My wife’s family in Taipei are spending more money than ever calling us in the USA.
We’d like to shift the cost to us since we can afford it better.
But many of her family are older people with no desire to ever touch a computer, which rules out many possibilities.
On the other hand we are techie nerds with broadband internet.
I noticed a couple of possible solutions and would like to hear feedback or other suggestions.
First, something called http://www.italkbb.com claims to offer a toll-free “080” number in Taiwan that rings a VoIP phone hooked up to an internet connection in the states.
For $8 a month (the site claims $5, but there is apparently a stealth additional $3 fee), we would pay 2 cents a minute for calls to or from Taiwan.
Providers such as voip.ms at http://www.voip.ms/intldids.php and Telphin(http://telphin.com/price/shared offer local phone numbers (also known as DID or Direct Inward Dial numbers)
in a bunch of different countries for about ten dollars a month.
Callers in the non-U.S. country can dial their local number, and the calls are forwarded to the U.S. user’s number.
This would also be great, and probably easier than hooking up an IP phone. But neither of those providers offer numbers in Taiwan. http://tollfreeforwarding.com does, but they want over fifty dollars for only 250 minutes a month; that’s criminal.
The only reasonably priced option we saw from Taiwan was something called SuperPhone (http://superphone.com.tw/), but their site is spotty on the details and full of broken links.
Well you could always call them back, after they call you. So basically they get charged for that 10-15 seconds…which would be minimal since long distance calls to US are cheap. Ironically, its actually cheaper to call my family in Vancouver than my friends here.
Another way would be Google voice, which is what I use and its all free…but a bit of hassle to setup. But like you said, they’re not that techy…
How about buying them a whole bunch of prepaid cards?
[quote=“engerim”]Buy a skype desktop phone and put a Chung-hwa DSL router in front of it (with cheapest offer you can find) with NAT. shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=item … 6769&c=A05[/quote]
I have the same exact same unit in front of me right now! Use it to contact office in Shanghai, works quite well.
Although when calling US/Canada there is a 1.5 - 2 second delay…which is acceptable I guess.
I think this is by far the best answer. If you can’t convince them to hang up, just tell them that you’re right in the middle of something, and will call back in a minute. Then you don’t have to buy them any fancy equipment or calling plans.
Otherwise, I use the www.pincity.com calling card for occasional calls to the US from Taiwan, but the quality can be spotty at times. The good thing is you can recharge it online (for your relatives), and you can also use it from practically any country in the world, which is good for traveling.
US$20/year for unlimited calling to/from the US. You just need a decent broadband Internet connection.
Have the people in the US pick one up from any Wallgreens, RiteAid or any number of retailers and send it to Taiwan.[/quote]
They don’t seem like very good people to be doing business with:
In response to the OP, i’d say the best option (that doesn’t require internet access on the Taipei side) is simply to have the Taipei side call and ask the US side to callback. Then the US side can simply call back using any number of cheap calling methods that routes the bulk of the call over IP and terminates in the PSTN on the Taipei side. The cost to terminate a call in Taiwan can be as low as US$0.012/min for some prepaid calling cards (if you call a local number). That means an hour long call would cost less than three quarters, provided the phone you call from in the US has unlimited talking (most landlines).
First, anyone who surfs the Internet is having their habits tracked and targeted by advertisers. Use a credit card… same thing. There is no privacy for anything happening over the wire. Second, the only advertisements I’ve ever seen on the MagicJack window have been for their own products. It’s about as non-intrusive advertising I’ve ever seen. As for the lawsuit they filed, I have no feeling. It pales in comparison to the lawsuits many businesses file ostensibly to protect their rights or reputation.
If the family here has no Internet connection, then I have no suggestions, however if they do, and it’s better than the bare minimum, I heartily recommend MagicJack. I’ve used VoIP providers for 7+ years: Lingo (sucks), Vonage (great quality, fair price) and now MagicJack. Provided you have a decent Internet connection (minimum upload speed of 128kbs), the sound quality is crystal clear and the calling 100% reliable.
I read a lot of reviews before switching from Vonage to MagicJack and concluded 2 things. First, it seemed likely that the people who were complaining about sound quality had slow Internet connections. Second, it’s unrealistic to expect 24/7 live customer support for a service that costs US$20/year. MagicJack’s FAQ is fairly comprehensive and they have online customer service available. Basically, though, it’s plug-and-play. I’ve never needed their online customer service and I’ve only browsed their FAQ’s out of curiosity.
MagicJack was recommended to me by a friend who travels all around Asia recruiting students for a university in the US. He raved about it. I’ve used it for nearly a year and still can’t believe how excellent it is. A good friend of mine brought one back for himself last summer and has been burning up the wires with calls to his family and friends back home.
US$20/year for unlimited calls to/from the US from/to anywhere in the world with a broadband connection. You can pick a phone number in almost any area code in the US. It includes voicemail, which e-mails you the WAV file of any message left for you.
Just looking at the OP, though, he wrote the parents don’t like computers, so not sure if this is an option for them…
One option would be one of those Skype WiFi phones (Netgear, IPEVO, etc). All that would be needed is a DSL router with WiFi capability (although getting DSL just to use Skype might not be worth it if the household has no actual computers…). Alternately, if one of the neighbors has a strong WiFi signal, they could maybe work out an agreement to share some of the neighbor’s bandwidth for the Skype phone.
I don’t use Skype personally or encourage its use, but many people who do use it can attest to its simple ease of use and good call quality. YMMV.
Thanks to everyone for their suggestions! Unfortunately hanging up and calling right back is not that natural for my wife, but just passing out a whole stack of phone cards is a good, easy solution that we will have to be more determined about.
I have heard uniformly good reviews of MagicJack; my overseas family rely on it. But as CraigTPE wrote, my in-laws want nothing to do with computers, so getting them DSL is a non-starter.
A telephone based solution is what we need, so we will check out pincity as suggested.
If we give superphone or iTalkBB a try, I’ll let the board know how it goes.
I’m almost afraid to ask if those low-cost dialing prefixes (they’re basically VOIP services hosted by the telco) are out of the technical proficiency of your Taiwan-based family. Maybe it’s a minor miracle they can even pick up a phone.
I’m almost afraid to ask if those low-cost dialing prefixes (they’re basically VOIP services hosted by the telco) are out of the technical proficiency of your Taiwan-based family. Maybe it’s a minor miracle they can even pick up a phone.
Edit: just to clarify, I’m referring to stuff like this: cht.com.tw/CHTFinalE/Web/Per … ?CatID=144[/quote]
Those prefixes are cheaper than dialing the standard 002 prefix, but they still get costly if you talk long enough.
Pincity (and possibly other calling cards) is dirt cheap, at US$0.029 per minute to call from Taiwan to the US (plus your normal telephone charges to call the phone number which hopefully would be a local number). Unfortunately, you have to enter a lot of numbers to use the card, just like most calling cards. Entering all of those numbers would probably be a turn off for most older people, so maybe storing some of the numbers in a speed dial setting would help with that a little.
If you use Pincity, you can just give everybody the same account with the same Pin number, and you can take care of recharging the phone card for them online. The credit doesn’t expire either.
I bought the Skype Unlimited country plan for the USA (99NT a month). You can pick a number in most areas in the USA. Most people I know have unlimited US calling so that doesn’t really matter.
You family calls the local US number, you get the call on your computer. If you don’t have your computer on, you can have the call forwarded to you home phone at the low skype rate.
You can call the USA for free on your computer. The family can use your us number. Calls to Taiwan (which you will have if you use call forwarding) is pretty cheap. You can buy your monthly skype credit at many convienance stores.
Just make sure that if you want use the call forwarding, just put in a little extra money in to cover the cost.
You’re talking about using Skype To Go to call from US phones to Taiwan, right? But the OP wants to call from Taiwan phones to the US.
I just checked, and Skype doesn’t have Skype To Go phone numbers available in Taiwan, so it doesn’t work quite so well for the OP’s situation. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
(Edit) Whoops… I wasn’t careful in reading the original post I assumed the conditions were reversed. There are no skype to go access numbers in Taiwan. But they are pushing it here in Taiwan. You can buy Skype to go cupons. It may be cheaper to call the closest Skype to go number (Japan)?
I’ve tried asking the skype people and store clearks about it but due to my level of Chinese and their English we’ve deteriorated to the following conversation… Me: Huh? The Clerk: Huh?
If the wife’s family had some knowlege of computers, skype is great! If they had a home network a skype network enabled phone on the network would eliminate the need for a computer.
Unless I misunderstood, the call is in from Taiwan to the US, not from the US to Taiwan. Getting a US Skype number, in that case, doesn’t solve the problem. Getting a Taiwan number that would ring in the US (similar to MagicJack or Vonage in reverse) is what they need.
On that note, FarEastone started offering VoIP using a router. Perhaps you could get that, take the router back to the US. That might work where you get a Taiwan phone number that would follow the router no matter where it was plugged in to the Internet.
[quote=“MikeInMA”]
If we give superphone or iTalkBB a try, I’ll let the board know how it goes.[/quote]
did you ever give iTalkBB a try?
I currently have Vonage which provides unlimited calling from the US to Taiwan.
My friends and family call my number… I hang up and call their Taiwan number back
and talk for as long as I can stand them.
iTalkBB has a plan that provides a local Taipei phone number… however, I haven’t
tried iTalkBB personally and there seems to be very few reviews…
How about this? You said getting them on DSL won’t happen, so here’s another way.
Give them a smartphone with an unlimited data plan. Pay the plan. Tell them it is a “Free Phone”. Of course, resist all temptation to go technical and tell them it’s a smartphone and simply tell them. “This phone lets you call us for free.”
Remove the shortcut for the actual phone dialer from the front page or hide it in a folder or something. Actually, you may want to do that for pretty much everything except for the the Skype shortcut.
Put the Skype shortcut into the front page.
Put your Skype contact info into the phone in Skype.
They call you by pushing on the Blue Skype icon, picking your name, and hitting dial. If you can get the smartphone on a good subsidy, you effectively get unlimited talk time with them for about $30USD per month.
Does that work?
Edit: Actually, I think you may need to trick the phone into thinking it’s on a WiFi network so the Skype calls are free over 3G. I’ve been running my phone like this for a while now so I forget what Skype policy is on this now.
