Calling India from UK

Calling to India from UK is not as easy as dialing the number directly from mobile and keeping cost in control.

In UK, there are multiple schemes and multiple top-ups, normally as Indian would not be used to.

To simplify the understanding....I have listed some of the cost-effective options that are available currently.

A practice that is followed by a visitor or travelling for short-time

1. Buy a Lebara sim and call to India for 5p per minutes - this turn to Rs 3.50 per minute

+ Dialing is easy
- Costly

A practice that is followed by a Students from India, studying in UK is

1. Buy any SIM in UK. Usually when you buy a SIM and do top-up for ex: £ 5, they will give approx 500 minutes of local call to UK i.e. dialing to 01,02, 03 free.

They then buy a top-up for £ 2 from certain local UK providers which gives them 200 minutes calling to India.

How they dial to India is ..

1. Dial the local UK provider bridge number
2. Dial again the India number

If you do a mistake in dialing the India number, you have to re-dial again.

+ cost effective [Rs 2 per minute all inclusive]
- tedious dialing method

One more option they do is...

1. Buy calling card from VoIP providers and dial to India

+ cost effective [ From Rs 0.70 to 1.70 per minute]
- you need to have a computer with mic & speaker & internet connection
- you need to have a paypal account

An alternate to this is

1. Buy any SIM, where you get 500 minutes free for £ 5 local dialing like 01,02 and 03.
2. Buy AirTel Call Home calling card. AirTel charges around 1.2 to 1.3p per minute.

The advantage of AirTel is

1. They accept credit cards from India
2. They give Speed Dial option

How they dial to India is using this method ..

 

1. Dial the AirTel bridge number of the city you are located

2. Dial the speed dial, which you have registered in AirTel UK site

 

+ cost effective [Rs 1 per minute all inclusive]

+ easy dial

+ Indian credit cards are accepted

 

Any fluctuation on the currency, if it goes less is advantage for us.