What's up with Nobelcom? - Russian Ukrainian Belarus Travel Music Woman Dating News

	The Russian Meeting Place: A place to meet people and talk about all things Russian... International Discussions about Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Travel, Music, Russian News, Ukrainian culture, Belarusian Dating, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kiev and other intelligent topics about life in the former Soviet Union.

Pages: 1

What's up with Nobelcom?
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)

Posted by: golek

Has anyone else who uses Nobelcom phone cards noticed they've been having problems lately? For the last two weeks I have to try several times to get a connection to Moscow and sometimes when I do finally get through the connection is terrible. I just got disconnected in the middle of a conversation with Olya and now I can't even get through to the access number. I guess their whole system is down or something.

I've been using Nobelcom for a year and it's been great, but lately I don't know.

It feels good to vent.

Posted by: bdoug71

Speaking of Phoning FSU. I had been using 10-10-987 and I finally got my bill.. Wow that 39 cent connection fee hurts..

I guess I need to start looking into other options. I always hated using cards or 10-10 #'s. Is there a good international calling plan or am I consigned to a calling card for any international calls? Hope to hear more soon.

Bruce D

So long and thanks for all the Fish

Posted by: ConnerVT

I have switched over to EuroMAMA from the GlobalPAPA calling cards. GlobalPAPA's quality has really gone downhill recently, and they lowerede their price to get some people back.. It just ain't worth it.

EuroMama is now 8.3 cents/min to Russia, with no service charges billed at 1 minute increments. Sound quality is very good. It's even cheaper to call Moscow than the US (less than 5 cents/min)!

If anyone plans on buying a card from www.ldpost.com , please drop me an PM with your name and email addy -- I can get a discount for the referal!

Posted by: rusviva

Hey, Golek!

Me and my husband stopped using Nobel since last summer. Actually it worked fine for Russia but everytime I called to Ukraine (I call to Ukraine more often) it was wasted time and money. It never connected from the first effort, worst quality

We called them back and complained. They replied that there is nothing they could do and that we should try later. I could not talk more than a minute with such quality and had to buy another card. One day when I needed to call urgently to Ukraine I decided to use my Nobel card again. Operator told me that I still have $11. And then it politely notified me that my card has expired and I can't use it anymore

. My husband called them again but they informed us that there is nothing they could do and we have to buy a new card.

What's the heck with $11, this is Nobel's problem, they lost a good client

Posted by: golek

Well, yesterday I bought a phone card from MasterBell and was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to order and how quick I was able to get through to Olya. On the same day that Nobelcom was taking 3-4 tries to get through (IF I could get through), Masterbell went through on the first try with great quality. Also it takes half as long to go through the prompts as with Nobelcom. I'll use up the Nobelcom card that I have, but I think I may change for good after that. On MasterBell, I get 5 hours of talk time to Moscow for $10 with no connection fee. That's cheaper than Nobelcom.

Bruce, stop using 10-10. Buying cards over the Internet is the way to go. It is cheaper for me to call Moscow using these cards than it is for me to pick up my phone and call the next county. Is that WACK or what? How much longer will the telephone companies be able to fleece people like that? Not long, I imagine.

Posted by: midwest

I go with Primus as my long distance company(good quality, 9.9c/min Russia, 4.9c/interstate, dial directly), and you can find nice rates at www.easterntelecom.net - Russia at 4.5c/min, but these are calling cards (some as low as 3.3c/min, but with some user fees), so you have to do some dialing (which is not a big deal anyway)

Posted by: ConnerVT

There are a number of good deals when you are shopping around. Just make sure you are comparing all of the things that affect your price:

Where you are calling -- If you are calling Moscow, there are some extremely low rates out there. But remember, if you are calling someone on their cell phone, you will be paying the carriers rate for Russia -- Mobile, not their Moscow rate.
Local Access Numbers -- Check for the companies local access numbers. If you live in NYC, LA, etc., there may be a local access number that you call to make your phone call. If you live somewhere else (like most of us) you will be calling an 800 number to make your call. Carriers typically charge an additional 1 to 3 cents to do this. If your cell phone has free long distance, you can get around this. But you still are burning minutes, or are limited when you can call with those "unlimited" nights and weekend plans.
Maintenance Fees -- This is something they may charge you for keeping your card active each week. It's money they just take from you. Do not get a card with these.
Connection Fees -- A fee they charge to make each call. If you get disconnected, they charge you again. Don't ever get a card with these.
Rounding -- The best cards round to the nearest minute. Some out there round at 3 and 5 minute increments. You don't want to pay for time you aren't on the telephone.

Finally, the one last important thing to look for is a quality connection. It doesn't matter how inexpensive it is (or how much money you saved) if you can't talk with one another! True, sound quality of many Russian telephone systems is not very good. Most of these long distance carriers use satillite digital backbones. When congested, there are times where a person "drops out" (sounds like talking on a digital cell phone). Buy a $10 card, and see if you like it. If not, move to someone else.

After all the shopping, I still thing EuroMAMA from LDPost is the best value out there.

Posted by: ConnerVT

One last cute story:

Over dinner one night at my fiancee's parents home, the discussion turned to the prices of things in America. I was at a loss to think of one thing in America that was less expensive than it's counterpart in Russia.

A day or so later, in Natalya's flat, I finally thought of something -- Long Distance Telephone Calls! We discuss if 8 cents/min is better than 9 cents/min, where it's difficult to even make a long distance call for many Russians! When they do, they ususally end up paying 5-10X what we pay...

Posted by: Khashyar

It's good to regularly talk about phone cards and update one another as to how they are working...

I think that many of these calling card companies negotiate and purchase wholesale telephone line connections, and so in this case, quality could fluctuate...

Lena and I haven't used Nobelcom for about 3 or 4 weeks

so we can't comment of their quality recently...

Before about 3 or 4 weeks ago, things worked fine for us to call both Moscow and Belarus.... But, it's good to hear recent experiences of others....

Khashyar

Posted by: olg5

Now masterbell get you more choice for international phone card. See rates and you get more calls ;-)

Posted by: Khashyar

Hi Olga,

Welcome to the Russian Meeting Place...

Do you work for masterbell, or are you a customer?

Khashyar

Posted by: ConnerVT

Probably a Comfi affilliate.

Looks like spam, smells like spam. My guess.... SPAM!

Posted by: olg5

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khashyar

Hi Olga,

Welcome to the Russian Meeting Place...

Do you work for masterbell, or are you a customer?

Khashyar

I customer this company and I really like their rates

Posted by: Pin Boy

i've used noble with pretty good success to kiev and odessa.

pb

Posted by: ConnerVT

It was pretty worthless for me this summer, with high latency problems, drop outs, and for a few days, only one person could hear the other talking (Rus--->USA)

Posted by: Khashyar

We have a friend in L.A. who uses Nobelcom to call Minsk, and he has experienced no drop calls and clear phone quality.

Calling Mosow, for us, also has given us good quality.

I am not sure if it is because of a poor phone line at Lena's family's house, or Nobelcom's phoneline connections to Mogilev, but calling Lena's family in Mogilev has given us some good calling quality, and poor calling quality.

We are open to trying some other calling card provider, if someone knows a company that offers cheap calls to Belarus (with decent quality).

Khashyar

Posted by: Chrismc

I tried Nobelcom for a while, complete waste of time, I complained and got a refund. I have tried lots of services to the Ukraine and recently started using Budgetcom about two weeks ago and so far fingers crossed they have been OK. 7p/minute from the UK to the Ukraine and 15p to Belarus, 2p to Russia.

This is their UK site http://www.budgetcom.co.uk/ not sure if they have a US site though.

Just checked Budgetcom again and have found this access number 0844 566 2727 at 5p minute.

Posted by: novotul

I used to use Nobelcom.

For the past 18 months or so I've used Cytus.com.

Occasionally, I cannot get through with this service, although they are more reliable than Nobelcom used to be. Prices for calls to Novosibirsk are OK -- around 6 cents a minute. And I can add money to my account easily on the web.

I also use, as a backup, phone cards that I actually buy at a gas station in the hispanic part of town -- I find that this gas station has a good selection of cards and each has worked well. So I usually have one or two $5 phone cards lying around the apartment for when Cytus fails too severely. I usually buy a Pt1 gold phone card, which is associated with www.uniontelecard.com.

Posted by: mtbclay

I have not had very good luck with Nobelcom. I have been using the Jupiter Card to call Kiev. It works fairly well although she says she does not hear me as well as when I use my cell phone directly.
I agree that we can debate about which phone card is the cheapest, but for me it comes down to quality. I have had the best connections with the international calling plan on my Cingular phone. It is .25 a minute, not cheap but the quality is good, sounds like a local call.
I used to call Sevastopol, then phone lines there are not good. Again I had the best connections with Cingular.

Clay