Calling from abroad at reasonable rates

Sunday, January 8th, 2006 | Posted in How it Works | No Comments »

Here’s a good article from the NY Times, especially for beginners, on using VoIP service to save money when calling from abroad:

While internationally capable cell phones make calling home from abroad convenient, they’re not always the most economical choice.

For travelers looking for inexpensive alternatives, there are several options: new Internet-based voice services, callback services and one of the most low-tech–and low-cost–options: prepaid calling cards.

Internet-based services
The big news in calling home cheaply is voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services like Vonage, which is based in Holmdel, N.J., or Skype, a company based in Luxembourg that was recently purchased by eBay.

Since VoIP services generally work best with a broadband or wireless Internet connection, they are recommended for travelers who want to make calls from fixed locations, such as their hotel rooms or a conference room–although they can also be used from Internet cafes, or wireless hot spots if you have a notebook computer. (Some specialized VoIP services or phones like Vonage’s Wi-Fi Utstarcom F1000 phone will only work at ‘open’ hot spots that do not require a user name or credit card.)

VoIP works by digitizing your voice and sending it via the Internet to the other caller, who hears it on his PC’s speakers, or by routing it through regular telephone lines to anyone’s standard phone line.

"VoIP is great if you know you’ll be close to high-speed data lines," says David Rowell, founder of the Travel Insider, a Web site and online newsletter that focuses on travel and travel-related technologies. But, Rowell adds, "it’s problematic if you’re on dial-up," in part because of insufficient bandwidth and speed, which may result in voice distortions.