About Me

I ramble about a number of things - but travel experiences, movies and music feature prominently. See my label cloud for a better idea. All comnments and opinions on this blog are my own, and do not in any way reflect the opinions/position of my employer (past/current/future).

28 April 2006

Telkom: The Ripoff

Also known as the "continued experiments with Skype"

So, I decided to arm myself with 10 Euros of Skype credit (the only ammount you can purchase) and try to phone some places - chief being my family back in India. To test it out however, I decided to call my Mom in Durban first. The 3 minute 19 sec call (just before 6pm) cost me 22 euro cents or approximately R1.67 according to xe.com. The quality was not great unfortunately, but was still audible, and understandable - although there were quite a few dropped packets.

Comparatively, if I used a Telkom Payphone, it would have cost me R4.50 on a Telkom pay phone and R2.66 on a land line. As for using a cell phone, it would have cost me just under R10 according to the rates on the Vodacom website. Thus, Skype beats all of them at the rates game!

As for India there was some serious lag ... about 4 to 5 seconds. But hell, the cost made it worth it.

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