Least expensive cell fone plan

[roberb7]

I've got a VOIP phone. It's through Callcentric, but a lot of people use Magic Jack.

If you don't want to do this, one low-cost alternative for calls to the US and Canada is Telesiete, http://www.telesiete.com.mx/
I know you can buy their cards from Farmacia Guadalajara, and, of course, we don't have one of those here. It says on their web site you can buy them from Framacias Similares.

The big advantage of this is that you can use it only for outgoing calls.

[The Duck]

Callcentric is great - we load it with $5US* and calls to US and Thailand are around 2c/min.
One great feature of Callcentric is that they give you US inbound number for free - and inbound calls are free - the fone rings here.

My wife calls her sister in VA and hangs up. Sister on her all inclusive US plan calls back. I think overall on Callcentric we are spending less than $45/year.

They suffered a serious DOS attack a year or so ago - a real mess and lots of disruption - great communication/alternative routes/servers and finally a fix. It is an excellent service
* when you run out of credit you just re-load [we use our PayPal acct] and it is credited in an instant.

MagicJack fantastic device -when it works-.
When it fails don't call Customer Service just get another one or switch to something else. Good for calls To Canada/US from anywhere - we used ours on flaky Thai Internet connections and it worked fine. After doing a discount 3 yr pre-pay it failed. Headaches in wondering why they even have Customer BS - wouldn't cost less to send a replacement unit vs. all the time wasted with the 'help' ? We just gave up/took the loss and walked away.

Telesiete, http://www.telesiete.com.mx/ very slick/professional website, Plans from as low as 0.14MXN/min

[J Anoni]

My VoIP provider is Iconnecthere, a division of Delta Three. It is out of New York City, I believe. It costs US$15.99 per month with no taxes or additional charges. I know it is one of the more expensive VoIP options, but I have had it for years, and it works virtually 100% of the time, and has for 10 years. It has unlimited free calling to and from the USA and Canada, and cheap calling to the rest of the world. It is just like having a USA land line, exactly.

I also have a MagicJack device as a back up, and for USA faxing. Iconnecthere VoIP does not handle fax well.

[roberb7]

Sr. Duck, I was severely impacted by that Callcentric DOS attack, and after that, they were shut down for several days by Hurricane Sandy. My response was to switch to SkypeIn for three months. I switched back to CallCentric because SkypeIn wasn't reliable enough, and I haven't had significant problems with CallCentric since then.

Your comment about Magic Jack's customer support is right on target. Their customer support is the second-worst on the planet. The key thing about a Magic Jack installation is, make sure you get it right the first time.