VoIP and International Dialing

In My Humble Opinion
1

There’s probably a factual answer to this question, but I’m soliciting theories and opinions here so…I dunno. Let the threads land where they may.

All of you who follow my threads (hi, mom!) probably know that my wife is in London for a month. We usually talk on the phone once or twice a day. However, I’ve noticed a strange pattern with the phone calls. Whenever I call the number to her flat, I’m successful 100% of the time, no matter where I happen to be calling from. But when I try to call the pre-paid cell phone she uses, I get a variety of results depending on where I’m calling from.

For example, while I was on the road recently, I bought a calling card so I could stay in touch. Every time I used the calling card to dial her cell phone, I got though without any problem. But when I call from my home phone, which is on Vonage’s service, or from my work phone, which uses Verizon’s business VoIP service, I get different responses. Sometimes I get through. Sometimes, I get a message saying the call can’t go through. Sometimes, I get a strange recording from a woman with a British accent which says, “I’m sorry, you do not have enough credits to complete this call. Please [unintelligible] up and call again later.” Sometimes, I get a fast busy signal. And on at least two occassions (one from the home phone and one from the work phone), I’ve ended up on some kind of crossed/party line where other folks (with British accents) were trying to reach someone else.

I’m baffled. The constants when these issues occur are:

  1. I’m dialing her cell; and,
  2. I’m using an internet-based phone line

So, any ideas? Has anyone else had issues calling internationally using VoIP? I’d suspect it had something to do with her particular phone except for the fact that I’d gotten those crossed lines a couple of times. This is the first time in my life I’ve had occassion to dial internationally, so I really don’t know if this is common. And the one variant I haven’t tried is calling her from a VoIP line using the calling card.

I appreciate your responses!

2

I’ll bump this once just in case.

3

I’ve had similar problems calling England with Vonage to a cell phone. Much fewer issues when I called a landline, but still not perfect. Wish I had an answer for you, but I think it’s just the bugs that still exist in the VoIP system.

FYI - Vonage’s all-inclusive international package doesn’t include cell phones, so you’re better off dialing the landline. Even better - switch to Skype. Much better connection quality, and totally free.

4

From my old days at Vonage, it has something to do with the carrier’s ability to contract with the receiving phone’s carrier. There were areas of Indiana, I think, that were unreachable because the LEC wouldn’t contract with Vonage’s carrier.

For your London woes, you could just buy a prepaid calling card and use the house line, maybe.