Home calling....

Just when you thought we (Africans, particularly Nigerians) couldn't get any cheaper when it came to calling home. Who remembers the phone card craze? Even when there were so many to choose from, we always knew or found the cheapest or to phrase it nicely, the ones with more 'value for money'.

It's quite amusing to know that as much as Nigerians love to show off (they are quite frankly the best posers of Africa), value for money is high priority i.e. being a cheapskate - why do you think 85% of us in the U.K. are on T-mobile and Three?! Anyways, whilst there are (unbelievably) thousands of phone cards to now choose from and where you can get about 3 or 4 cards for just £10 (usually at £5 each), with funky card names like Africa Mama, Go Mad for Bananas or Fabuloso New York (don't ask), the latest craze is using dial-direct service providers e.g. WorldSaver, JustDial, etc. Now, you can more or less call Africa free of charge just by dialling the access numbers (usually at national or cheap rates) and then dialling your number. There are no extra charges, no account setup required, no prepayments necessary and no time limits. Some of the services are even free of charge if one has free minutes (or cross-network minutes) on their mobile such as WorldSaver to Nigeria mobiles.

Being the milklady, I didn't stop there. I went on to the Money Saving Expert sent to me by a friend, to check out and compare different call rates by the different providers and found out I have wasted so much money in the past and can now call Nigeria for 1/2 a penny a minute! Please note that your main providers connection charge will apply as normal.

Telestunt - 9p/min (08713435151) (mobiles)

DiscountDial - 0.50p/min (landlines - 08442009595)

Click here to find out all the cheap rates (choose country and either tick box for mobiles or untick for landlines) and read below to see how the call checker works.

P.S. I'm sure we have services like this for the U.S but unfortunately I didn't find any. Please leave a comment if you know of any and watch out for my article titled "Nigeria Calling".

How does the CallChecker work? (culled from MoneySavingExpert.com)

Most people are wasting a fortune overspending on overseas calls. This free, non-commercial CallChecker provides a daily list of the cheapest way to call a landline or mobile in any country. Even better, most of the winners are accessible instantly without an account or changing phone line. (See the International Calls Article for a full explanation).
The CallChecker scans the cheapest providers daily to provide the most up to date call costs for calling all countries. Once you've found the cheapest provider for your chosen destination, dial the override provider's access number followed by the number you want to dial, remembering the international code.Please remember the information listed here comes from the providers automatically. Before making the call always double check on the provider's own website. MoneySavingExpert.com takes no responsibility for any expense caused by this data.

Please note that your main providers connection charge will apply as normal.