Communications

Submitted by admin on Sun, 01/22/2012 - 12:43pm

Communications can mean anything from a telephone to broadband Internet access. Clearly your requirements will vary. For example, if you plan to earn your living working remotely over the Internet, a reliable broadband connection will be a requirement. On the other end of the spectrum, you may just want a way to call home every now and then. Your options are not just a function of your destination country but where in that country you plan to settle.

Internet

I elected to discuss this first because it can offer a solution to other requirements as well. If a non-metered broadband Internet connection is available, it can address most of your communications needs. The good news is that this type of service is becoming easier to get all over the world. While connectivity in rural areas may still be difficult, DSL or some sort of wireless service is very common.

If you have a broadband Internet connection, you can use it to get telephone service, listen to the radio and even watch television programs. Thus, it can be the key to staying in touch.

VoIP Telephone

VoIP stands for voice over Internet Protocol. It is a way to use your Internet bandwidth to make phone calls. There are some relatively expensive choices here (but still a lot cheaper than traditional telephone connections) and some downright cheap options for anyone with a bit more creativity. With most options, there is a free service choice if you want to talk to others using the same service and then various rates to call regular phone numbers. There are also charges related to having your own phone number.

On the popular but expensive list are Skype (recently bought by Microsoft) and Vonage. What they have in common is that they are both proprietary (i.e., only work within their own secret community) and are more expensive than alternatives. Beyond that, they are different.

  • Skype is proprietary software that you run on your computer. (And, yes, there are stand-alone Skype telephones which you can buy but thei are effectively a computer running the Skype program. Calls to other Skype users are free.   Skype out is a service where you pay a per minute fee to call regular telephones. Skype in is where you pay for a regular phone number which then connects to your Skype program.
  • Vonage is more like a regular telephone. You have a phone number and you can call other phone numbers. Depending on the plan you will have a certain amount of inbound call time and outgoing calls to a restricted set of destinations. 

Depending on your requirements, these two services may be a good choice. In addition, there are other services similar to Vonage (VoiceEclipse is but one example) that are available.

These choices are popular because they have marketing dollars to spend. The reality is that there is a completely free and open standard for VoIP calls that is easy to use. It is called SIP which stands for Session Initiation Protocol. If the name sounds strange it is because doing  a voice connection between two computers on the Internet only requires setup. That is, something needs to initiate the connection. Beyond that, it is just two computers talking to each other just like when you are viewing a web page.

There are IP telephones available for relatively inexpensive prices. If you happen to have a fixed IP address you could just get one of these phones and talk to anyone else with a fixed IP address by entering it into the phone. The phones themselves handle the SIP protocol.

If, however, you want a more generic solution or are not up to this level of geekness, there are some real bargains out there. My favorite happens to be http://www.callwithus.com but there are lots of others. (They are my favorite because besides fair prices they have a no-BS web site and terms.) Besides offering the Skype-like free connections between their customers, they have a very inexpensive interface to the regular telephone network.

  • Calls to toll-free numbers are free. (They actually make money on you making these calls.)
  • While call rates vary from country to country, they are way more inexpensive than Skype. For example, their current rates to Canada are $.005/minute and to an assortment of countries they are $.01/minute or less.
  • They offer DIDs. A DID is a Direct Inward Dial. In other words, a phone number. It is pretty easy to find DIDs with a setup cost of less than $5 and a monthly fee of less than $5/month which includes 2000 or 3000 incoming minutes.
  • While more expensive, they also offer toll-free DIDs.

You don't have to be a geek to use a service such as callwithus. You just have to want to spend a lot less than it costs to use Skype or Vonage.

Radio

Many radio stations have their programming available on the Internet in real time. If there is a specific radio station you want ot listen to, just go to their web site and see what they have to say. You can also use http://radio-locator.com/ to search for radio station web sites. There are also multiple sites which offer on-line radio station content. Once such site is http://www.onlineradiostations.com/.

Radio and Television