After downloading and installing VoIP phone calling software, most providers will allow you to call any phone number - anywhere in the world! You'll use your PC, Internet connection and a headset* to dial any phone number. There is usually a standard rate for calls, just like your traditional phone plan, but if you shop around there are a few providers who offer free calling. The big difference, however, is the price. Minute rates for PC-to-Phone calls are significantly lower than traditional phone call rates. The savings can really add up, particularly if you call internationally. International rates are sometimes 70% lower than the major long distance carriers and there is no monthly charge for a calling plan.

And it doesn't stop there. You can even find phone services that utilize this VoIP technology while allowing you to use a traditional phone on both ends of the call, letting you take advantage of better rates no matter where you are. The most common way is by purchasing a calling card. Calling cards operate as follows: Dial an access number to connect with your calling card provider. Then dial the phone number you are calling. Your call is actually placed over the Internet, offering you significant cost savings. Calling cards are sold in pre-paid amounts. In some instances you can replenish your funds when you use up your pre-paid time. There are other hardware devices you can purchase, making the experience of using this technology even closer to traditional phones.

If you are looking at WEB TO PHONE and are interested in privacy related matters PGPfone or Pretty Good Privacy Phone, as it is known, turns your desktop or notebook computer into a secure scrambled telephone. It uses speech compression and strong cryptography protocols to give you the ability to have a real-time secure telephone conversation. Secure voice calls are supported over the Internet, or through a direct modem-to-modem connection, or even over AppleTalk networks. Some clients ask us if PGP can be cracked, the answer is yes, any encryption program can be cracked, provided that the attacker has enough time and resources (= money) for the job. However, a typical 1024-bit PGP message (we use 4096 which is even stronger) would take about 300,000,000,000 MIPS year to crack, so the ordinary person is relatively safe, at least for the next few decades. If someone really wants to intercept your PGP conversations or email messages he/she would probably rather steal a copy of your secret key and try to figure out your password or force you to reveal, the alternatives are simply non starters regardless of who is trying to crack it.

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CALLBACK - We consider Callback to be a rather outmoded concept, although in some countries it is still an excellent option and some of the companies offer hardware that makes the callback process transparent, but enabling you to simply dial the number you want and the interface makes the call automatically through the callback gateway.

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HOW CALLBACK WORKS - When you sign up for Callback you are given a trigger number that is used to initiate a Callback session, this number is a dedicated number allocated specifically to you to make a call, you dial the number, let it ring once, then hang-up you are not charged for the incomplete call. The Callback computer system identifies the number that phoned in and phones you back. The computer will say "Please enter the number you wish to dial" once connected you can make as many calls as you want, usually you end a call by pressing the hash or pound key (#). Some companies like Kallback who were the first company to offer the service, and are still the market leaders, offer a facility to program the system to ask for you by name and extension number - this feature is of particular use to corporate users and hotel guests.

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CALLING CARDS.

In many countries buying a Calling Card enables you to make calls at prices that are substantially more competitive than the local phone companies rates. As a general rule you are best to buy a card locally than to use one from another country, because the rate is usually more favourable. With most calling cards toll free numbers are available, dialling the Toll Free access number enables you to make a call from wherever you happen to be, the cards are usually available in various denominations, a leading UK company offers £5, £10 and £20. The cards offer substantial savings in comparison with local carriers and payphone rates, for example for a UK to UK call, one company charges 5.88p per minutes, as opposed to 35p from a payphone or 7.91p from a BT landline, for international calls the saving are even greater for example a call to the USA using British Telecom costs 23.62p per minute using the calling card it's 8p a saving of 66%. As with anything you need to check the rates because some cards are dearer than others just check out the BT pre paid calling card rates to see what we mean.

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