Job Discussion Forums

[M@tt]

For anyone teaching abroad who wants a cheaper way to stay in touch with families, try downloading a free internet phone program called Skype. It's like MSN Messenger voice chat but it actually works. The main feature of interest for most of us is SkypeOut, the ability to call normal phone numbers (landlines) from your computer and talk to people through your microphone/speaker. You're charged based on the country you call, not the country you call from. Thus all calls to North America, Europe, and a handful of other locations are about 2 cents a minute no matter where you live. Calls to other Skype users are free. The quality is better than most regular phone lines.

I hope this helps some people. I know I wasted too much money on phone calls when I lived abroad.

[Glenski]

Do you have to pay to subscribe to this service? A little while ago Skype offered only the ability to call other people computer to computer using mikes and headsets, and that was totally free. Of course, both parties had to have Skype to do that.

[guty]

No, there is no subscription, a free download, a very low rate to call landlines from a computer, and free to call computer to computer.
I have found that it usually takes a minute or so to settle down, but then is as good as a landline.

[Guy Courchesne]

I use a system called Phoneserve (www.phoneserve.com) to call from my PC to regular landlines. 4 us cents a minute to call home to Canada or to call the US from Mexico. The service is good...crystal clear calls on a 256k DSL connection.

[Stephen Jones]

Skype is the best of the VOIP programs, but is still unusable phoning a mobile phone in Sri lanka for example.

Whether you can use one of the serrvices generally depends on the quality of the phone service where you are calling. In general, the more you pay, the worse the quality.

[M@tt]

guy, you're paying too much.

[Guy Courchesne]

Well, I'll certainly look into Skype then.