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International Calling Alternatives With Higher Quality Sound
Are you dissatisfied with the sound quality of your phone calls when you use a calling card to get in touch with friends, relatives, or business partners overseas? Calling card companies leave a lot to be desired, which is why so many people are making the switch to a new kind of phone service that lets you prepay for long distance calling, make local calls at a lower rate than major carriers offer, and use mobile apps to manage your account and make calls quickly and easily, without having to dial in PINs.
When you make international calls with a calling card, what you’re doing is going through a third-party to connect to a carrier – that’s the company that owns the telecommunications infrastructure. Because calling card businesses are so secretive, you often have no idea who is actually carrying your call forward and this is why sound quality is often so bad. Premium carriers (i.e., companies like Bell, Telus, Verizon, AT&T, Vodafone and O2) may not offer perfect sound quality, but as they introduce quality-improving technology such as VoLTE (Voice over Long Term Evolution) and HD calling, sound quality improves so long as your call is assigned enough bandwidth. For a more in-depth explanation of how sound quality improvements work and which carriers are implementing them, see Scientific American.
One international calling company that works with premium carriers to deliver superior sound quality is G3 Telecom and they offer low cost international calling to India, Cuba, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and over 40 other countries. These partnerships mean that your calls go through premium routes at a carrier-grade quality, while costing considerably less than carrier long distance fees. You also enjoy the same coverage that you would with a mainstream carrier, so you never have to worry about taking your cell into a dead zone. Prepaid long distance calling is available from G3 Telecom on both your cell and your home phone.
Sound quality isn’t the only shortfall of most calling card companies – there’s also the fees. Hidden fees are so ubiquitous they are actually part of the business plan for most companies. Generally speaking, these companies don’t make much money from their actual rates, so instead they turn a profit by charging fees without any information about them on the card or by using minute rounding, which can make your calls considerably more expensive than they really should be. The most frustrating part of fees is that most of the time, you aren’t warned about them before purchase, so it’s impossible to find the most competitive rates without losing a lot of money in trial and error.
If you’re sick of hidden fees and poor-quality calls, trying a transparent company that uses premium carrier routes like G3 Telecom can give you predictable, affordable long distance calling. Whenever you use an international calling company, you should be able to look up their rates online and get 24/7 customer support. Stop letting telecommunications surprise you when you make long distance calls and start using an affordable, reliable alternative that lets you know the rates up front.
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