Since the beginning of the years 2000, VOIP has enormously developed, it is becoming the landline telephony standard and the providers have multiplied.

The basic principle of VOIP services is they are grafted to a plan each company or individual has already contracted with a national phone operator. Some examples, Telecom Italia in Italy, Orange in France, Deutsch Telecom in Germany, British Telecom in the UK and so on. It is indeed necessary to own a basic plan (including an Internet access) then a VOIP subscription on top of that.

In this frame, two phenomenon took place :

a) Historical operators have started to offer complementary plans to the basic ones

b) Other providers, non historical or national, have become specialized in selling VOIP phone services, like Telintell

Since VOIP only works thanks to an Internet access, its main benefits are :

1) The cost of a communication

2) Roaming (using the phone line anywhere in the world)

3) Centralizing calls, even if the users are located in different areas/countries

When the time comes for a company (or an individual) to take advantage from these benefits, the first question that pops up is :

How much will this cost ?

Because of the ever growing number of offers and to be certain to take advantage of the best offer possible, searches and comparison can start to consume time and resources.

This approach, legitimate and complex, will be simplified below.

Also, as far as fares are concerned, some rules have changed since the early 2000's. For instance in Europe, since a number of years, a European citizen can travel in another country than his and use his mobile plan in the other country, allowing to spare on calls expenses, without the use of VOIP.

Within this frame, we know well, we have decided to make a simulation tool available to compare different offers with ours. 

We do not hold the tariffs of all the companies offering VOIP phone plans, it is up to you to round up those information and use them below.

Although concern number one is the cost of the operation, it appears the choice of a complementary phone service using VOIP basically clings on these factors :

1) Features benefits

2) Destinations

3) Your real needs

4) Cost

5) Pre and post-sales quality service

As you can see, the cost is not per force the only and sole selection criterion.

The other great question asked is :

Is it possible to get free unlimited calls through the Internet ? Are there providers offering a totally free type of service ?

The answer is no. For the simple reason that behind the calls there are infrastructures which, by themselves, have a cost. Hence, within the chain of calls through Internet, sooner or later, one company will have to pay something to allow phone exchanges to take place. Particularly when it comes to calling a mobile phone.

"But WhatsApp is free !". WhatsApp*, Skype*, Viber* and other similar platforms use their own network, through Internet. You communicate on one and only network, hence the "free" aspect. 

Besides, to use a mobile phone or Internet at home you already pay something with your plan.

Often, landlines or mobile plans include national unlimited calls towards those same type of numbers.

By the time your calls need to go beyond your boundaries, the options and plans may vary.

As described above, these services are offered either by historical phone providers in your country or by third party operators, like Telintell, whether located in your country or abroad.

In a majority of cases, the complementary offered VOIP plans are :

1) A national and/or international calls plan, without a maximum number of minutes to be used in a month

2) A national and/or international calls plan, with a maximum number of minutes to be used in a month

3) Based on plans 1 and 2, calls towards mobile phone might or might not be included. The average number of destinations is 40 countries.

For all of these reasons, the basic question is not per force limited to "How much does it cost ?"

The more fundamental question, before the price, becomes "How much do you consume ?"

Differently said, how long do you use your phone to make national and international calls (For instance, do you only call landlines or do you need to call mobiles too).

On these principles, you can now use the simulator that allows you to compute and compare other providers' values with Telintell's EasyCall plan.

Rules and instructions :

a) The EasyCall offer includes 200 destinations, landlines and mobiles with no limitations in terms of minutes to call.

The computations only concern other operators and for one user only.

b) If another provider's offer is identical to Telintell's, the only reason to compare them would be to be able to call one or more countries not included in his plan.

c) Simulate on the basis of your real needs, usually for international calls or calls from abroad, but for national calls as well.

You can use the landlines or mobile values or both.

d) The simulation is understood as a per minute call tariff.

The average, observed in several countries, for calls towards landlines is 1 cent and 15 cents for calls towards mobiles.

e) The per minute tariff towards landlines can be modified within a range going from 1 to 5 cents.

The per minute tariff towards mobile phones can be modified within a range going from 8 to 30 cents.

You can also modify the values by inserting your own.

f) A working day includes a maximum of 8 hours of calls. How many hours do you call a day ?

A month includes a maximum of 21 working days of calls. How many days do you call on a daily frequency ?

g) Some operators offer a different tariff for each country called. In this case :

1) Simulate daily and monthly calls for one destination only. Do not add the provider's plan tariff.

Manually insert the result in the calculator on the right, "Destination 1" field.

• For the amount to pay
• For the used minutes

2) Repeat the operation for each new destination (2 more maximum).

3) For the last destination (max. the 4th), add in the computation the value of the provider's plan.

4) Manually insert the last total in the "Total 1 Transfer" field of the calculator on the right.

You will see the overall plan's price with this provider.

5) Manually insert the last value of the used minutes in the "Used Minutes 1 Transfer" field of the calculator on the right.

You will see the overall value of the used minutes with that provider.

Notes :

On the right, before the total, leave at least a value of 0. If the field is empty, an error message will be visible at the bottom of the calculator.

The dollar symbol ($) is only used to represent the concept of a monetary value. The currencies used on this site are displayed in the EasyCall/VirtuBoard pages.

Lexicon

Hours/Day : Calling Hours per Day

Used Minutes : Minutes used with the Provider

Total Transfer : Transfer of the Total value

Vs. (Versus in Latin) : Against, Compared to

Landline : Landline phones

Number of working days/Month: Working days to place calls

Provider Monthly Subscription : Provider's Monthly Subscription

Used Minutes Transfer : Transfer the Minutes used with the Provider

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