For the next six months or so I’ll need to make frequent phone calls to Canada. My phone company gives me unlimited long distance within the US but charges .14 a minute to Canada.
What’s a cheaper alternative? I need something simple since this will be a short-term situation. Any ideas?
Pingo is also a good option. I just used their service recently for a long trip to Italy. Between US and Italy was 2 cents a minute, so Canada should be at least that good. They have a good website, if you choose to pursue further.
Vonage is a good bet. VoIP isn’t too much of a bandwidth hog so call quality should be decent/comparable to normal phone calls. If you do the math and find it to be cheaper, Skype also offers calls to Canada (and most other international destinations) for around 2 cents/min.
Even a old-fashioned international calling plan is a better deal that what you’re getting. If you subscribed to my plan (from AT&T), you’d break even if you chatted over about 110 minutes/month.
I’ve had Vonage for a couple of years now and we love it. There is no loss of quality, we’ve never had an issue with power loss and $30 per month is great for unlimited service.
However, a friend I work with recently got a Magic Jack. It is VOIP, when I’ve talked to him the quality is the same, the features are the same, calling to Canada is unlimited and it costs around $20 - $30 per year. If you talk for more than 34 minutes per month for 6 months it comes out ahead of the phone company.
As much as I love the Vonage, I am seriously thinking about switching.