SKYPE Use its own phone network Allow video calls Own SMS network all over the world. Call from computer, smart phone, tablet. Receive calls from regular phone line if you pay for a Skype In number. Call any phone for a fee. Adapter to receive Skype calls on your home phone. Voice mail not included.

GOOGLE VOICE Connect to any phone system No video SMS with any cell phone, no international SMS. Call from computer and tablet, cell phone via a US pnone number. Free incoming phone calls Free outgoing calls to the US and Canada when called from US and Canada, any other phone call for a fee. Either have GV forward the call to your home phone or use an adapter to receive it. Voice mail included, written transcription of your voice mail with voice message sent to your email or via SMS.

Skype

Skype is great tool! It is now mature. The original developpers are back in the company and they will improve the service more and more.

For the very few who do not know about the service, I will give you a brief description of the service.

Skype allow you to call another Skype member, free of charge, with your computer, your tablet or your smart cell phone. There is a Skype App for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Window. If you have a camera connected to your computer or in your smart phone, your can have a video chat as well.

If you want to call a real phone number, if someone wants to call you from a real phone, Skype is not free any longer. You need to pay for a phone number for the people to call you and pay to call outside the Skype community. If you want voice mail, you have to pay as well.

One inconvenience with Skype is the need of a computer, a tablet or a cell phone with the Skype App activated to receive a phone call. This is not always convenient, specially when your battery is low. A new gadget allow you now to call over Skype and receive Skype calls from your home phone. You just plug it in the internet. I have not tried it yet but everyone who tried like it. Check: http://shop.skype.com/phones/phone-adapters/connect-me-nau/ . If you spend a bit of time on the internet, you may find a cheaper deal for this very interesting tool.

Next week, I will compare Skype with Google Voice.

How to get Wi-Fi on the road.   

It is great to have a internet phone but you need access to the internet! In the US more and more coffee shops offer free WiFi. Starbuck, McDonald, Fedex and others offer you free Wi-Fi if AT&T is your cell phone provider.

Get an antenna to boost your signal. 

If you are travelling with an RV or sailing your boat, you can install an antennas to boost the Wi-Fi signal. They claim a 10 mile range or more. There is 2 kinds of system. The first one connects to your computer USB and the second system connect to an ethernet router. The first solution is cheaper but the second solution could be connected to a router and will allow multiple computers to connect to the network.

What is a Mi-Fi? 

A Mi-Fi is a router which is connected to the internet via 3G or 4G like your cell phone. 3G is slow and may not work very well with an internet phone. 4G is fast but not available yet everywhere and is more expensive. AT&T, Verizon, Virgin, Sprint, Tmobile and True Connect sell a Mi-Fi.

Faxes 

 Do you still have a fax connected to a phone line? You receive maybe 10 faxes or less a year. How does each fax cost you? A lot of money. For more than 10 years, I had an efax number and was payng about $150 per year. Great service! They would email you the faxes. This was working for me. Last year I received less than 10 faxes which mean I paid $15 to receive these faxes. This was a bit expensive. I found a free service and I am trying it now. I will let you know how it works. The only down side is that you the fax number is a Washinghton state number. This is no big deal for me. The service is called: http://www.k7.net. I use this service only to receive faxes and kept my old fax machine to send faxes. Make sure your reprogram your fax to print your new fax number on the outbound faxes.

Cut your phone bill to ZERO

Speaking with a friend the other day on a sailing boat, I realized that I was still paying more than $35 a month to receive a couple of phone calls a day. I googled a few questions and discovered a new little box. The Obitalk box allow you to receive Google Voice on your home phone.

What is Google Voice?
If you have a Gmail account, you can sign up for a free Google Voice (GV) Account. Google will give you a phone number and allow you to forward this number to your cell phone or your computer and replace your cell phone voicemail with the GV voice mail. which does a lot more than your regular voicemail. It could translate the voice message into text and send it to you as an email or as a sms. That is already pretty good!

Now what does this Obitalk box do?
You plug the box to the internet and to your phone, enter your email and password in the very easy Obi software and voila! You have a new phone line at home. The Obi100 and Obi101 can receive 2 GV lines or two SIP lines or any combination of GV and SIP lines, the Obi202 receives 4.