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Telecommunications© 2008 Max Lent
Getting rid of a land line and long distance chargesThe first thing I did was to sign up for a service that empowered me to use my cable Internet access to make and receive telephone calls. There were several companies that offered this service. The one that I selected was Vonage . They offered the best plan for my calling needs at the best price. I signed up for their 500 minutes a month plan for $14.99/month. I made arrangements with Vonage to keep my old phone number. That meant that I didn't have to reprint my business cards or change my stationary. They sent me a little black box and a cable that plugs into my cable modem. I then plugged my phone into the black box, followed some simple set up instructions and had my phone line active within minutes. My guess is that if you can plug a toaster into a wall socket, the Vonage will be an easy install. Installing a new printer to your computer is much more difficult by comparison. I canceled one of my telephone company telephone lines, the one that went to my office. From that point on I was paying $14.99/month instead of $21/month and my long distance charges dropped to zero. Great! Next I decided I needed to have the Vonage connection available in another room. To solve this problem, I bought a pair of reconditioned VTech wireless phones and connected them to the Vonage outlet. I am now untethered and free to roam my house and make long distance phone lines. Ditching the cell phoneI called my cell phone provide and asked for an audit of how many minutes I used my cell phone during the last quarter. The total was 56 minutes. That meant that I was paying about 82 cents a minute to use my cell phone. Again, I thought that there had to be a better way. There was. I signed up for Tracfone. I bought one of their tiny clamshell phones for less than $100 and signed up for their pay as you go service. I now pay about 10 cents/minute, but no monthly fixed charges. I received a 100 free minutes by having a friend refer me. My friend also received a hundred free minutes. If you decide to sign up let me refer you and we will both receive the 100 free minutes. Gone are the $45/month payments for time that I didn't use. My cell phone charges are now about $5/month on average. I was paying $540/year for cell phone usage. Now I pay $60/year without any sacrifice in service. Communicating OverseasAn issue that I have lived with for years is
communicating with relatives who live overseas. Direct
phone calls can cost almost a dollar a minute and the call
quality is usually fair to poor. Calling card calls
have cost from 25 to 50 cents a minute and the call quality
poor to awful. Setting up computer to computer
telephone calls have been next to impossible because of
technical difficulties and ergonomic issues. At last I have found a solution in two parts. The first part deals with the ergonomics of using a computer as a telephone. Stand alone microphones and speakers just don't work in the real world, especially with non-technical users. What these folks want is a telephone or at least a telephone handset. Such a handset is available from Sipphone. As you can see from the photo, it looks and works just like a telephone. What is ingenious about the handset is that it plugs in to the computer's speaker and microphone jacks and also has a jack on the cable that permits the computer speaker cable to plug into the handset cable. What's more there is a switch on the handset that turns off the computer speakers when it is lifted off a table or removed from its cradle. There's even a volume control on the handset. The most wonderful is that the handset costs only about $14.95. You will need two. Send the second one to the person with whom you want to communicate. The second solution is a program that enables one computer to call another over the Internet without requiring a fast connection or a technically complex installation. The solution is Skype from Skype.com. The program is free, installs in seconds on Windows or Mac computers and is easy for non-technical users to operate. You and the person with whom you want to communicate register with Skype and then you are ready to communicate. The sound quality is better than cell phones and much better than calling card or call back systems. Did I mention that this is free! The only issues that I have experienced have nothing to do with the technology, but with behavior. Unless both parties have always-on Internet connections, they will have to arrange a date and time to speak with each other. One of the ways of doing this is to send each other emails to arrange a calling time. Another method is to place a regular long distance call to the other person and ask them to turn on their computer and await your Skype call. That call should not take more than a minute. Paying for a one minute call to set up a Skype conversation that is free is still a great bargain. Remember that Skype is free and that you don't have a time limit on your calls. Bottom LineMy old telecommunication services cost me $2,184 year. My new telecommunications services cost me $1,284 year. That's a difference of $900/year savings and a significant increase in features. For example, I can now access my voice mail messages with my computer from anywhere in the world with Vonage. Vonage provides caller ID and a host of other free services. Using Skype with the Sipphone handset can reduce your overseas phone bills by hundreds of dollars a month or more depending on how often you call overseas or long distance anywhere. An expanded version of this article is available at: http://www.travelconsumer.com/articles/skype.htm. Let me know what you think of using this system?
Send me an email
Max Lent.
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©1995- 2008 Max Lent
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