# Smart phone and free calling?



## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

Ok background, the phone company is unable to supply a stable land line,
cell phones are iffy at best here.

So we canceled the land line(long ago), momma does have a cell phone, but its older and again crappy service here but AT&T notified her that they would no longer support that model.

So a coworker sold her a iphone 3gs for cheap.

From what I can ascertain her current plan wont transfer to the smart phone,you have to pay a activation fee and accept a data plan and 2 year contract to boot!

I told her she may want to shop for a different carrier. We will see on that.

But I do have it all synced with itunes via wifi and installed talkatone as google voice refused to work. Theres also rumbling that voice will be axed this year.

Quality's great and I have been collecting wireless routers and modding them with dd-wrt to cover the property with wifi. 

So if she does decide to change carriers, I suppose this will be our home phone option. Drives her nuts she can't contact me through the day.

Only issue I have with talkatone is the limited free mins. not sure I will need them but never know, credits are about a dime a peice and a credits 1 min of outbound calling. 

Inbounds free, textings free... 

But is there a free outbound calling app somewhere?


----------



## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

Ok I was wrong on the credits they are less then 2 cents each. 

Which is not to bad. 60 for .99 cents.

With the 15 mins free (tied my facebook in for a extra five and 10 free monthly) that should work out dandy for me.


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

||Downhome|| said:


> Ok I was wrong on the credits they are less then 2 cents each.
> 
> Which is not to bad. 60 for .99 cents.
> 
> With the 15 mins free (tied my facebook in for a extra five and 10 free monthly) that should work out dandy for me.


You used to be able to call out on Google Voice (GoogleTalk) for free. I used it with a wifi router for 4 years as my primary phone service, and it worked fine as a smart phone app also. They stopped it and went to Google Hangouts, which doesn't work for outgoing calls with the cell phone app.

There are lots of SIP phone services available, and SIP smart phone apps are free (get Zoiper). Test it first because some smart phone providers block SIP traffic.

You can also use Skype for outgoing calls for $30/year.


----------



## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

Not unhappy with talkatone but I was under the impression it was 10 cents a min.

Which could add up if I had to place a call, but a buck an hour is not too bad at all.
I just need a line to be called here mostly and incoming free.

skype I'm not real impressed with.

I use it for internet chat for a few friends but quality lacking.

I did have a softphone on the puter and used a sip gate for google voice. 

But the puter needs to be on and not very convenient.


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

||Downhome|| said:


> I did have a softphone on the puter and used a sip gate for google voice.
> 
> But the puter needs to be on and not very convenient.


You can do the same thing with a smart phone app if you've got data.

Actually, I found Skype to be satisfactory for outgoing calls. $30/year for unlimited calls & free long distance isn't bad. For another $30/year you can get a phone number and take incoming calls. I used Skype as my primary phone for a few years before I used Google.


----------



## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

The phone was intended to be a replacement and have service but I don't care for Atts strong arm tactics.

as of right now theres no cell service just using it with the wifi.

I'm checking to see if any friends or family have a sprint framily with a open slot, no service here but just a mile either way and its all covered.

in the mean time just use the talkatone app and maybe forward the cell number to it.

Best plan I can find. and with a full framily its not much more then the current bill.


----------



## cricket49 (Apr 20, 2014)

You can still use google to make a phone call. I just tried mine and it worked. I do think you have to have google talk already installed since it might not be an option anymore. I had to reinstall mine awhile back and had to search to find the download since they seem to be converting everyone to hangout. I still use google talk on my pc. The conversation will display on my smartphone in handout.


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

cricket49 said:


> You can still use google to make a phone call.


Yes, and I'm still using my Obihai router to make and receive calls. I'm not sure what's going on. Google announced late last year that they would be cutting off access to the XMPP protocol May 15, 2014. That was 2 weeks ago but it's still working. Here's an article about it.

http://blog.obihai.com/2013/10/important-message-about-google-voice.html

Even after XMPP stops working we will still be able to make and receive calls using Google Voice, but we'll have to use the web interface (the Gmail page) or Hangouts. Making phone calls with a computer just isn't as clear and convenient as using a regular phone. But free is good!


----------



## TMTex (Apr 5, 2013)

We're using the Magic Jack service. I'm not sure how much it costs nowadays, since we prepay every 5 years. It was $99.00 the last two times we prepaid and we got the new standalone box the last time (about 2 years ago or so).

It works great and we've rarely had problems. When it stops taking calls or the quality goes down, I just unplug it from the power strip for a few seconds and plug it back in. I do that maybe 3 times a year.

The only hardware problem we've had was the USB power supply went out on it about 6 months ago. I went to Walmart and bought a better power supply than they had supplied with the box. It's a standard USB power supply and the replacement was an iPhone power supply with the USB connector.

About $100.00 every 5 years is working out great for us and we can take the little box with us on vacations. It just plugs into an ethernet port and the wall power. 

For our cell phones, we use an iPhone 4 and a 4S with Walmart's Family plan. Two unlimited voice, text and web for $72.00 a month. Not bad there, either.


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

TMTex said:


> We're using the Magic Jack service.


Magic Jack is a good service, if it works for you. My daughter was using Google Voice with a router but just switched to Magic Jack, due to Google's announcement that it would stop working. She likes Magic Jack just fine.

I tested Magic Jack and found that certain destinations had a toll charge, mostly remote communities. Since I do business with someone in one such destination Magic Jack isn't going to work for me. Instead I'm using Republic Wireless. It's a lot more expensive than Magic Jack, but I can call any destination at no toll and I also get cell phone service.


----------



## TraderBob (Oct 21, 2010)

cricket49 said:


> You can still use google to make a phone call. I just tried mine and it worked. I do think you have to have google talk already installed since it might not be an option anymore. I had to reinstall mine awhile back and had to search to find the download since they seem to be converting everyone to hangout. I still use google talk on my pc. The conversation will display on my smartphone in handout.



Yeah, my Google Voice still works on my smart phone that has never been activated. I use it over wifi


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

TraderBob said:


> Yeah, my Google Voice still works on my smart phone that has never been activated. I use it over wifi


It will stop working any time now. It was supposed to stop May 15th. We're just waiting for the shoe to drop.


----------

