I’ve found a quite huge savings "trick" using a combination of Australia’s Optus MyTime (FREE minutes to 5 nominated Optus mobile & landline numbers) and PennyTel (a VOIP service provider) call forwarding.
This is only applicable to Australians only who are using Optus as their mobile carrier.
BACKGROUND
My OPTUS Pre-Paid at the moment
I’m currently on Optus Prepaid (the "FREE CHAT & TEXT" offer) which includes free minutes to any network number, free SMS, credits, and free MyTime minutes).
On a $30 recharge, I get:
- $30 worth of credit
- 50 free minutes to any mobile
- 50 free SMS to any mobile (local SMS only)
- 100 free minutes to 5 nominated Optus mobile and landline numbers (Optus MyTime)
The reason why I chose this offer was because I have a girlfriend overseas and I need that Optus MyTime offer to call a calling card to contact my girlfriend every now and then using my mobile. If you call straight internationally, you’ll be charged a hefty amount no matter what carrier you are using. By using the free MyTime minute to my Bee-Happy calling card, I only pay for the Bee-Happy rate (without the local call cost from a mobile).
PennyTel
Okay, that covers the reason why I switched back from Vodafone to Optus (so that I can call my girlfriend with a cheaper rate using a calling card). Now, we send SMS A LOT everyday. Apart from some mushy-mushy words like "I luv u" and so on, we chat a lot and there are probably some of you in a similar situation. Sending an SMS from your mobile costs you 25-35 cents. If you send 10 SMS internationally in one day, it will cost you at least $2-4 a day.
After doing some research and trials, I’ve found a few sites that can save me heaps of money in SMS. PennyTel is one of them.
PennyTel is a VOIP (Voice-Over-IP) service and provides a cheap call service (using your internet connection) and SMS (free at the moment, because it’s still in beta). I’ve sent numerous amount of SMS with PennyTel. It’s free (at the moment) and manage to send 80% of my SMSes. You see, they give the service for free because they are still having problems to deliver SMSes successfully to every network provider in the world. It depends on the recipient numbers and network. Lucky for me, every SMS has been delivered successfully to my girlfriend overseas (You send the SMS on their site and check the delivery status there as well). What I like about the delivery status, is that if it says "Success", then the SMS is guaranteed to be received by the recipient. If it’s in "Pending" state after a minute, then you’ll know that something is wrong and most likely the number is "not supported" yet somehow.
I’ve tried to use PennyTel, SKYPE and other VOIP services to call overseas, but it’s just too laggy (I blame the connection that my girlfriend has). So at the moment, I’ve been using the VOIP provider to send FREE SMSes only 
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Michael, I’m currently in Singapore, but am going to be in Perth for the next 1 year. I’m in sorta the same situation (girlfriend overseas and all) and i was glad to find your idea online. Just a few questions about Pennytel…how exactly does it work (the sms and the DID number portion) and how reliable is the voice calls?
Would be great if you could reply me on my email.
Thank you so much
Alas, I’m no longer with my girlfriend
I’ve sent an email to you to discuss this further though. Must have been hard for you to leave your girlfriend for a year! All the best to both of you and stay strong!