FREE VOIP-Works Pretty Good.

[taz480]

I was looking for some sort of free trial just to see what it was like because I am on HughesNet satellite internet, high latency, varying download speeds and very low upload speed. I found this one. You only have to pay if you wanna call another country or if you want your own number. Otherwise, you set up a user/password and you automatically get 300 minutes a week free calling. You dont even have to give them anything resembling a credit card. Quality is actually good. Only 1/2 to 1-1/2 second delay, even on satellite, depending on connection and destination call number.(This is based on my own testing.) Probably no delay if on DSL or Cable, I dunno. Very similar to most any IM voice chat as you would expect. Only it is PC-Landline directly....FREE!! It also calls other people over PC-PC using the same program but the direct to landline is the kicker!!!! They even had a little app on their site to try it out before you even download the software and......heh, I called my house!!!! So I downloaded. Worked pretty good. Definately needs a headset, tho! I even called my sister who lives 8 hours away. I dont know what speed I was running at at the time I made a few calls and I'm sitting at 512down/76up right now. So, I will do some peak hour testing later and report back. This is a pretty killer deal for us because we don't have long distance. We have a cell phone where long distance doesn't matter(local all over Oregon) but it is long distance to call our cell from our house because of where our cell is based out of. So, until now, the only way my wife(at home) could contact me(on cell) was to send me a short email as a text message.(or use a calling card) If this works good, no more calling cards for us. We can call anywhere in U.S.

Give it a try!!

"VOIPBUSTER":

http://www.voipbuster.com/en/index.html

[butch81385]

I have been using Skype for a couple of months to do the same thing. Skype is currently free to call any phone number as long as both parties are within the US or Canada. I found skype to be the best, as well as the cheapest (since I am currently studying in England) so I went with them. Either way, if you need to make long distance calls, these are great.

[sararedding]

Wow I will definately check this out. Thanks for posting this.

[taz480]

There was 1 catch I missed. It was in the email they sent me. Says calls are limited to 1 minute. I dunno, I think I talked to my sister longer than that. Doesn't matter, still work for what I want. This is just more or less a toy right now. I don't have a problem actually even paying a small fee for one that works really well. The whole thing I have to remember is that I have satellite internet. High latency and wide varying throughput speeds. Im gonna keep looking around at others. I would just assume use the one with my Windows Live Messenger thru Verizon Web Call but their minimum system requirements say at least 384Kbps down and up. Even if Im clearing twice that in down, my plan only allows up to 200K upload and most the time it's below half that. Oh well, thats satellite. It is what it is.

[sharder8]

Hey Taz --

Give Skype a try . . .

Butch is right on! I've been using it since the beta days and I've called my sister, who's on dial-up (26.4) and had no delays or problems.

Plus, all calls between the U.S. and Canada are free through the end of the year.

Harder

[wenmang]

I am using yahoo messenger which is little bit cheaper compared to Skype for international call. In US, I am using Skype since it is currently free until the end of this year.

[taz480]

Thanx guys. I'll look into it. Since I found and posted this, Ive found that there are a lot of them. I like the skype one cuz you dont even need those adapters to hook up a normal phone, they also make usb phones for it. I certainly dont plan on getting rid of my landline but its a pretty convenient tool. Like today when I got home from work, my wife was in town at doctors office. Normally I would just shoot her a short email as a text message like "Honey, call me at home" cuz its long distance to call my cell but SMS is 2 cents to receive and 10 cents to send. Believe it or not, adds up. So instead I just used the lil VOIP program to call her and when she answered I told her to call me back. Local call to call house from cell, but long distance to call cell from house. I would have just had a conversation right there but until I get a headset or USB phone, the latency causes too much echo like a speaker phone. Speakers are on either side of my monitor and my microphone is mounted on top of the monitor. Too close together. Creates feedback, too. But a pretty neat and cool tool, tho. Convenient. I never tried them cuz I always had dial-up and I never realized there were ones that would work on such a low bandwidth. Most say you must have broadband. So now that I have satellite internet, even tho my speeds range from 100K-1000K down and usually less than 80K up, I started looking at them. Pretty sweet!!!! Thanx again, guys!!