Many of us may wonder why it is that when we ring one country; the calls are more expensive then ringing another country. Like if you were ringing any country in South Asia, like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan or Srilanka the call charges are higher than if one was to ring the USA or Canada.
If you took two countries on either side from where you were calling from whose distance was approximately the same from you, you would find the call charges would differ. For instance if we continue with the above example and take the distance between Afghanistan and the UK it is approximately the same as from the USA to the UK. Yet if you ring the USA which is approximately 5915 kilometres or 3676 miles or 3194 nautical miles from the UK the call charges are 3 pence per minute and if you called Afghanistan which is approximately 5721 kilometres or 3555 miles or 3089 nautical miles from the UK the call will cost 20 pence per minute. Though this may seem unfair but if you investigate a little, you will find that there are definite reasons for the difference in calls charges
To exactly put a finger on one reason why the difference is would be difficult because there are many factors that come into play to create the difference in call rates. We will try to explain this
The first thing to understand is that the calls travels over a phone line starting from the point of call to its destination. If you were to ring India from the UK the call starts from the point that you are calling from that would be your home or where you are now at this moment in time and in the first case would go to your local exchange and then be passed to a international gateway where carriers would pass the call from one carrier to another and all the way to the destination country where the international gateway at that end will take the call and pass it to its local exchange and onto the final point. All this happens instantaneously.
The second thing to understand is that each carrier have their own set rates to take the call over its network and also these carriers charges vary depending on the time of the call, like if the carrier was carriering the call during its peak time it will charge a higher rate then the carrier who is continuing the call packet over its network during a off peak time. Further the same call may pass through times when it maybe peak time in one country and an off-peak time in the country next to it, hence the carriers would charge accordingly.
Thirdly the country receiving the call will have there own tariff costs to handle the call. If the volume of calls to a particular country are high, that country may have a low tariff cost as it maybe making enough revenue to cover its cost due the volume of calls, compared to a country where the volume of calls are not that high so to cover its cost, that country may have a higher tariff.
Fourthly also consider whether the structure or systems in place in these respective countries are automatic or manual. If a country is handling a call manually then the cost of manpower to manage these calls will be high, so those country will charge higher compared to a country where the system in place is all automatic, state of art fibre optic digital exchanges.
So considering all the above we at Really Just Dial continuously ensure that the call cost charges are to a minimum so that we can pass the savings onto our customers and they can enjoy the benefit of making cheap international calls.
Why not check our rates and make your call.
Enjoy and good luck
Author: Really Just Dial Team | Posted: 07 April 2007
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