Damn Ukraine phone system.

[Son of Clyde]

Ok, she told me she was visiting her mother this weekend for Easter. Her mother lives one hour away by car and sometimes the phone is out of range and sometimes we might have a connection.

This was a weekend with no connection. I tried for close to an hour on Saturday with no success and finally called her son's mobile phone. He was with his father this weekend and told me the phone connection to his mother's phone was very bad.

I called about a dozen times on Easter and finally got through long enough to wish her a Happy Easter. Today was my interpretors day off so I was on my own. Fortunately she understood my Happy Easter wish before we lost the connection.

Are the phone lines to Russia this bad?

[Son of Clyde]

Someone on another board says I think out loud.

If this is so I do so thinking that others may be able to relate to what I'm going through at the time.

Still, I think the Ukraine phone system is awful.

[wxman]

SOC

You are right. The phone system in Ukraine is terrible. I have tried many different phone cards, all with poor success. The connection is not good to mobile phones with the phone cards. Plus, you have the problem that some cities do not have many towers, plus they live in concrete high rises, so the connections are not going to be that good to mobile phones. I get the best connection using MCI International plan, but it still cost $ 0.29 a minute. At least the connection is very good using MCI.

[525i]

Sometimes the phone line is quite bad. Background noise (hiss) is sometimes quite high. When this happens I call her again and I usually get better line. Sometimes the phone connection have been cut suddenly. Tanya says that it's normal.

Normally the phone line is good. I call to her mobile.

[Son of Clyde]

525i,

You have a much better chance to get through from Finland than us poor slobs in the USA.

[jb]

The phone system to Moscow is always crystal clear.

[Son of Clyde]

I'm beginning to believe it's not as simple as saying the Ukraine phone system sucks. In actuality it's cellphones that suck.

Once Irina's phone is out of range there is not much that can be done. Sometimes if she goes outdoors the connection improves. With cellphones there is too much dead space and calls are dropped sometimes mid sentence.

[Jack]

Comparing Moscow and St. Pete's phone system is often like comparing it to the phone service we have in many of our larger cities here in the states. Ukraine phone system is often like comparing it to Hootersville phone system. Like Mr. Douglas used to do when he wanted to make a phone call, you want decent service in ukraine you need to climb to the top of the telephone poll to get good reception.

Ukraine's telephone system is often overloaded and instead of getting fast busy signals, you get silence.

I noticed the level of service really got bad, I mean as bad as I have ever experienced, just before the first round of the presidental elections this past fall. I first thought it must be the Ukraine goverment in place at the time having something to do with the volume of calls coming in. But the problem has persisted. Some days you can get thru but usually it is two or three bad days to one good day.

[OhioGuyRob]

I got so tired of the phone cards that I ended up just renewing my cell phone plan to include international calling.    I have AT&T wireless service which has very reasonable rates to UKR  I cant even remember the last time I couldnt get through to my girl.  The connection is about what it is when I call people locally on there cell phone.   I think my largest bill was $66.... I call usually 3-4 times a week and we talk for about 5 minutes per call.... (she is not fluent in english)  

I just got tired of using those calling cards that route through crappy servers.... thats whats causing the problem you guys are experiencing

[wxman]

Does anyone know how good VOIP is, such and Vonage, for international calling? The cost is $0.13/minute landline to Ukraine and $0.16 to mobile phone.

[jb]

I have Vonage and I love it.  It's the best thing in telecommunications since Alex G. Bell said, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you!"

[wxman]

I just signed up for Vonage voip service! You are right, it is like night and day vs regular phone service, and it is cheaper! I got the unlimited plan for 24.99 a month, with $0.16 per minute to Ukraine. I was on MCI and the basic service cost with all the fees, taxes etc is $50. The taxes and surcharges alone are $20 on MCI, plus call to Ukraine mobile are $0.29 per minute. What a rip.

It did take me some time to hook of router, but customer service was great and they walked through the steps with me.

 

[jb]

I wish you'd have mentioned my name, I coulda got a month of freebies out of it.

[wxman]

I can give them a call to let them know you gave me  recommendation. Email me 

[wendaaaal]

I'm using a similar service called Lingo. Ukraine calls are 12cents a minute to landlines, 15 cents a minute to mobiles. $19.95 a month unlimited to USA/Canada and all of Western Europe (landlines, mobiles to Europe a bit extra)! Very pleased with sound quality and service. Like Vonage, you have to be on cable broadband to make use of it.  http://www.lingo.com . PM me if you're going to sign up, I can get a referral bonus. Cheers, Wendell in Austin

[Son of Clyde]

jb,

Do you still user Master Call Communications or has your new service completely replaced it? Is Vontage similar to Skype?

 

[jb]

No, Vonage doesn't replace MasterComm, but it does allow me to call their direct number which is several cents per minute cheaper than using the 1-800 access.

[andrewfi]

Have a look at Iconnecthere.com been doing the VOIP thing longer than Skype or Vonage and IMHO better.

I have been using them for years. Now, they gave me a free broadband adaptor to that I can use VIOP without my pc and with my cordless phone. Prices are very comeptitive and the service can also work as a calling card system when you are travelling (if you dont take your adaptor with yo, it works anywhere that you have an ethernet connctor...)

 

But I have nothing to say about the quality of Ukraine connections, excpet that it always seemed to me that when I used cheap calling cards the quality started good and then got worse as the card becoame more popular, until it became unusable. Buying a slightly more costly service avoided the pain and gave much greater flexibility, hence Iconnecthere.com !

[jb]

Another similar calling plan I found, and tried, that provided very good service, (sound quality and connection speed) was GetPin.  The rate to Moscow/St Pete is only 2 cents/min and 10.7 cents/min to anyplace in Ukraine.

Not too bad.

http://www.getpin.com/

[Son of Clyde]

I have a Champion card from Calling the World, Pushline and it works well. For some reason when the connection is bad the card and MCC may not work well and I resort to using my normal long distance carrier that charges about 33 cents a minute. Usually one of these three methods will eventually allow a decent connection.

[wxman]

I made another call today to Ukraine using vonage. Once again excellent! Sounded like I was calling next door. What suprised me the most that the phone started ringing on her end almost immediately, without the typical delay using landline. The call was so loud and clear I had to turn the volume down on my phone. Now I know why the phone companies want the government to slap all those taxes and surcharges on VOIP.  The phone companies first lost business to cell phones, and now they will be losing business to VOIP. I would not be suprised in 5 to 10 years that the cell companies will get worried too, as mobile phones start using VOIP technology.  I love competition!

[jb]

I had a look at Iconnecthere.com and noticed the price per minute to Ukraine was about 33% higher than MasterCommunications and GetPin, otherwise it's the exact same thing as Vonage, even the cost per month for the service is the same.

[andrewfi]

Yes, Iconnecthere are not the cheapest for 'calling card' services, but the quality is consistently good. Pareto seems to apply. One can save about 80% of the normal cost without losing too much quality, go further and the issues everyone describes take hold. I have been using this firm for a long time (years) and the quality has only ever improved. That is not the case with the cheapest services. There is a reason why things are cheap in a competitive marketplace.

BTW. most of my international calling is free of charge with Iconnecthere and thus the posted tariffs are moot...

I have 1000 minutes of included calls to the US and Canada (this can be set up such that your person in Russia or Ukraine has an American number, FOC.) and 250 minutes free to many other countries. I use the service for my domestic Estonian calls.

[jb]

Unfortunately most of us are not in Estonia, Andrew, what works for you doesn't always work for us.  Vonage offers VOIP, crystal clear calls thru the cable modem for unlimited calls and minutes within the US and Canada.  We still have to pay extra for calls to eastern Europe.  Without an add on  VOIP service, like GetPin or MasterComm, we would pay a hefty price per minute when we call Russia or Ukraine.  Personally I think $25.00 a month plus 2 or 10 cents a minute is pretty good when calling from here.

While I like you, (you know that, don't you?) sometimes you forget who you are dealing with.

[andrewfi]

Iconnect offer the same deal in the US as I use here. I would hardly suggest something that was not available to you. If you look at the services you will see that you can arrange to make your calls to Russia or Ukraine free of charge, other than your monthly subscription. To the best of my knowledge, Vonage do not offer a free adaptor and the one they sell is tied to their service. Iconnecthere provide an adaptor that will work with ALL VOIP services.

Vonage offer a good service, but not all the additional enhancements of a mature system. (calling card facilities, limited coverage etc)

If you want unlimited minutes and the ability to make calls to people in the FSU for free then look at this package:

http://www.iconnecthere.com/nonmembers/eng/broadband_phone/home/icall_unlimited.htm

The package I use offers 1000 minutes of included calls to US and Canada, 250 minutes to a load of other countires and the facility to have the free calls to any place in the world, for free.

http://www.iconnecthere.com/nonmembers/eng/broadband_phone/home/icall_unlimited.htm

To the best of my knowledge Vonage do not offer a package that gives the same facilities and capability for the same money. (I did look...)

If you have had good quality calls with a VOIP service to the FSU, then you will get the same quality when using the Calling Card service (same systems and connections, just using a POTS phone) as well as the benefits of the free calls in the subscription plan.

Nothing to sell here. Just that I have probably been doing this for a bit longer than most of you guys and for business, rather than family reasons.

If it is not clear on first read of the packages as to how to set up the system to get free calls to Ukraine and Russia, drop me a line and I will explain it.