For all the Brits on the forum, I have just been over to the UK and purchased a Tesco Internet Phone, which give me a UK phone in the house for receiving and making phone calls with. What I purchased was a Tesco IPA 1000 internet phone Adapter.http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.100-9564.aspx This is a separate UK landline phone to your Swiss one.

If you have an internet Router and a traditional UK telephone with a BT socket (American phone may work) you can have a UK number in CH through any UK telephone Exchange that you wish, ie you choose the UK exchange that you want to be linked too.

I chose Manchester, since we have a lot of family there, so I have a 0161 number and if this number is dialed in the UK, then the phone rings here in CH.

To make out going calls to the UK its GBP 0.02/ minute and you just dial the number as if you were in the UK ie 01234 567890. Tesco do give you a GBP 5.00 start up voucher.

If friends and family have a Tesco Internet Phone calls are free.

What is good about it, is that there is no pc involved, other than the internet registration. http://www.tescointernetphone.com/

It may be not as cheap as skype, but I don't have to worry about the PC.

Call quality is good, there is voicemail included. To access voicemail dial *123

Tesco Direct will ship to CH,

Downside - The power supply has a UK plug on it and you need a separate phone. But I am impressed.

For all the brits - I have just installed Tesco Internet phone on the laptop. Where it scores points over Skype is that you can link it to any UK telephone exchange and its free to set up. Now I have the TESCO fixed line VOIP in the house, phone calls are free from my laptop to the house through the Tesco fixed Line and Vice versa. There are also a range of call tariffs on offer.

You do not have to be in the UK to register.

General Info http://www.tescointernetphone.com/about/

Registration -https://www.tescointernetphone.com/register

Software download for PC http://www.tescointernetphone.com/download/

Probably Tesco makes the experience easier, but there are several different offers for different countries, using the same equipments and technologies:

For UK you may want to have a look at www.sipgate.co.uk
To get a local number from any country go to www.voxbone.com (for a monthly fee).
For the cheapest rates use the service of www.voipcheap.com .
To have a local swiss number without any monthly installment look at www.sipcall.ch for instance.

And for the techie of you, wanting to get it all together you may want to use www.voxalot.com.

I use all of them for more than a year now, with very good results...

Cheers

How good is the call quality on this? I currently use skype out to call family in UK and it is pretty much OK when I call out (apart from when calling Oz which has a few second delay) our problem is though people calling our UK skype number, the call quality isn't good, its cuts off randomly, bad delay and underwater sound at times.

If the quality is very good (i,e as near posssible to landline quality) then i think we'll be interested in getting it

Nicky,

I have sent you a PM with my numbers on it, call me and test it out, I can also call you back. I have a PC number (on wireless) and a seperate (number without the pc). I have used the service for a week, call quality is very stable, far superior to skype.

Ricardo is right Tesco is making the experience alot easier.

Andy

The line quality is ~ 95% as good or better than land line. I find the quality far superior to Skype.

What you should consider is :
- The quality of internet connection (I use cablecome basic plan 3500). Usually you can use the highest quality rates without stress.
- The quality of your equipment (I use Sipura/Linksys/Cisco and they're pretty good)
- The quality of your providers. I find them satisfactory overall.

Reliability is probably the thing that may worry you, if you have frequent internet outages, etc.

My point is that I have mobile if I really need to make a call and have no internet.

The advantages of paying Sfr 0.00 for any fixed-line call worldwide, compensate all the "risk".

Cheers

I use sipgate and have a Linksys PAP2 connected to my router which allows an analogue phone to be connected to it. Easy as pie to set up and 01642 is my dail code

shush you make me home sick

I use Helvatel for the UK from my swisscom landline http://www.helvatel.ch/rates.php#G and as far as I can see I pay 2 cents a minute which is slightly cheaper than the 2 pence with Tesco.
Just my tuppence worth.
Nick.

Just changed the tariff to GBP 2.00 / month thus making weekend and evening calls free, for calls <70 minutes at a time. Outside of this its GBP 0.02 / minute to the UK.

The adapter is now half price - GBP24.98

http://direct.tesco.com/q/promo/id.S00003647.aspx


In Finland, just phoned the Mrs for an hour for nothing with the two Tesco numbers (Hotel have free internet access).

That will translate to about 60 CHF. You can buy in Switzerland a Cisco ATA (Linksys), unlocked to use any provider for 77 CHF..

Hi,

Came back via the UK from my last Holiday and returned with a 'Tesco Internet Phone'.

There are various options available, most need to be connected to a PC that is running, but 2 that can work without a PC being on:

1/ Combo Phone (Connects to both your router and to a land-line with UK style socket which I guess could be adapted).

2/ Internet Phone adaptor (Connects a standard phone to your router).

Call plans vary from Pay as you go, then £2 a month gives you free evening and weekend calls (UK Land-line) £5 a month Free calls anytime (UK Land-line) etc..

Might be useful to anyone calling the UK often.

Also gives you a UK number to call our freinds SKY.

You choose your area code and can then select one of X numbers available for the area code.

For me the Phone adaptor was not in stock, so ended up with the more expensive Combo Phone. Seems to work well after I did the Firmware upgrade.

More info at:

http://www.tesco.net/internetphone/default.html

Been running with the Tesco Internet phone for over a year. Confuses the hell out people in the UK when you give them your UK phone number. Pleased with the service, call quality and saved us a fortune phoning family and friends in the UK. Great product for a non techy and can recommend it to any Brit who is coming over to Switzerland.

Does anyone with a tesco phone get cut off after about ten mins with a loud deep noise?

I have the adaptor set up - and it still doesn't seem to work (think I mentioned this further up the thread) but its so frustrating when it seems everyone else can use this service and i can't

I can call out and receive calls but i can't have a call that lasts longer than a few minutes - the quality is good while I am on the call but then all of a sudden this loud noise appears so i have to hang up, when i i go to make a call again on it the loud noise is still there so i have to wait several hours or even a day before I can use it again

Hi,

Not had this problem. The problems we have had are:

When I first set this up, it could not connect to the server. But I could dial a UK number which rang in the UK but did not connect properly. After running the firmware upgrade, the problem went away.

My NAS was hogging most of the bandwidth (the BT Server was doing funny things). With a Speed test, I had virtually no network speed when I usually have ca. 16Mb/sec. Once I restarted the NAS the phone was working again.

Your Phone adaptor should have a IP address, which you can type into a browser window and get a setup menu. One option there should be to check for Firmware update (leaving all the entries as default).

Set QOS in your router if you have it.

Thanks, Will see if I can set this.

Will have nearly 2 weeks 'home-alone' so plan on trying to get a lot of jobs done in this time, including checking network setup and security, plus build a new PC, install my new Satellite kit etc..

Upgraded the NAS firmware too and it seems to perform better with BT's. Mind you it's sitting idle now as I'm not sure what else to DL.

I would ring up customer service and explain the problem. Will probably mean that you will have to upgrade the software in the box. Failing that it couldbe the connection. Failing that they try and get a new box, they aren't too expernsive!

I use vonage which gives you UK landline no and allows you to call most countries for free provided the call is to a landline even though you are in Switzerland. What I love about it is that you can take it with you anywhere you go provided you can connect to the internet. It uses VOIP. http://www.vonage.co.uk/ . You have different tariffs, the minimum been £5.99 a month. You get voicemail and can redirect your calls to another no including mobile phones, so you never miss a call.