Call for Free is an Australian service which lets you make free international calls using the free minutes in your mobile phone package and you can call cheaply from your landline phone. You can make cheap or free calls to 70 different countries by using an access number directly from your phone. The only cost is for the connection to the CallForFree number.

There is no account to set up, no software to download and install in your mobile, and no pre-payment required, just dial the access number which is: 0413 704 086.

Fring is a mobile phone application that lets you connect to other Fring users for free, and gives cheaper call rates to local and international numbers. It’s a social network on your mobile phone with many services, including being able to interact with friends on Facebook, Skype, Messenger, Twitter, Yahoo and others directly from your mobile phone.

Fring allows you to put all your friends from different social networks in one friends’ list. You can then see quickly who’s online and contactable. You need to have a mobile device that will support the Fring software (see their website for compatibility) and has internet capability.

Yak is a Canadian telecom service with several features: Home Phone, Long Distance Plans, Long Distance Cell and High Speed Internet, among others. It’s not a voip service but a standard telephone network and is available in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.

There are no access fees and the only monthly fee you will pay is if you choose to receive a paper invoice rather than an electronic one. This incurs a fee of $1.95 per month, but is waived for the over 65s. The system also enables access to emergency numbers.

Jumblo is a voip system that offers cheap phone rates internationally and for certain countries you can call landline phones free of charge. There are various ways of using the service but the two main ones are to either download their voip software and call from your PC, or enter both phone numbers (your own and the destination number) into their website, Jumblo will then call your phone and connect you.

In order to sign up and create an account (whichever way you want to use the service) you first need to download the software. Then you need to add credit to your account – any credit added will not expire. You can also take advantage of their 3 free minutes to sample their service before signing up.

There are some amazingly cheap international call rates available, but sometimes that’s still not quite cheap enough. Believe it or not, you can make free international calls when calling from either a landline or when using VoIP.

Some telecom companies give free calls from your existing home telephone, and to access these free rates you simply need to dial a number before your call in order to connect to their free network. There is no need to change your existing telephone provider or your telephone number.