Papirex
Jul 28, 2010, 10:36 AM
Post #17 of 31
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Re: [joaquinx] Mexican cell phone in the US?
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I have mentioned it before, and you might want to put this link in your favorites in your laptop in case you need to make any phone calls while you are out of town. http://www.skype.com/intl/en/home
Calls are cheap using Skype, I still have a couple of Bucks worth of credit left of the original $10 Bucks worth (the minimum) that I bought 4 years ago. I can buy more time at any time. The credit expires every six months. There was no mention of it when I signed up with them, but Skype sends me an email reminder every 5 months about it, and they say they will send another in 3 weeks. There are several ways to preserve my credit, the easiest is to simply make a phone call to anyone. I used a separate microphone at first, my original Gateway laptop didn't have a built in mic, and the speakers, like a speakerphone, later, I used earbuds.
Skype Out is a good solution, if you need, or want, to make calls when out of town with a laptop, for less than 2 Cents per minute usually. You can call any regular telephone using Skype. We made our first call from Tacoma to México a couple of minutes after I signed up with them. There are some very low rates to call a few cities in México,I'm not going to look it up right now, but it is something like $.01 or .02 US Cents per minute, including México City. My wife called some of her family there from Tacoma, then we called the person that was watching our vacant house and feeding our dogs here in Cuernavaca. I was happily surprised that we were charged the same low rate to call Cuernavaca as a call to México City. Cuernavaca has a different area code, but we are only 85 Kms. From México City.
Skype Out beats the hell out of buying a calling card, or anything else. You can only make outgoing calls using Skype Out, but there are no monthly charges, it is the cheapest plan that Skype has. We can make calls to The US using either of our cell phones, we have only done that once when we stayed in a hotel in Tijuana that did not allow international calls to be made from their phones. We called our son over in Imperial beach, California to come over and pick us up the next day.
Skype sells some kind of a telephone handset to connect to a computer. Since we use Vonage, I don't need to have a computer running, and don't know anything about their handset and I won't bother with it. A mic and the speakers are good enough when we are traveling. You can either punch in a number you want to call, or keep a list. I have all of our family on a list, it is quick and easy to call anyone on my list, just press their name. Free wireless connections are so common NOB today, that there is never a problem getting on line to use Skype.
We can call US phones from México, but generally, we only use Skype when we are traveling on NOB trips. Vonage is our best solution. We have the unlimited plan for $25 US Bucks per month, we also have a toll free 888 number so our family NOB may call us toll free, it costs only $5 US Dlls per month for 100 minutes. It has never come close to happening, but if we were ever close to reaching our 100 minute limit, We would simply ask the caller to hang up so we could call them back toll free. All calls we make to NOB phones are at no extra per minute cost. We can and have called our sons and daughters in California and Alaska from Cuernavaca at no extra cost per minute.
We also make all long distance calls in México using Vonage, their rates per minute are much lower than Telmex charges. Our Telmex bills have been lowered enough to more than offset our Vonage costs. My wifes' home town is México City, so we probably make more long distance calls within México than the average ex-pat family.
I chose a Tacoma number with Vonage. My cuñado there just dials our 7 digit Tacoma number to call us, it is a local call for him, no area code needs to be dialed. He usually calls us 2 to 4 times a day. It is the same in reverse. When we call him, we just need to dial his 7 digit phone number, it is a local Tacoma call for us.
I have a set of three cordless phones connected to our Vonage adapter. I have changed the ring tone on all of them. When we hear that peculiar ring, we know it is a long distance incoming call and to pick up a Vonage phone. We don't need to have a computer running to use Vonage, we do need to have our high speed Internet connection active though, I just leave it on all day and all night, we have 24 hour Vonage service that way.
Everyone finds their own telephone solution here based on their needs. We have been using Vonage for about 7 years, and Skype out for 4 years. No big problems, and no abandoned equipment.
Rex
"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved" - Victor Hugo
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