How to Eliminate International Calling Fees

By now, everybody knows that Voice over IP (VoIP) saves big money on local and long distance business calling, especially on calls originating and terminating in the U.S. It’s easy to find a VoIP provider that provides flat rate, all-you-can-eat, calling domestically. However, many businesses have offices offshore in other countries. These offices need to communicate frequently with their counterparts, offices in the U.S., as well as numerous other calls to U.S. phone numbers. Here is a sure-fire way to eliminate the fees typically generated by these calls.

(Since this solution depends on reliable Internet service in all locations involved, please make sure that you have good service in each location where you put VoIP extensions and that that service is not saturated, or over used.)

The Problem

Making international calls to and from the U.S. incurs per minute charges in either direction, whether you call your offshore office or whether your offshore office calls your U.S. office or any other U.S. number.

Calls from U.S. to offshore office incurs per-minute fees.

Calls from offshore to U.S. incur per-minute fees

The Solution

You can solve this problem by putting VoIP extensions with U.S. phone numbers in your international locations. This allows you to call between your U.S. office and international offices for free. It also allows you to call U.S. all numbers from the international offices for free, provided your VoIP service is flat rate.

Have your VoIP provider give you a U.S. number and assign it to an IP phone at your international office.

All calls to the international extension are free.

All calls from the International extension to the any U.S. number for free.

Here is a link to a Flash movie that shows this scenario in detail: http://www.dock.net/2006/flash/internationalvoip.html

Find the Right Provider

Not all VoIP providers support this scenario. Here are links to two that I know of, one on the West Coast and one on the East Coast:

http://www.aerioconnect.com (west)

http://www.ncisp.net (east)

Here is a link to a good solution for residential customers who call offshore often:

http://www.2millionblog.com/2008/12/reducing_expenses_eliminate_your_phone_bill_with_ooma_review_1.html

Bill Harrel – www.williamharrel.com

6 Replies to “How to Eliminate International Calling Fees”

So what is to stop anybody with any VoIP service from doing this. All you have to do is place the VoIP phone or gateway on an offshore Internet connection, right?