Telephone Tips for Cheapies
In my continuing quest for the cheapest long distance services possible, I found the following:
I had been paying Sprint $5.95/month for their 7 cents/minute anytime long distance service but found that my long distance bills averaged $6/month. This meant that I was actually paying 14 cents/minute for my long distance calls. I found a service on the web at erbia.com that was willing to become my long distance carrier for no monthly charge and charge me 7.99 cents per minute for long distance calls anytime so I signed up. Now my long distance calls cost 7.99cents/minute instead of 14 cents/minute. When you sign up with Erbia, they will contact your phone company for you and transfer your long distance service to them.
Another alternative for long distance calls from home is to use the 1016861 dialing service. When you dial this number and then dial the long distance number you want to call (without the 1) they will bill you (comes with your telephone company bill) for all long distance calls at the rate of 7.99 cents/minute with no monthly fee.
You will need a microphone and your computer speaker(s) to use these services at your end. In order to avoid an echo, I recommend that you unplug your speakers and plug your Walkman-type headphones into the back of the computer. The easiest way to do it (if you don't mind a possible echo) is to leave your speakers plugged in (it's difficult to reach the back of your computer sometimes) and just plug in a microphone into the microphone slot at the back of the computer.
You can use dialpad.com to make free telephone calls from your computer to anyplace in the U.S. You make the calls directly from the dialpad website and there is no software to download. Just sign up.
You can go to net2phone.com and download their software to make telephone calls in the U.S. and overseas. Rates vary (sometimes the calls cost 1 cent per minute and sometimes they are 3.99 cents/minute. When you sign up, you have to buy some talk time with your credit card.
Using either Dialpad or Net2phone you will find that you will have to use a new telephone etiquette: there may be a delay of a few seconds when the other party answers before your voice will go through to him/her. Also, you and the recipient of the call will find it best if each of you lets the other finish speaking before saying something. The services are great for the price but are not truly full duplex. The etiquette is: you speak, he speaks, you speak, etc. This works fine and usually nothing is lost.
The least expensive telephone card I have been able to find is at bigzoo.com. They charge 3.99 cents/minute for U.S. Calls (with no monthly fee) and have great overseas rates (e.g., 9 cents/minute to the UK; 12 cents/minute to Israel). You have to sign up on the website using your credit card. Telephone quality is good. Problems with bigzoo: (1) oftentimes the toll-free number you dial first is busy and you have to keep trying to get through; (2) the Personal Identification Number (PIN) that they give you is 14 digits long (the first 10 digits being your telephone number); (3) you have to use up the time you purchased within 6 months; (4) if you call from a pay phone, bigzoo deducts 55 cents off the top to pay the payphone provider; and (5) bigzoo sometimes double-bills your credit card for your purchase (my brother was double-billed but easily cleared it up by visiting his account at the bigzoo website.) My brother raves about bigzoo. His wife uses it frequently to call Israel for 12 cents/minute.
Sign up for mytalk.com. It's a free service that allows you to call from any phone (including pay phones) to anywhere in the U.S. (including local calls - just dial your local area code before the local number). Sign up and get a toll-free number to call and a PIN. Give the toll-free number and the PIN to your family members and they can all make free payphone calls without having to pay 35 cents for the call. You will have to listen to advertisements before you can dial the number you are calling and the entry of the PIN and the voice prompting that you have to do (you have to say "dial a number" at the appropriate time) is disconcerting at first, but the service works. Your technologically-oriented kids will love the challenge of making calls with mytalk.com and will never again have the excuse that they didn't have money for the payphone. Be aware that you are cut off after about 2 minutes without warning, so don't use this service for calls that will take longer than that.
The most exciting possibility here is using dialpad.com for calling from overseas. Although this service will not allow you to call overseas from the U.S., it can be used to call the U.S. from overseas. You just go to dialpad.com and sign up and fill in your telephone directory with the names and numbers of persons you will want to call from overseas (best to do this before you go overseas) including the U.S. country code, etc. (you can also do this overseas).
Here's the way dialpad.com will work for you overseas: you find a computer that you can use for nothing or a computer in a cybercafe. If, in a cybercafe, you will have to convince the cybercafe personnel that it's alright for you to plug in your Walkman-type headset and your microphone into the appropriate slots in the back of the computer you want to use. Then you just go to dialpad.com and start making free calls to the U.S. (the calls are not really free in the sense that you will be paying an hourly charge to the cybercafe (perhaps $2-$8/hr) for the use of the computer. Pre-warn the friends that you are going to call in the U.S. to hang on the line when they get a call because it may be a couple of seconds before your voice comes through.
The best way to call cheaply from overseas is to find a payphone which allows calls in. Then dial the number in the U.S. (that country's Long Distance Access Code + 1 (U.S. Country Code) + the Area Code and the Number that you are calling). When the phone is answered ask the person you are calling to call you back at (U.S. Long Distance Access Code + Country Code of country you are in + Area Code (if necessary) + local number of your payphone. The caller from the U.S. will then be charged the cost of the overseas call from the U.S. If the U.S. caller uses a bigzoo calling card, his/her call will be very inexpensive.
If you choose to not use either of the options above and you are in France (a country where I have had some experience making calls to the U.S.) don't use the France Telecom Card to make your calls to the U.S. There are lots of little stores (tobacconists, groceries, etc.) that have ads in their windows for cheap overseas calling cards. The rates are great. Buy one and use it to dial a French toll-free number, then enter your PIN (which is on the back of the card) and make your call to the U.S. A caveat: the instructions on the card and the voice prompts when you dial the toll-free French number are in French but are not difficult to translate if you listen to the inflection (you can guess what the voice is saying).
I presuppose that you have only one phone line and want to be able to receive calls while you are surfing the web on that line but do not want to pay for this service.
The best way to do this is to sign up with zdnetonebox.com. They will give you a local number and a 4 digit extension as a voice mail number, which you should give out to your friends. If one of them calls while you are online, he/she can hangup and dial your voicemail number and leave a message. You can either go to your zdnetonebox to see if you have any calls (and listen to them online) or, after you stop surfing, you can dial your voicemail, enter your PIN, follow the prompts and see if anyone left you a voicemail message. And this is all free!
Sign up for fax4free.com's free service. You can go to their website and fax anything on your computer to any fax number for nada. You can also give out your fax4free fax number and receive faxes from others for free. Check it out, it's a great alternative to buying a fax machine. (P.S.: Your zdnetonebox will also receive faxes for you for free.)
If you want to use bigzoo, mytalk, zdnetonebox voicemail, etc., you should get a separate speed dialer. I bought mine from Radio Shack for $12 and have programmed 33 numbers into it. Radio Shack sells two different speed dialers, one with an LED screen and one without. Try to get one with an LED screen and program in the numbers you want to be able to call without having to dial the numbers.
Here's how it works: I have programmed 33 numbers into my speed dialer. When I want to call a number from any phone, I just turn on my speed dialer and choose the number I want to call, then hold the speed dialer to the mouthpiece of the phone to the speed dialer and push "dial." My number is then dialed.
A concrete example: When I want to use bigzoo, I find the toll-free bigzoo number on my speed dialer and push "dial." when bigzoo answers, I find my bigzoo PIN number on my speed dialer and push "dial." When bigzoo prompts me, I find the number I want to call on my speed dialer and push "dial." Nothing could be easier.
Hint: If you get an LED speed dialer, don't bother to program in the names of the parties whose speed dial numbers you want to enter (takes too long), just assign each party a number from 1 upwards and keep a separate 3" by 5" inch card showing the number assigned to the party on the speed dialer as well as his/her phone number. That way you always have a separate card showing the numbers. E.g.: number 4 on my speed dialer is my bigzoo toll-free access number and number 5 is my bigzoo PIN (as you know a bigzoo PIN is 14 digits and hard to type in without making a mistake).
Of course, if you just want to call from home, you can program the speed dial numbers on your telephone and, if you have no speed dialing on your telephone, you can get a telephone with those capabilities (they are very cheap.) Make sure you are able to speed dial at least 20 numbers, if possible, and that speed dialing is easy with the telephone you purchase.
If you have any comments and/or suggestions, please feel free to