Never use Skype to make a phone call. The Skype hype has led many to proclaim that this piece of internet software, which allows web users anywhere in the world to speak for free, will kill the telephone. Yet for ringing real phones, it can cost up to five times as much as conventional calls.

Skype has been beautifully branded, and now many of us have learned to talk over the net, it wants to direct us to its real profit centre: making web calls to normal phones.

There’s no doubt Skype is the leader among Voip (voice over internet protocol) providers, which allow you to speak over the web. With it, you and anyone else, anywhere in the world, with a headset, a microphone and, preferably, a broadband internet connection can talk to each other at no cost if they also have Skype — well, apart from any internet connection charges that is.

My non-techie explanation is simply that when you speak, the sound is converted into data, which are streamed through the internet like any other file, and then converted back into sound at the other end. All Skype — and indeed Siphone, MSN Messenger or any other Voip providers — really do is provide the software to convert and stream the noise.

But Skype wants us to go a step further; it wants us to make calls to real phones using Skype Out. Here you click the “dial” tab, enter any phone number and while you are on the web, it calls a real phone. But this isn’t free, and you are charged per minute, so it isn’t particularly cheap either.

Now, when I say this, I’m not comparing it with calling abroad on BT’s basic tariff. It’s much cheaper than that, but if you can’t even beat BT, you shouldn’t be in the game.

Yet Skype Out isn’t just beaten by other Voip providers, it is beaten by normal phone companies too — specifically several small firms where you just dial an access number to connect from your normal home phone. They are called override providers because they override your normal phone company’s charges, and you pay theirs instead.

For example, a half-hour call to India is £6.60 on BT’s option 1 package, £3 on Skype Out, but just 90p from your home phone using the cheapest override providers, which include Bestminutes, Phonecheap and Telesavers. Skype is even worse for calling a UK mobile. For a half-hour evening call, it is £5, yet BT’s standard tariff is only £2.40, and the cheapest override provider, Phonecheap, is just £1.50.

While Skype is great for speaking to other web users online, it is not worth using to make normal phone calls. The only exception is when travelling abroad, where if you have cheap internet access, calling home on Skype will massively undercut the cost of a the hotel phone call. So here is my guide to making the cheapest calls overseas.

If both parties are on the internet: Provided you have both downloaded the same free software, be it Skype, MSN Messenger or others, just plug a headset with microphone into your computer, connect and talk. With a webcam you can make video calls.

Calling free on normal phones: Jajah. co.uk is a hybrid “web-activated” service, which allows free calls on normal phones, provided both parties have registered online. To use it, simply type both phone numbers into the web page and they will be rung, enabling you to talk. It is only free mainly in North America, Australasia and Europe, but has the big advantage that only one of you needs to be near the computer to make the call.

Calling a normal landline or mobile from a computer: While Skype isn’t particularly competitive, two sister firms, Voip Stunt and Voip Cheap, offer free web-to-phone calls to much of Europe, North America, Australasia and southeast Asia, provided you top up your account with £10 every few months. These are no-frills firms with limited customer service, but as the prices even for countries outside the free zone are dirt cheap, it is worth trying.