Cheapest Calling card to India

Home

Free Software Faq

Blog

GNU/Linux Faq

My parents and relatives are in India and hence I have to call India frequently.Over the past 8 years that I have been in US I have had varied experiences with different calling cards/services etc.Im constantly on the look out for reducing my costs to calling India obviously without compromising on call quality.Im planning to keep this page up-to-date on which calling cards which Im using so that someone can benefit from my experiences.Some of my criteria for selecting a calling card is

No swiching of Long distance needed.
1 minute rounding.
No maintenance fees .
No taxes.
No monthly fees.
No fraudulent minutes.
No Connection fees.
No Disconnect fees.
No Customer Service access fee.
Crystal Clear call quality.
Should be able to dial in one shot everytime.
Same rate round the clock.
Few phone number needs to be automatically authenticated so that I dont have to remember the pins.

Calling Cards(Ranked based on my experience)

http://g3telecom.com/us/Default.aspx

9.9c/min to India(8.9c if you have auto top-up)
Local access number needs to dialed else charges are higher.That means charges are higher if you need to dial a toll-free number.In my case it is not an issue as they have a local 408 number
Good call quality.Have been using it since Oct, 1st 2006 to date

http://relianceindiacall.com/

This is the king of calling cards to India.
They charge 12.9c/min
Very good call quality and I have been using it since 2004 or 2005, but now with G3telecom this becomes a backup .I dont even remember as I started using their service since Inception.

Why Not VOIP on both ends to get Free calls
You might ask that I already have a VOIP setup in US then how come Im not using it to call India free.Well there are a couple of reasons

My parents are alone in India and they do not know how to access a computer
Free calls are really not free if you don't have broadband in India.If you are going to get broadband for your house in India then it might not be worth the hassles.
Outside of having broadband on both ends I have not found any VOIP provider providing calls to India for less then 9.9c/min.I mean that none of the VOIP Provider i have researched provides a cheaper per minute plan to India with just VOIP in US and normal phone(PSTN) in India.

For 30 US Dollars you can sponsor a free eye surgery in India.Help Eardicate Curable Blindness and gift sight.