I need to phone a friend in South Africa, and find the cheapest seems to be VJ internet at 20p per min to land lines. I dare not ask about calls to cell phones there! They are at the higher end of the range of such calls via discount connections from UK. To land lines they are only 4p per min.

The info on posters in Lenco booths includes SA, but attempted calls do not connect. I could not get through to an English speaking machine or human on their enquiry number.

I sometimes also need to call Zimbabwe. Any suggestions there. I had an impossible task to Econet numbers in Zimbabwe for some time, but the problems seemed to have been greatly eased a few weeks ago. 10p per min is possible to cell numbers, and 5p to landlines (same as Thailand - land and mobile).

I suspect there are many factors affecting the rates available for calling different countries - reasonable problams of logistics as well as extortionate access charges by networks in the countries concerned. Why should access to Thailand cell nos be among the cheapest anywhere?

I need to phone a friend in South Africa, and find the cheapest seems to be VJ internet at 20p per min to land lines. I dare not ask about calls to cell phones there! They are at the higher end of the range of such calls via discount connections from UK. To land lines they are only 4p per min.

The info on posters in Lenco booths includes SA, but attempted calls do not connect. I could not get through to an English speaking machine or human on their enquiry number.

I sometimes also need to call Zimbabwe. Any suggestions there. I had an impossible task to Econet numbers in Zimbabwe for some time, but the problems seemed to have been greatly eased a few weeks ago. 10p per min is possible to cell numbers, and 5p to landlines (same as Thailand - land and mobile).

I suspect there are many factors affecting the rates available for calling different countries - reasonable problams of logistics as well as extortionate access charges by networks in the countries concerned. Why should access to Thailand cell nos be among the cheapest anywhere?

Believe it or not TOT 008 10p / minute.

I think its the same for Handphomes as land lines.

http://www.tot.co.th/content/index.php?lang=EN

Zimbabwe is almost 50p / min

I've found a solution I think. phone net is 5B + VAT (1B cheaper than to UK!) via freephone no, + local call charge from Public boxes. It also works via DTAC at least. Zim another matter - 32B + VAT land and mobile (5 and 10p respectively from UK)