What do you use to make LD calls?

[MrDisco]

I'm with my local phone provider and I'm not happy with the long distance charges. I was thinking of signing up with skype and paying-as-i-go. Has anyone used the paid Skype service? good? bad?

all comments are welcome!

[BigPfeiffer]

I used to use Skype to call friends and family back in the UK when I first moved to Canada. However, now I have a great long distance flat rate plan with Primus.ca - I pay a flat rate fee for unlimited calls to the UK. Far far cheaper than anyone else was able to quote. Not sure if Primus are nationwide though. As for Skype, the quality was generally very good although it would sometimes go through a spate of calls randomly getting dropped.

[Firestorm ZERO]

I'm thinking of actually switching everything (phone, internet and LD)to Primus due to Bell's plan to force UBB to 3rd party ISP through the CRTC and the fact I hate Bell. I'm actually near one of their remotes which can potentially get me 7Mpbs.

The only issue is
1) Primus requires 1 year "contract" (they say there is no contract which is true but there is a fee if you leave before 1 year so it is basically the same thing)
2) For internet you have to rent their modem. Even though you own the same model or have modem that works perfectly fine.
3) The LD plan doesn't have my home country as part of the unlimited bundle. Not really an issue but you know.

I was only looking at their bundles BTW.

[MrDisco]

i was looking at Primus' home phone service but then started reading some reviews and got scared off by the negative posts.

[BigPfeiffer]

Well we are with Bell Aliant (terrible) for our home phone and net service and we pay 19.95 to Primus for their Unlimited Europe plan, which considering I call the UK virtually every day works out great. I've never had a problem with Primus but having a LD plan is limited exposure I guess.

[nat]

I used to use the Skype paid service to make calls home while I lived in Beijing, and I never had a problem with it even on a mediocre DSL connection. Calls did cut out a few times, but calls I received on landlines from the U.S. also would cut out