Are you tired of calling your friends and family at prices from the last century? Do you feel frustrated every time you have to top-up the credit of your mobile phone, just because you are obliged to? Do you hate the obvious portuguese cartel around mobile operators?

Well, fell no more! Enter the VoIP world!

Betamax created lots of providers specialized in VoIP. Although almost all of them offer free calls to Portuguese landline numbers, I never realized how competitive they were on the mobile side.

So I dig a little, and found some pretty competitive Betamax VoIP providers:

  • 12voip.com – 4.5 cent/min
  • voipraider.com – 5.0 cent/min
  • webcalldirect.com – 6.0 cent/min

The best thing about these providers is

  • No required monthly payment
  • You can use your own phone number as Caller ID (so people still answer your calls).
  • They all support the SIP protocol (great for non-windows users like me)
  • Same price for all the mobile operators (so you can jump the wall garden)

I hope that this information helps you lowering your phone bill. Spread the word, and maybe your mobile operator starts lowering the prices too!

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My name is Ruben Fonseca. I'm a Computer Science and Systems Engineer from Portugal that loves FLOSS.

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14 Comments | rss | atom | xml | json

  1. avatar Paulo Pires Fri 17 July, 2009 14:48

    it would be good if our mobile operators didn’t block VoIP. otherwise, and without wide-area solutions like WiMAX, there’s goes nothing for mobility :-/

  2. avatar Nuno Lebreiro Sat 18 July, 2009 16:49

    Great :D
    Which one is the best Voip?
    Where can I find the SIP configurations?

  3. avatar Ruben Fonseca Sun 19 July, 2009 04:37

    @nuno all of them are from the same provider (betamax). so they all have the same sound quality.

    The SIP configurations are available at each provider website, just look for the SIP word :)

  4. avatar Nuno Lebreiro Mon 20 July, 2009 02:50

    Which software do you use for mac?
    Can set the caller id for a non Windows program?

  5. avatar Ruben Fonseca Mon 20 July, 2009 02:52

    @nuno I’m using iSoftPhone for OS X. And I haven’t found a way of getting caller id to work without the official client…

    Sometimes I just boot the VM to make a call ;)

  6. avatar João Bordalo Mon 20 July, 2009 07:45

    Meanwhile, Voipraider as decreased the price for mobile to 4.4 cent/min ;)

  7. avatar ArturPinto Tue 06 October, 2009 10:37

    If you use hardware IPPBX you can send the authorized number/id. Example with Innovaphone IPPBX you can use the id that you got authorized, but only companies will buy hardware IPPBX. 12voip.com uses a 0.039 EURO connection fee. Vodafone uses a VOIP provider to make GSM to landline calls. 2 years ago when making tests with my softpbx I used my Vodafone number to test inbound connection, and on my softpbx log the number that was incoming was 91#######@voiprovider.com and not 91#######, after some days they corrected it.

  8. avatar Mário Filipe Pinhal Tue 24 November, 2009 21:30

    nice work :)

  9. avatar viana ( Telecoms consultante ) Mon 30 November, 2009 09:22

    hi
    The cheapest this week is for “end user” to portugal mobile is Nymgo 7.2 optimus 7.2 vodafone 7.0 tmn with IVA

    12voip, actionvoip, budgetsip, calleasy, dialnow, freecall, internetcalls, intervoip, jumblo, justvoip, lowratevoip, myvoipreselling, netappel, nonoh, poivy, rynga, sipdiscount, siptraffic, smartvoip, smsdiscount, smslisto, sparvoip, telbo, voicetrading, voipbuster, voipbusterpro, voipcheap com, voipcheap uk, voipdiscount, voiphit, voiplip, voipraider, voipstunt, voipwise, voipzoom e webcalldirect and all other betamax voip companies have their prices without IVA and with 0.50€ pay fee it is more expensive.
  10. avatar Nuno Lebreiro Tue 01 December, 2009 03:48

    Viana are you sure about that?
    Because at 12voip web site says that the price for portugal mobile is 0.048€ (vat included) and in Nymgo 0.07€.

    I have so problems using 12voip in Mac with a caller id, can I do it with Nymgo?

  11. avatar Ruben Fonseca Tue 01 December, 2009 12:55

    Nuno, how do you use 12voip on your mac with caller id?

  12. avatar Nuno Lebreiro Wed 02 December, 2009 01:32

    Ruben I can’t, I can only use caller id with the windows version of the problem.

  13. avatar viana Thu 03 December, 2009 09:23

    I cannot show you my invoice but I can tell you this. each time I reload my account for 10€ in phone calls they take out of my account 12.5 € ( 10€ + 2.5€ fee)12voip.
    If you devide it between the minutes you use you will see that it is more expensive then nymgo.
    No one can sell mobile calls less then 0.6 cents to 91 or 96 Without V.A.T (0.65 to 93)legally without lossing money ( V.A.T. depends on the country where the service is.

  14. avatar viana Thu 03 December, 2009 09:48

    Another simple way to make phone calls
    If you have optimus “empresas” ( spain rede fixa 0.02€)
    Buy a spainish ptsn number (DIDX) ( or get one free) add it to you pbx. Block it so that it will only recieve phone calls fom your mobile.add a voip provider .then simply phone to your spain number followed by " P " then the number that you want
    Ex 0034911xxxxxxp0035196xxxxxxx
    (you get the p by Pressing * 3 times until a ‘p’ appears on nokia phones)
    Total costs 0.02+0.07= 0.09cent(If you call alot to foreign countries you will save alot.
    Another way
    try sjlabs softphone on your 3g mobile phone “FREE”. conect it with an asterix server “FREE” (I use my 200€ home computer acting as a PBX ) program the asterix to recieve INCOMING phone numbers from Spain France germany USA Brazil and 80 other countries “FREE” ( just open accounts at TPAD ClaroLite etc) also add your skype IM yahoo “FREE”
    add your Portuguese Número Nómada “COST about 21€ for 6 months” add your OPTIMUS NUMBER and VODAFONE NUMBER and suddenly everyone around the world can call you (INCLUIDING IM) for the price of a local phone call from their country.
    Almost forgot
    If you add A voip provider on your asterix for your out going calls you will call at voip prices (about 0.072€c/iva Portuguese mobile and 0.008c/iva portuguese rede fixa

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