After Ziggo (my ISP) announced to stop (april 1st 2014) the free calls between Ziggo members, I decided to take a look at something different. The new offer of Ziggo is to pay them 9,95 Euros per month to get our free calls back. Huh? Free calls? !@*&^%$

Some calculations: At the moment our subscription consists of a standard 9,95 Euro fee each month. No free minutes in that subscription, but because we mainly call other Ziggo members we get a lot of minutes for free that way. It was a selling point years ago. An average month:

  • 205 minutes to other Ziggo members = 0 Euros
  • 80 minutes to non Ziggo members = 7,20 Euros

This brings the total of such a month to 17,15 Euros (standard fee + minutes). As of the 1st of April I will pay them (at least they hope) 35,60 Euros (285 minutes at a 9 cent rate + standard fee). Ziggo, are you nuts?

Ah well, they have their great offer now. If I pay them 9,95 Euros (standard fee) plus an additional fee of 9,95 Euros, I get free calls to everyone. Free calls after paying 2,75 Euros extra each month. That’s not going to happen!

So I decided to take a look at some cheap VOIP providers. I don’t need you for my voice dialling Ziggo!

Looked at Skype, VOIPBuster but eventually ran into CheapConnect. A Dutch company offering VOIP for great rates. At MAX ICT I bought a Cisco SPA112 ATA which can convert VOIP to an analog signal my home telephone can use. This is because when I leave Ziggo VOIP, they won’t let me use the VOIP-port on their modem. 😉

Today I went to pickup my SPA112 and it turned out to be a good investment. Hooked the thing up to a test account at CheapConnect, and I started calling within 5 minutes. Good sound quality and excellent rates.

A calculation:

  • Voip In/Out account = 0,75 Euros per month (8,95 Euros per year)
  • 265 minutes = 6,30 Euros per month (0,0238 Euro per minute)

Compared to the Ziggo offering, this solution is 12,85 Euros per month cheaper! I should have done this much earlier.

Ok, lets be honest. I had to buy the SPA112 costing me 42 Euros, and I have to pay CheapConnect a one-time fee of 5 Euros to port my old number from Ziggo. That’s a one-time investment of 47 Euro which I will earn back in less than 4 months.

Ziggo, thank you! Thank you for trying to let people pay extra for free minutes. Thanks to you I will save 155 Euros each year!