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 Sri Lanka 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.
