In search of the cheapest international calling plans from Malaysia

After spending almost an entire month in searching for this, I am finally giving up on my dream of finding an unlimited International Direction Dial calling (IDD) plan from Kuala Lumpur. But in the process I've got enough knowledge to educate different options available for IDD. So, this post is dedicated to the telecommunication industry of Malaysia.

There are primarily five Mobile operators in Kuala Lumpur (KL) region, and none of them (mind it) has full coverage in the entire of KL. Call drop, Signal loss are common for all the networks. Sometimes it is due to the location (basement of a mall, metro station, at higher levels of buildings e.g. at 78th floor in twin towers) and sometimes it is because of the poor network.

Apart from the mobile operators there are many options of VOIP calling as well. After my research I found there are two types of VOIP calling available. In one you need to have an internet or wifi connection to call a mobile phone in India, while in another you don't need wifi or internet, just a phone with local calling facility. It seems they re-route the call from some local number to the international numbers. But given that even the local calls in Malaysia are not cheap, second option becomes pretty expensive.

Following table summarizes all the options and their calling rates to India

	Provider	Rates (RM)	Rate(Rs/Min)
	Mobile Operators
	Maxis	0.58 RM/240 sec	2.17
	Digi	0.08 RM/60 sec	1.20
	Hotlinks	0.06 RM/30 sec	1.80
	Umobile	0.06 RM/30 sec	1.80
	Celcom	0.64 RM/60 sec	9.60
	Xpax	0.06 RM/30 sec	1.80
	Yes 4g	0.44 RM/60 sec	6.60
	Voip Providers
	Viber Out	0.10 RM/60 sec	1.50
	Google Voice	0.01 USD/60 sec	0.65
	Skype	0.015 USD/60 sec	1.00
	Vonage	0.05  USD/60 sec	3.21
	GrooVe	0.02  USD/60 sec	1.00
	1-voip		NA
	Phonepower	0.031 USD/60 sec	2.00
	Voipo	0.02 USD/60 sec	1.30

From the table above one can clearly see that "Google Voice" is the cheapest option available as of now. As soon as I found this out, I purchased the credits for Google Voice and till now, I am quite satisfied with its service. I'll dedicate a seperate post for Google Voice later.