Callserve enables telephone calls from your PC over the Internet to anywhere in the World at the most competitive rates available. Home users can save up to 85% on long distance calls. Just download Callserve's free Internet Telephone and follow the simple on-screen instructions.

With Callserve, you dial numbers exactly as you would from a UK-based cellphone, including the international dialling code from the UK when needed. Most UK users will find it convenient to use the dialling codes they're familiar with, especially since the US services tend to assume you will use the US codes.

When the Callserve software loads, it puts a replica of a mobile phone on-screen, and you dial by clicking on the numbers -- inconveniently, it doesn't seem to accept keyboard input. Callserve doesn't offer you the option of storing your PIN on disk, unlike Net2Phone. There are a couple of extra 'keys' you won't find on an ordinary mobile phone. One, bearing a '$' sign, takes you to the Web pages where you can add funds to your account. The other, adorned with a small 'i', accesses the online help pages. The latter are pretty good as these things go, but would be improved by better indexing and internal linking.

Our testing with Callserve went reasonably smoothly, although the sound quality suffered because the service won't work over BT's NAT-based ADSL service. This isn't peculiar to Callserve: the communications standard supported by Callserve and the other services reviewed here, H.323, requires a number of ports to be open on the user's computer. BT's NAT (Network Address Translation) protection closes these off, and there is no way for an individual user to open them.

This may be good security, but it means that if people want to use popular services like Internet phones or video conferencing, they'll need to get the non-NAT service and install their own firewall. Although this might seem shortsighted on BT's part, there's no compelling reason for it to support a technology that, after all, enables competition with its core telephone call business.

Testimonials

"Thank you for the excellent service I get from Callserve and the cheapest Internet phone calls. You make my World connection much easier."
Capt. Mamoun Mokhtar, Marine Pilot UAE