Home phone Guides

Cheap calls to the USA

Updated: Monday 14 March, 2011

By Becca Talbot - becca@consumerchoices.co.uk

Calling your friends and family in the States doesn’t have to cost a fortune, or even a dime for that matter. Sign-up to a calls package with cheap international rates and you could cut your bills.

Provider	Package name		USA call rate (per minute)		Monthly package cost		Line rental cost
	Vonage V-Plan 2		FREE		£8.99		£9.99	Go
	Talk UK Anytime		17.7p		£6.21		£13.80	Go
	Anytime Saver Offer		3.2p		£2.95		£11.22	Go
	Primus Home Phone Max		3.5p		£2.79		£10	Go

Calling America can be expensive, especially with the time difference. Customers with BT’s weekend call plan for example, will be charged 17.5p per minute for calls made to the States during weekdays (7am - 7pm) and 12p per minute at all other times. This means that a 10-minute call during the day will cost £1.87, including the 13.1p one-off call connection fee.

Switching to a cheaper package could help you cut down your costs, and you could even get free calls to the USA. First though, you should ask yourself these questions:

1. Do you call other countries, as well as the US?
2. Do you call American landlines and/or American mobiles?
3. How long do your calls usually last?
4. How much are you paying for calls to the US at the moment?

Look at your recent phone bills and calculate how much you’re spending on calls to friends and family in America, then compare packages online to see if you could cut your costs by switching to a better deal.

Cheap calls to the US with your phone provider

Some home phone providers, such as the Post Office (www.postoffice.co.uk) and Plusnet (www.plus.net) offer free calls to the US, and many others offer discounted calls. So switching to a cheaper landline deal is sure to save you money on the calls that are bumping up your bills.

Signing up to TalkTalk’s Talk UK Anytime deal will get you free daytime, evening and weekend calls to all landlines in the UK, and calls to the US are charged at just 17.5p per minute, plus the one off call connection fee of 12.5p. The call plan costs £6.21 a month for the first 12 months, and line rental costs £13.80 a month. However, you could make further savings on calls to the US with TalkTalk's International Calls Boost.

With TalkTalk's International Calls Boost you can keep in touch with your far-flung family and friends and be sure it won't cost the earth. For just £2.99 a month you'll get unlimited calls to 36 international destinations, including the US, anytime. Plus, you'll also get discounts of up to 95% on call charges to all other international destinations.

You could save even more money on your monthly household bills by bundling your home phone and broadband services together, from a provider such as TalkTalk or BT.

You should also consider switching your line rental and calls to Primus. The Primus Home Phone Max package costs £2.79 a month, and line rental costs £10 - £2.61 cheaper than BT line rental. Although Primus charges 3.5p per minute for calls to the US, you may still save money by switching to this tariff as it has one of the UK’s cheapest line rental deals.

Cheap calls to America using your broadband connection

If you’ve got a broadband connection in your home, it is possible to make internet calls through your broadband. This kind of call is called a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) call, and can be a cheap, or sometimes even free, alternative to standard phone calls.

VoIP providers, such as Vonage (www.vonage.co.uk) or Skype, offer tailor-made packages that help customers reduce their costs by making calls over the internet. Internet calls work in just the same way as traditional calls, and you can even use your existing touch tone phone to make calls from your landline to other home phones or mobiles. The only difference is that with VoIP your phone is plugged into an adapter, which is connected to your existing broadband router or modem. This converts the call to a VoIP call.

The Vonage V-Plan 2 lets you make unlimited free landline calls to 15 international countries, including the US, and all Vonage-to-Vonage calls are also free. You will have to pay a monthly subscription for the Vonage service; however you will be able to keep your existing home phone number.

You should also look at using a similar service called Skype (www.skype.com). Skype lets you make video calls to friends and family in the States for free if you’re both using Skype and have a webcam, and you can take advantage of cheap rates to call the USA if the person you’re calling isn’t online or using Skype.

Switching to a better landline deal

Whether you make the majority of your calls to the US, Pakistan or Australia, there are plenty of home phone calling plans to choose from. To help keep your bills low though, make sure that you sign-up to one that suits your needs. Don’t forget that you can also make VoIP calls, which are free to some destinations.

Use the Homephonechoices.co.uk postcode checker to find the packages available in your area, then compare call rates for USA calls and see if you can save money on your phone bills.