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A few months ago I needed to call a friend in Korea from my cell phone and even though I didn’t have an international calling plan I figured it couldn’t cost that much, so I dialed him up and we talked for about 10 minutes. Two weeks later I nearly crapped in my pants when I got the bill and saw that AT&T had charged me over $30 for that phone call! Groan. They literally charged me $3/minute. Bastards!
That’s never gonna happen again, though. AT&T would love for dumbasses like myself to pay them a monthly fee for an international calling plan or get raped on every overseas call I make, but starting now I’m using Call Global App whenever I feel the need to dial another country from my cell.
You’d think there would be cheaper ways to make these calls… I’m sure a lot of people will say “just use Skype” or some virtual calling card deal… but Call Global App’s rates are actually better than Skype’s and waaaayyy better than AT&T’s. Even if I had an international calling plan, AT&T would have charged me $.15/minute to call my friend’s cell in Seoul. Skype would have charged me $.08, and Call Global’s rate via their Direct Dial option was about $.07/minute.
Even better is that you get $2 of free calling when you install the app so you can take it for a test drive.
Making an international call from Call Global App is easy and, in most countries (44 of them, anyway), you can use the Direct Dial method. Just put in the number you want to call and the app will first dial some number you’ve never seen before and then it’ll dial the loser you’re calling. It takes a few seconds but it’s much less of an obstacle than dialing an access number manually and inputting a secret PIN to identify your account.
If you’re in a country where Direct Dial isn’t available due to some government regulatory jackassery, you can use the World Call option which costs a bit more but it’s still an affordable workaround – calling Korea this way was $.11/minute vs. $.07 for Direct. You put in the number you’re calling and then, after a few seconds, your phone will ring! I guess what happens is Call Global is calling you at the same time they’re calling the number you want to dial, and you sort of meet in the middle on what seems like an otherwise normal phone call.
Call quality was great and I could hear the guy in Korea without any issues, and he said the same about the connection on his end. The only thing that made the call a little difficult was a two second delay between us. ideasforiphone is working on fixing this, and this is what they had to say about it:
The 2 second delay you are experiencing is because in order for us to bypass AT&T we have to redirect the calls to our phone switch, and then connects them to the person they are calling. But our developer has been diligently working to eliminate that 2 second delay, with the next update it should be drastically shortened.
Yeah, it’s a pretty well-publicized fact that AT&T wants other forms of telephony to stay far, far away from the iPhone! Nice to see that companies like ideasforiphone are outsmarting the system. The two second delay was pretty noticeable on my first call through Call Global, but on a more recent conversation with that dude in Korea it seemed much less prounounced on World Call and even less noticeable on a Direct Call.
As far as the Call Global App software is concerned, overall it’s pretty good but one caveat I have to make here is that the phone number format that’s accepted by the app sometimes conflicts with how the iPhone wants to handle country codes when making a World Call. I only did two Direct Calls but didn’t have any issues.
Anyway, when you put a different country’s phone number in your contacts, the iPhone wants to format it like this:
+82 10-1234-5678
+(x) is the country code, and the hyphens are also added in automatically.
Call Global App, though, didn’t like this format and I couldn’t get a successful Global Call started until I removed all formatting so that the number looked like this:
821012345678
It’s not a big deal if you’re only calling a couple of different numbers, but it’s this kind of thing that frustrates people and leads them to believe that the service just doesn’t work (which it totally does).
Phone number formatting aside, the app goes pretty deep in letting you check your account balance, call history, calling rates, etc., and there’s also a Favorites list for quicker dialing. Pretty nice app overall, but it uses some odd VoIP-ish terminology (um, wtf is “USA RBOC”?) that will be dumbed down in a future update, and to recharge your account you need to go to the Call Global website. The good news, however, is that once you recharge your account balance on the website it becomes available immediately on your iPhone.
If you plan on making international calls from your iPhone and can deal with the hopefully-temporary nuisance of a short voice delay, get Call Global App right now. Dialing directly from your iPhone without an overseas calling plan will bankrupt you in short order, and as far as I can tell the calling rates are very fair, plus I’m told that any money you put into recharging your account will never expire. GOOD! I hate when my money expires. Other companies perpetrate this ripoff and get away with it (even Skype), but it’s not an issue here.
The app is free, and you get $2 worth of free calls to try it out for yourself, so there’s really nothing to lose here unless you really enjoy bending over for AT&T. Go on, try it!
iTunes Link – Call Global App
Version 1.2
Reviewed on iPhone 3G OS3.0.1
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- Make sure your Call To number is unformatted in World Call!
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- The $.11 World Call rate is a combination of what it costs to call Korea and what it costs for Call Global to call you
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- Account management is pretty sweet in this app
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- Direct Call rates are awesome... well, when calling Korea anyway. Other countries are probably good, too.
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on Aug 27th, 2009 at 7:33 am
This is interesting…I have relatives in the Philippines and this is something I can actually use.
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Dough reply on February 15th, 2010 9:08 am:
Use truphone, it’s much cheaper & reliable.
Cheers.
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on Aug 27th, 2009 at 8:58 am
It’s a great app!!!! I use it all the time to call to Latin America and it’s the best. Highly recommended.
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on Aug 27th, 2009 at 10:52 am
I just downloaded the app from my iphone as i read this. Set up is way quicker than truphone or Skype within 5 minutes i was talking to my sister in Germany.
I am also not in a WIFI zone, i dont know how the app does it. Skype can only be used in WIFI zones. And the call quality is much better than Skype. I recommend this app.
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Dough reply on February 15th, 2010 9:13 am:
Stephen, it’s not rocket science, it’s call back function, it good when you are not in WiFi zone, but you will be charged double for it, call charge for destination & call charge for incoming country.
Please do go through the details before registering.
Good luck.
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on Aug 27th, 2009 at 10:54 am
The quality was amazing, sounded like i was talking to my neighbor across the street! 2 thumbs up!
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on Aug 27th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
This really is an amazing tool for me. I travel a lot and spend a fortune on my iphone in LD and roaming. The Call Global app saves me at least $400 a month! I also have a VIRTUAL NUMBER in London which makes it easy for family to call me whenever they want. GREAT APP
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on Aug 27th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Google Voice does exactly what you need. And to Seoul its only 0.03/minute.
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Clavema reply on August 27th, 2009 7:20 pm:
I am so sorry to say that clarity of the call is not as clear as CallGlobla’s. When you are making a long distance call you want to finish the conversation without having to redial constantly which is what happens with Skype and Google Voice.
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Michael (Admin) reply on August 27th, 2009 9:14 pm:
To clarify, Google’s rate to Korea is $.03 for calling landlines (CG is $.057). Google Talk to Korean cell is $.06 vs. CG’s $.07 so yes it’s cheaper, but as of right now there’s no Google Talk app for the iPhone and that’s kind of the whole point of using Call Global.
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on Aug 27th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
I love this app !!!!! , AT & T can be the biggest rip off when it comes to long distance rates and Skype has horrible connection, its always getting hung up and the voice breaks constantly. This application works so good, crystal clear communication, super cheap rates. I recommend it to everyone that has an IPhone.
Great job IdeasForIPhone !! !
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on Aug 30th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Thanks for this. Unfortunately AT&T does charge wayyy too much for International phone calls.
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on Oct 15th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
DO NOT GET THIS APP THEY LIE TO YOU I HAVE SIGNED UP SINCE 10/9/2009 AND STILL HAVENT REC’D AND ACTIVATION EMAIL THEY ARE SCAMMMMMMMMMSSSSSSSSS
I REPEAT THEY ARE SCAM….
I CALLED AND I COUND NEVER SPEAK TO THE MANGER HE ALWAYS IN A MEETING
DO NOT GET THIS APP YOU WILL BE SORRY.
IT SUCK CALL GLOBAL YOU GUYS SUCK BIG TIME
I WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW. THEY HAVE MY INFORMATION FLOATING AROUND AND MORE THAN A WEEK NO ANSWERS THEY SUCKSSSSS
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Michael (Admin) reply on October 15th, 2009 2:22 pm:
Gail, I’m going to send you the email address for my contact at Call Global and hopefully you can sort things out that way. So far I’ve deposited funds twice with them ($10 and then $25) and both times the money was available for use immediately.
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Sean Gill reply on October 15th, 2009 4:02 pm:
Hello Gail,
I am Sean Gill, COO of Call Global and firstly I would like to appologize about your expieriences with our app thus far. A few others have had a similar issue with their confirmation email, and what seems to be the case, is that it was either sent to your junk email or youe email address was entered incorrectly when you signed up.
I can 100% assure we are the furthest thing from a scam. And we promise to prove to you, our service goes above and beyond any phone service you have previously used.
Here is the email address of our CEO/President, John Gill: John@phoenix-tel.com . Email him your contact information and he will get you on the phone and personally solve all of your issues. He will also answer any questions you may have, so you can have full understanding of the service and how it can fulfill your needs.
Again I am sorry about your expieriences thus far, but we do appreciate your criticism because it shows us where we must improve.
Warmest Regards,
Sean Gill
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CLAVEMA reply on October 15th, 2009 10:32 pm:
I’m so sorry you (Gail) had a bad experience, maybe you are not doing it correctly. I, for myself, had so far excellent service, immediate turn around response when I had a question and most importantly, the quality of the call is impeccable, and I’m sure there are may people that agree with me. (just try reading the other comments)
Using the word “scam” seems too harsh, because to begin with they give away $2 FREE to try the service.
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Kevin reply on October 16th, 2009 10:12 am:
Gail I have this app and love it, how can you call it a scam when the app is free and they give you $2 free long distance?
Maybe you scared customer service, based on your comment you sound a bit crazy!
I just wanted to say I disagree with you and hope you have better luck in the future… Keep smiling!
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on Oct 18th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
If it’s not using the internet connection for VoIP, then it must be using your ATT minutes. No LD charges, only local calls, but those minutes have a cost to you, even if they are included in your plan.
Thus price is not a real advantage. Skype could actually be cheaper.
On the other hand, you get more freedom (no wifi at home and no data charges abroad), and a better connection. Those are the real advantages IMO.
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on Oct 31st, 2009 at 8:11 pm
CallGlobal has a lot of potential but as of now, it’s just too rough a product. I signed up and entered one “0″ too much in my phone number, just to find out that there was no way to change the phone number once you put it in. I had to spend half an hour on the phone with their support line (as they didn’t respond to any of my emails) just to change the phone number.
When you try to change either your phone number or your virtual number on the website, you get an unspecified error. And probably worst of all, there is no way to close your account on the website, meaning that after you’ve given this company your credit card information, there is no way you can delete this information.
The virtual number feature is cool, but honestly the sound quality just wasn’t that great. Voices sounded muffled and not clear at all.
And finally, they seem to overcharge me per minute, a call that should be $0.04 per minute was $.0.10 when I looked at my account overview..
So all in all, this app has a lot of potential but as of now it’s just too rough and unfinished.
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on Mar 2nd, 2010 at 7:18 am
i have a call global account since december…
does call global deal with a company called (to connect) in bahrain ?? because (to connect) is also charging me for my international calls in addition to what i pay call global…please verify.
i forgot to mention i live in bahrain.
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on Apr 8th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
You can actually use Vonage (monthly subscription of 24$) unlimited calling to 60 countries…
There two options to make a call through Vonage
1) WIFI (which is always free of airtime minutes) and
2) 3G.
also if you have AT&T’s A-List you can add the gateway number 646-845-1929. that way you wont be billed for airtime minutes (6 AM to 9 PM).
here’s the link to the site: http://www.vonagemobile.com/
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on Apr 8th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
You can actually use Vonage (monthly subscription of 24$) unlimited calling to 60 countries…
There two options to make a call through Vonage
1) WIFI (which is always free of airtime minutes) and
2) 3G.
also if you have AT&T’s A-List you can add the gateway number 646-845-1929. that way you wont be billed for airtime minutes (6 AM to 9 PM).
here’s the link to the site: http://www.vonagemobile.com/
This would be useful you make international calls frequently and have AT&T’s A-List activated (free based on the plan you are in)
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clavema reply on April 8th, 2010 5:54 pm:
For TLN:
If you’re going to advertise Vonage here, then all of us that think and know Call Global is better than all other companies, should also place our comments advertising Call Global in Vonage’s website.
I think these type of comments you need to keep to yourself. This forum is to provide feedback, good or bad of Call Global. Not to advertise another company.
Its simple, if you don’t find Call Global to be suitable for you, then don’t even bother coming to this website.
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