Skype

[captain_stu]

its the best thing

[marie-angelique]

i would have to agree. something about those free international phone calls just makes me all giggley inside.

[Kurt]

I still cannot believe how easy and cheap phone calls have become.

I remember having to spend a ton of money in the Post Office in Bulgaria to make an international call....or even worse in a hotel.

And remember when computers used the phone lines and now phones use computer lines?

[khalampre]

Skype is fine if the other person has a good internet connection. My wife has not been able to get an internet connection, but I found http://lowratevoip.com/en/index.html. I am sure that there is a better on out there, but for phone to phone calls it beats the pants off of Skype.

Kurt,

I looked at your VIOP before going with lowratevoip, so don't think that I did not remember you.

[vagabond]

And if you want to use your normal phone there's rebtel:

http://www.rebtel.com/en/Home/

[kylie]

Do any of you remember party lines when you where a kid. I remember picking up the phone all the time to see if the neighbor was off yet so I could make a call. I can't even imagine that now.

[vagabond]

just these

[svizzerams]

Do any of you remember party lines when you where a kid. I remember picking up the phone all the time to see if the neighbor was off yet so I could make a call. I can't even imagine that now.

Yep, I remember them and I can still remember our 4 digit phone number: 3891 when I was a tiny kid living in a tiny town in eastern OR. States had one area code and cities had funny prefixes like "Fairfax".

[kylie]

A grew up in a really small town. We had party lines until atleast 88 or 89.

[captain_stu]

sorry in advance for what I'm about to say...my parents were just talking about that the other day. lol

[Jumper]

Very cool about Rebtel. I just put up a post about it on Feral Jundi. Anything to bring down the costs of overseas phone calls, and still use your mobile phone, is pretty flippen sweet. Good stuff.

[Chelly]

figured I'd bring up an old thread rather than start a new one.
A couple of days ago I needed to call my bank in North America from here in Nica - something I could do from my cell phone if I wanted to pay exorbitant fees, or could rent a cheap international call i.e. an internet cafe. For various reasons, I couldn't do either at the time, and finally, just for the hell of it, I typed the 800 number on the back of my bank card into Skype. I have no Skype minutes, never have, but it worked like a charm. I had no idea you could call 800 numbers for free from Skype, especially from outside of country. I didn't even enter a country code or anything, just the 1-8## and it went right through.

I don't know how far this extends, but I suggest some of you try it out and report back. I've never seen it listed as a feature so let us know.

[kilroy]

it's so good that now russian phone companies are trying to block skype and like programs in the country because they're business is suffering so bad from it.

[media]

I havent had much time to look into skype, the website says its FREE? At some point when am going to be asked for money?

[vagabond]

When you call to a non-Skype phone