Talktime India

When you are in the Sam land, on the most frequent activities that each of us does is "call India". If its a weekend especially (arre yaar, aaj toh sunday morning hoga, aaram se ghar baath karr sakte hain fir).

I initially started out on a service recommended by a friend (uspcard.com), later the site closed down and I started using Reliance (like most people do). I was also invited to another service (Stanacard). But I was quite contended with Reliance and so didn't see any point in a switch.

I have now moved to Texas (from Missouri) and some folks recommended the services of VOIP(Voice over IP). Now I absolutely loath the idea of having a headset,mic thingy and talk to India, so I was quite skeptical about the whole idea.

I tried out the VOIP thing though(www.nonoh.net). Being cautious I started out with just an investment of 13$ on the initial talktime .

You just need your cellphone to talk to India over here(Also the party you are talking to at the other end just needs a phone,either cell/landline). The phone is something which is much more common in India still than gtalk,yahoo ids. Also people in India aren't logged in 24*7 to their user accounts like some folks over here I know are ;)
This ultimately meant that I could now talk to India( dirt cheap i.e. 3c/min) and also not feel like a call center employee( bbye Mr.Headset n Mr.Mic) while doing so.

Voice clarity and other details like connectivity etc. were fine. I have used this service for a week now. But of course there is a downside to this. Whoever is doing the calling over here has to initiate the call through the site.

So if you are on the move then I would say you are better of using Reliance,Stanacard etc. But if you are looking for a leisurely long chat then VOIP is the way to go.

Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with any VOIP sites, nor am I getting a commission from them. I am just a consumer of this great service.