "callback" service that lets you call a special U.S. phone number, you let it ring once and hang up. Then this system calls your regular or cellular phone number overseas (or to another number if you're travelling) and gives you a U.S. dialtone: you can then call anywhere in the world! The cost for this callback service from the U.S. to Moscow or St.Petersburg is 8.2 cents a minute, and there's no setup fee. We used it for a while as a back-up to Skype, our VoIP (Internet Telephony) service that costs about one-fourth as much.
The service we really liked from Dial-Abroad was our toll-free phone number in the U.S. People who reside outside the U.S. can get it for just $1 a month, plus the 8.2 cents a minute. This is a great way to have your children in the U.S. who are poor university students or just starting in a job call you. If people don't have broadband Internet access for their computer, or if they just don't like computers, this is a good option. All you need is a telephone. Some people like this method better than Skype (see above), although Skype is much cheaper to call internationally. In the next few years, Internet telephony will very likely replace current cell phone technology.