What services are people here using and which ones have good quality? I am looking for something inexpensive, but at the same time I am trying to find a service that has pretty good voice quality. It can be calling cards or an internet service, but I would prefer something that I can use over the phone. I call her at work due to the time difference and the web filter interferes with Skype and other services. So, any practical advise will be great and I am not looking for the cheapest one, but something that will give me good quality at a reasonable rate. Thanks!


- Steven

Hi Steven,

I use JAJAH, an internet provider. It cost me .06 per minute to call her in Siberia to her landlline (I also call her at her office) and .09 on her cell phone. The quality of the call is very good most of the time. Good luck
Bob

We use Skype internet service, for 2 cents a minute, it has no problem with connecting to phone numbers in foreign countries.

Skype out is the service needed to connect to ordinary phones, and you can prepay it using paypal. If both persons are using Skype, then communication PC-PC is FREE.

http://www.skype.com/

Skype will keep a log on their website that you can later use as evidence of communication for the visa.

the op already said skype is out of the picture.

my tip: if it's possible, is to go to an area with a lot of immigrants from eastern europe and buy a card there. i got a really good phone card from a polish store. these people have to call their families all the time too, so they know what the best deals are.

I use one of the many VOIP trunk providers to connect a SIP telephone. I've had good luck with vitelity.net - calls are routed over XO - good quality. About 1 cent/minute to Moscow, 5 cents / minute to the rest of Russia.

EDIT: The quality of your telephone has as much to do with sound quality as anything else. Polycom and Cisco are both good, but pricey ($300 or so)

You may want to check into calling directly from your cell phone. I had a plan with Sprint (Sprint is horrible, I hope you don't have them, but if you do) where I paid $4.50 a month for an international plan and I could call Russia directly, no pins, no extra numbers, for $.20 minute. It's higher than a phone card, but to be able to direct dial from my cell phone at any time was a very nice convenience. And, the quality was pretty good, all things considered.

What we're doing now is using a phone card called Crazy USA through www.uniontelecard.com. They're $9 and I believe it ends up being around six hours of talk time so that's less than $.03/minute. Not too bad, I guess. My wife reports good quality and they have sales promotions and stuff where if you buy so many you get one free or at a discount or whatever. For the quality and ease of use (I like it because once you enter a credit card or bank account number you can automatically update or one-touch update) it's pretty good. I think your first card or first four cards are $10, but once you buy a few they drop down to $9.

How's the call history feature (for providing as evidence of relationship) with Crazy USA? The plan I'm using now is about $0.03/minute, but the voice quality has gone downhill over the last couple months.

To be honest, I don't know, I've never used it.

Standby....

I have been using PennyTalk (www.getpennytalk.com) and the rates are great, but the quality level and service has been going downhill so I am bailing it for this service Free Call Planet (http://www.freecallplanet.com), which so far has been pretty good (1.6 cents a minute for the 2500 minute plan). They offer calling plans that have pretty reasonable rates and the quality has been nice. They also offer a "easy dialer" service where I can dial a local number direct and get connected to my fiancee's number. 20 cents a minute is just too much. I call her too often for that to be economically feasible. It is great for once in a while, but terrible for like 2000+ minutes a month. With this new plan and unlimited minutes through my provider I think I will be sitting pretty. I was curious what others have been using.

- Steven

Looks like they document how many you buy and when but I couldn't find a way to access the numbers dialed. I didn't really dig for it though, so maybe it's in there somewhere.


Quick edit: There's really no need to send pages of detailed "evidence" of calling. When my wife went to her interview, I don't think she took any evidence at all of phone records or calling cards.

Give these guys a try MCC Telecom The call quality is top notch, I think maybe 1 call in a hundred has poor quality and the cost is 0.10/min to Russian mobile, and most landlines are .0775/min. Look here for rates. It is the best one I have found. Calls sound just like you are calling your neighbor.

I've been using discall.com and have been pretty satisfied with them. Most of the time, the connection is good. There are occasional disconnects, and there is no call history available. When all fees are taken into account, it's about $0.05/min for me to call Tomsk. I've got pinless dialing from my home phone and cell phone (cost is the same for either). Cost varies depending on the city, and a call to a mobile phone is always at least a little higher. I use the Discall EZ Dial card. You can set up your account for auto recharge if you want.

http://www.discall.com/cards/

I use Primus Telecommunication. The Plan I have is $40 flat for 1000 Minutes to Europe and Russia. Not sure if this particular plan is available still, but a l;ot of the Russian community in DC seem to be using them as a Long Distance company.

http://www.primustel.com/

OR this link:

http://www.primusld.com/primusldWeb/tripleplay.jsp

It all depends on how much you talk and how long is your average conversation.
CrazyUSA is the cheapest at $0.028 if you plan on talking for 179 minutes straight, otherwise the 30% tax per call is too high.
We used to use BossUSA at $0.04 a minute to anywhere in Russia.
Both cards are from http://www.uniontelecard.com/destinations/7/russia/

Now we use VOIPCHEAP, which for 10.50 Euro ($15) gets you 300 free minutes per week for 90 days and then the money is subtracted at 0.024€ a minute. So if you do the math 416 Minutes + 300(12) = $15/4000 minutes for 3 months or roughly 1/3 a penny per minute. Best deal in my opinion. But requires you to use a microphone but you can dial to a land line so your Russian counter parts don't have to pay for outrageous bandwidth costs or if calling places where high speed internet is not available.
http://www.voipcheap.com/en/rates.html

Internetcalls is a better deal as you get 120 days of 300 free minutes per week before they start charging you.

I use a system that is similar to discall.com called Dialbug (www.dialbug.com). The rates are 0.055 per minute to cell phone in Sochi or anywhere in Russia. Moscow, however, is cheaper at 0.029/min.
I have been using it for 6 months now and it works consistantly and well. As with discall, it has pinless dialing from the phone of your choice and has auto-recharge or manual pay.

It does have accessible phone records, which I used as one of my proofs of ongoing relationship.

The plan I have now is 1.8 cents a minute for Moscow, which is where she lives. I am not around a computer enough to use a VoIP service at the times I make my calls. So, I feel I am getting a decent deal. No connection fees, just a flat sum of minutes a month at a flat rate. If I go over it is 2.5 cents a minute after that. Thanks for all the input all!

- Steven

I'm surprised noone has mentioned this:
I call thru www.voipstunt.com PC to phone or phone to phone.

You put $15.00 on the account and you receive 300 minutes of free calls a week to Russia.
If you don't use your balance of 15.00 you can call russia for the next 120 days every week for 300 minutes charge free. (Every week you receive 300 free minutes)
If you use phone to phone there is 0.05c fee for connection and no per minute charge.

Can anyone beat that plan?

I looked at VOIPStunt a few months ago, but the Wikipedia entry scared me away. Especially this part:

The company has been accused of fraudulent activity on several websites. Hundreds of clients have had their accounts blocked with the code ERROR 33 and their deposited funds confiscated for no apparent reason.[3] Betamax has not made any attempt to respond to customer enquiries or explained what Error 33 is, why it has occurred or how to fix and prevent it from occurring again.

Has anyone mentioned Skype? It's free talking computer to computer and I heard it's reasonable when calling computer to phone but I have not tried that service.

Skype has been mentioned, but the OP wanted to avoid computer-based services.

I use Skype (but not to Russia), even have a Skype phone, but my experience is that the connections can be lossy. One call can be okay, the next call is terrible. I've never had a "great" connection via Skype. Also, for whatever reason, my calling card refuses to work with Skype. Whenever I dial the toll-free number, it rings busy. Yet I can get through fine on a land line or my mobile. But for $36/year (to get a dedicated phone number), it's still a helluva deal compared to what a land line would cost me.

http://www.trycards.com/ These are SUPER CHEAP international calling cards. They worked great for me.

I'll second that. I use Skype for my official home number and my mobile for those I care about! I see zero need to have old 20th century home phone service anymore.

As for the thread, I use a calling card and my mobile. I pay around 4.5¢ a minute and the connection is always clear. I shop around to find calling cards with permanent pins and no monthly service fees.

I know Skype is out for this OP, but for others who will find this thread, I wanted to throw in my Skype 2 cents also...

During my last visit, I bought my Ira a laptop and web cam. So now we can instant message each other every day, and we regularly use it to talk to each other, both audio and video. And it's completely free! Because of the language barrier, if a topic becomes too complex, we can even video conference with our Interpreter, and she lives in yet a another city in Ukraine! When Ira's visa is finally approved and she moves to the US, she will leave the laptop behind for her parents. This way she will use Skype to video conference often with her parents, and it will never cost me a dime! Hard to beat that!

Peanuts LD from LDpost is decent & cheap!

RUSSIA 5¢
RUSSIA, MOSCOW 1.5¢
RUSSIA, ST. PETERSBURG 1.5¢
RUSSIA, MOBILE 7.3¢

• No-PIN dialing
• No need to switch your current long distance carrier
• No expiration period
• No Maintenance fees
• No Connection fees
• 1 min rounding
• Speed dial feature
• Auto recharge option
• Live Customer Service support
• Local access numbers in most states and Canada
• Local Access Number in a Variety Of Countries

I looked at the terms of all thees cards, and they are hard to swallow:
Example:
· Connection Fee - 18 cents (for calls over 1 min.)
· Maintenance Fee - 88 c/weekly
· Service Taxes & Surcharges - 28%
I can live with all but the last one. Pretty much you lose 1/3 of your card value after making even a 1 minute call.
http://www.trycards.com/p/info.php/123 - Cheapest card to Russia.

How so? Most Russians do not have access to FREE flat rate broadband internet. When I was lat there it was $20 for 1 gigabyte. That can go by really fast when you are sending audio and video through skype.

In moscow and st. Petersburg the tariffs are much better, i think. My guy downloads like 4 movies a day. He pays 30 dollars a month for unlimited bandwidth.

Hell, that's better than what most of us are paying.

My stepdaughter lives in Rostov-on-Don and uses a internet provider called Spark. She gets unlimited "high speed" use for about $40 per month. They provide a box that plugs into the electric outlet, and you plug the ethernet cable into this box. It's a lot better than dial up, but not nearly as good as my cable connection here. It's fine for using Skype or internet calls.

Definitly try internetcalls which was mentioned previously. 10 euros every 90 days and my wife talks to family and her girlfriends as long as she wants. She's very happy with it. You do need a headset and a broadband connection. Happy wife=happy home!

Speedypin.com is by far the best! (I think so at least! go to there website and you choose what phone card you want they give you a pin number to type in the phone everytime you call(you can rechag=rge this as much as you want) I Usually buy 20 dollar phone cars at a time! 1 twent dollar phone card to call from the USA to Russa is 1600 minutes!!!! i fouhnd out about this becasue my fiance and her friends all used this to call home when they were in the usa!

Awaiting Satellite's hidden charges break down......

It's pretty simple to do the break down.
For this card / website:
Gemini AT $20 you can talk for 1600 minutes but only if that is 1600 straight minutes. Here is why:
Connection Fee None
Billing Increments 3 minute rounding
Maintenance Fee 69¢ weekly
Carrier Service Fee 16% - 25% carrier service fee deducted after each call
http://speedypin.com/prepaid/phone-card/GEMX05
Once again, the 16-25% kills either 1/4 or 1/6 of your card per call.

My wife has been using Master Call Communications for almost a year now and it seems pretty reliable. We are paying 11 cents per minute to call Russia and 13 cents for Ukraine, although the cell phone calls in Ukraine are a little higher at 16 cents. MCC seems better suited for Russia and generally the connection is good. They seem a little up tight regarding the billing and have refused my wife access because the bill wasn't paid, even though it was not due to be paid. So, I've started paying it a little early so she won't have any frustrations.

We have used Skype in the past and it works pretty good for video conferencing if the other party has high speed internet too.

It seems that costs vary from plan to plan and/or when you sign up. The bottom line is get comfortable with something until it changes or you find something better or cheaper.

No matter what you find, it's going to cost more than you want to pay.

We use that Crazy U.S.A. card and it's only around 3 cents/minute. Even with the fees associated, it's still cheaper than using MCC at 13 cents/minute. It is, however, more than I'd like to pay.

Maybe someday we'll get to the point where all "telephone" calls are free. Kind of like how there's really no more "long distance" since cell phones and VOIP, etc. wiped it off the face of the nation. Phone service is a flat rate, and all calls, anywhere in the world are free. I'd say it's coming but it's going to be a long time due to reciprocity issues.

Been using http://www.freecallplanet.com/ for about a month now and love it. 5.4 cents a minute anywhere in Russia. This may include mobile phones, however, with the plan I have with them I get 1.8 cents/min since my fiancee is in Moscow and it costs me only 7.9 cents a minute to call her cell, which if you know anything about calling cellphones is pretty cheap. The call quality is good and as far as I know there are no hidden fees, just one monthly charge. The do charge 1 cent a min more to call a toll-free number, but I use a cellphone to call her, so I can I use the local access number.

I am glad to have a service that does not have connection or maintenance fees. Those end up eating most of my money.

Satelite but you can buy a 1200 minute phone card on speedypin.com has no extra charges or connection fees! So it is still very inexpensive about 1 cent a minute been doing this for months now and the voice quality is perfect 2!

Also you can pick between about 15 different phone cards they all work differently and for different situations! Some are real good for land line! Others are real good for a cell phone! There is a medium one for both but if you are gonna call a landline sometimes and you are gonna call a cell i would just get 2 different ones its cheaper this way! In all my expierience with phone cars for calling the amazing country of Russia sppedypin.com is definitely the way to go!

I remember being overseas in the military and I called everyone maybe ONCE a week, and maybe for an hour. I'm sitting here wondering why we're trying to figure out how we can get the best deal on 15 hours of talk time. Do you really talk on the phone that much?

And if so, what are you doing for a living that affords you the opportunity to do so? I need to change jobs! I can't believe some of you have that kind of time to spend sitting on the phone (says the guy typing away at his keyboard...)

I talk to Nadya every day, almost without exception.

i usually just IM. we usually do talk on skype every day, but never for that long. i can multitask while iming, but not while talking on the phone.

Irina and I will IM every single day, but only speak via Skype occasionally. When we talk, we use the Web Cam, and that is great to be able to see each other, it really helps with the distance apart. We have also found the Web Camera to be VERY useful for, uhm, other things...

I have to say, I'm more in Slim's boat. I run out of things to talk about on phones. But I have never been a phone talker. I really don't like phone calls. I prefer to talk in face to face. Even calling Alla on the weekends, we run out of things to really say after 30 minutes. Life just doesn't change that much from day to day or even week to week for there to be news.

I talk to my wife three times a day. I use a company called WDT. I think it's about 15 cents per minute but I stopped monitoring it. I accept the $100 per month phone bill as the cost of maintaining contact with her until we're together. Having to use pin numbers or sweating the fine print of hidden fees is not worth it to me. And there is value in just keeping it simple. What will I save bargain hunting? Maybe $10 or $15 per month shopping around. I look at this expense as nickel and dime compared to the costs for immigration fees and travel to Russia.

The calling has evolved from once a day to three times as the pain of missing each other has grown. Amazingly, my wife talks a lot given her limited English so we never lack for conversation. Talking frequently helps make the days go by faster and keeps us from getting too depressed as the immigration chaos and absurdly long process unfolds. Just hearing her voice puts me in a good place and we're actually developing our relationship and deepening our connection just talking on the phone. IMing or emails can't give that to me.

It would be nice to use skype but she is not good with computers so we're limited to the standard phone.

My wife is here and I don't think we talk that much.

We're a lot like the Russia forum, we handle business pretty quickly and then it's straight to the off-topic stuff.

Haha, I think that's what usually happens in a marriage once you're actually in the same country.

Add me here. Of course I already made my point about in person relationship building.

Lucky, I suppose. When we were apart we talked like twice a month because I was and still am poor. Email was free so we did a lot of that instead and ICQ. Limited myself to two $5 cards per month; which still got me a total of 5 hours using:
http://www.uniontelecard.com/phonecards/2051/boss-usa/ at $0.04/m with no service fee.

I have the international plan with TWC. For $20 a month you call up to 3000 minutes a month. If you go over 3000 it sounds like they spank you and take away the service as they consider it abusive??