caseydoug
join:2001-08-14
Seattle, WA
| Re: [General] Cheap DID recommendations said by DaveTap  :another free DID in Desmoines Iowa is SipNumber.com its easy to set up and works well with GrandCentral also. GizmoProject mentioned earlier also provides an optional free CallWave DID (near Reno) and had DIDs as little as $24/year (33% off sale in October) VoipCheap only gives 90 days free... VoipStunt, InternetCalls, and VoipBuster give 120 days for the same $10. If your are interested in using cellphone for calling overseas VoipBuster also has access numbers. I realize we're talking "how much can you get for nothing" here, but the advantage I found with VoipCheap is that the rates, when you do pay them, are currently a bit better, at least to the places I call. For example, VoipCheap to the UK is free to landlines and 11.6 cents to mobile phones. France mobile is also 11.6 cents. Voipbuster charges 1.4 cents to UK landlines and 26.1 cents to UK mobile (20.3 cents to France mobile). The rate to UK mobile phones is important to me because my global SIM card has a UK mobile number.
VoipCheap does not have a US access number (it does have a Canadian access number), but I don't need it. I use two DIDs from IPKall: one is "inbound," i.e., directed via FWD, PBXes and VoipCheap to any number I choose, so that friends can reach me by calling a US number, even if I am out of the country on a cell phone; the other is "outbound," directed via PBXes Callthru feature to a dial tone from VoipCheap, which allows me to get VoipCheap's rates for the cost of a call to a US number. Since each of those DIDs uses its own FWD account, I can also access them as a local call from almost anywhere in the world using codes from SIP Broker. This enables me to use lower cost country-specific SIM cards to make international mobile phone calls for the cost of a local call.
Since I live in Washington, the IPKall numbers are local to me as well. All of this was a little complicated to set up, but I end up getting service that works for inbound and outbound, domestic and international, landline and cellular, all for very little money. The $10 lasts a long time.
Of course, if you count the time spent putting all this together, it's probably only a couple hundred dollars per minute. If most of us were honest with ourselves, however, we would have to admit: it's not the money, but the sport.  |
