I received my first Internet call from the UK this morning. I found of a service which gives out UK phone numbers to Free World Dialup customers for free. Calls to the UK number get billed at the UK national rate, not the outrageous overseas rates normally paid for US calls.
The sound quality report was mixed. I heard my UK counterpart superbly – better than any landline phone. However, he said I was breaking up, with lots of echo and other odd effects. I blamed that on the Asante firewall router my in-laws have. It seems to drop and/or mangle packets from time to time.
Anyhow, its a promising start. I’ll try another call from the corporate network this week to see if the quality improves.