Buying a phone card online

When buying a phone card online look for a online website that has a real phone number that you can call in case there is a problem. All phone card users will occasionally have some kind of problem. One reason is that all phone cards use voip technology. There is nothing bad about voip technology, thats why everyone uses it.

However, all voip is not the same. Large telecom giants such as ATT, MCI, and Sprint all use voip. These giant telecom carriers make some of their own international termination by installing facilities in other countries. To meet their ever growing demand, they also buy additional termination capacity from other carriers.

Here is where it gets interesting. A international carrier can be a telecom giant such as ATT, or it could be a guy with an internet connection, a phone line, and a router. That's it. The carrier sends the call over the internet to the guys IP address, his router processes the call, and the call is sent out through the local telephone line. The problem is that all the technology works... but quality can vary from excellent to bearly audible.

The quality is generally a direct relationship to how much the carrier pays for the terminated minutes. In order to compete in the calling card marketplace, calling card issuers tend to demand lower priced minutes from their carriers, and so goes the quality.

So when buying a phone card online or at the corner market, look for a national brand that has been around for a while. Select an online company who publishes a phone number for customer support and does not force you to rely only on the customer support number printed on the back of your phone card.