Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Cheap Phone Calls to India : Airtel Call Home !

Airtel is ringing Singapore NRIs finally!. I have been tracking various players in this pre-paid card business for last 2 years. Airtel and Reliance started their India calling services in USA. But in Singapore we were limited to Mustafa Calling Card(which offers the best rate of 120 minutes for SGD $6.90). There are other pre-paid cards too but most of them will cheat you on minutes and hidden connection charges. I hope Airtel will do its best to get maximum attention from Singapore NRIs.

Check the page for Airtel Call Home for the offer of 70% extra talk time. So for $10 pre-paid card purchased you get 162 minutes of talk time which comes to 6.2 cents per minute. This is great!.

I have been getting marketing calls from some Indian Companies too which offers 7 cents/minute for India calling - both land line and mobile. Which is good too. But we need to remember following points before we jump and take the offer!:

  • Check your local Mobile plans for any offers for FREE IDD rates
    • e.g. Starhub now offers FREE IDD for India too! - so that means you only pay local charges for calling India. Depending on the plan that could be 7 cents/minutes too.
  • Make sure that the prepaid card does not charge any connection fee
  • Check whether it allows PIN less calling - Phoenix Card in Singapore allows that. It makes life easier.
  • When you use prepaid card you also pay the call charges from your landline and mobile. Landline is pretty cheap but mobile means more 7 cents/minute apart from prepaid. So you end up spending 14 cents/minute for a India call.
  • Some cards have different charges for mobile and landline in India.
I know many use Google Talk or Yahoo Messenger for calling India, which is the best option if PC is there on the both sides. But for many occasions we still need some IDD or prepaid card service to call India.

Enjoy!

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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Sandeep,

Thanks to you for so informative blog.

Just wanted to know, whats the difference between a Condo,a HDB and Landed accomadation.

I also find that people give on rent their single rooms.

Is that a common practice in Singapore.

Also what are the central locations in Singapore.

Please advise.

Regards.

jaigurudev said...

Hey Sandeep,
I have tried a lot of cards..but as u said only Mustafa gives the promised talktime..
I havent tried Airtel so far..
Any feedback?

jaigurudev said...

Hi..As u said only Mustafa gives the promised talk time..let me try Airtel this time..

Unknown said...

guess you all haven't tried reliance till now...try it ..trust me its the best in terms of call quality...rates...i have been using the service since quite some time and it is the best..i mean ...who is offering india calling at 8.9 cents....having been in singapore since the last 6 years...i have tried so many calling cards..but trust me reliance is the best....

Vidooshak said...

This blog is the first result when you search for "Airtel IDD call rates" on Google! Congrats, Sandeep. You're doing a great job

Anonymous said...

hey sandeep.. thanks a lot for info. I am moving to s'pore next month and i am confused for connection of mobile, landline, internet and Cable TV. If you can put some post helping novices in s'pore to understand contracts and confusing T&C, some tips, etc.

-Anand

Sandeep said...

Anand,

checkout : http://www.icare2share.com/2007/04/singapore-cable-tv-internet-phone.html

Stay out of contract when possible and try not to get attracted to free stuff and higher monthly payments.

cheers
Sandeep