Keeping in touch from overseas

One of things that amazes me is how often people do not use calling alternatives available to them when they are overseas.

One of my friends on my seminar trip racked up some crazy bills when she tried to call her home country from the hotel room. They charged her even for DIALING the number (it did not connect).

I use a few strategies myself. Being kiasu, I have more than one way of calling home. I have a Philips Internet Phone set up at home for cordless Skype. My wife always seems to have a problem with Skype on our old PC, so a dedicated cordless phone for Skype was great.

I also use iChat for video calls with the wife on her iMac and my Macbook. But she is not always at home or at her Mac so we get limited use from that. Handy for seeing the kids though. But must time it correctly. Difficult to do with 18 hours difference for Hawaii, and 12 hours for Ohio and DC.

Finally, I use pfingo (full disclosure: pfingo is a kind sponsor of the mrbrown Road Trip).

I mentioned pfingo last year, but I thought it would be cool to talk about the new stuff they added, besides the 3-series number and VOIP calls I used last time.

They have a new cordless pfingo Siemens DECT phone now. I set that up at home so that both the landline and the pfingo line goes through it. The family uses it now for both calls to our fixed line and calls to my wife's pfingo 3-series number.

Another cool thing I like is the new Ringback feature. To use ringback, the pfingo mobile app sends out your own number (example your US mobile number or your roaming Singapore number) and the number you want to call.

You will receive an incoming call. The party you want to call also receives an incoming call. That means the person you call is not paying any IDD charges and you are not paying any outgoing roaming IDD charges from overseas. For this kind of call, you are paying in Singapore IDD rates, much lower than if you had called directly home via roaming IDD.

I also like the Chat feature on the pfingo mobile app. I can connect to MSN and Gtalk and Yahoo with it.

So in my hotel room, usually with Wifi, I have my Nokia N96 connected to pfingoTalk's VOIP network, and my 3-series number is active. I call home to my wife's pfingo number for free.

When I am out on the road, I use pfingo Mobile app and Ringback to call the wife.

Having an unlimited data mobile plan is also very useful if you are overseas. I signed up for a AT&T prepaid SIM (they call it GoPhone). You can buy a cheapo prepaid GoPhone for about US$25, it comes with a SIM and a little credit, or just get the GoPhone SIM to use on your personal phone. Then once you have a US prepaid mobile number, US people can call you locally, your Singapore callers can use cheaper Singapore IDD options to call you while you are in the US, and you can also sign up for AT&T's prepaid unlimited data plan.

Yes, you heard me. Unlimited EDGE/3G for a whole month, for just US$19.99. I tell you, not having to pay S$0.005 per kb is a godsend (that is S$5 per megabyte!).

If you approach retail counters where you can get prepaid GoPhone and ask for the prepaid unlimited data plan, most of them don't know what the heck you are talking about. They will tell you prepaid GoPhone only have Pay-As-You-Go data plans.

Don't worry about it. Get your cheapo GoPhone or GoPhone SIM, call 611 and buy the unlimited mediaNet plan. They will deduct the US$19.99 from your GoPhone credit (make sure you have credit lah). Pop the GoPhone SIM into your Nokia N96 (or whatever 3G phone you are using) and you can surf for a whole month.

For more detailed discussions about this prepaid unlimited data plan in the US, go to this link and this one.

Several caveats for the AT&T prepaid unlimited data plan. Even though AT&T offers two prepaid GoPhone plans ($0.10 per minute with the $1 dollar daily charge and $0.25/minute NO daily charge), you cannot have the unlimited internet unless you get the $0.10 per minute plan. So don't sign up for the wrong prepaid plan.

Secondly, don't let your prepaid account credit go to zero.

Oh, I also signed up for the GoPhone SMS packages. Dammit, if you don't, you will pay US$0.15 per sms sent and RECEIVED!!!! Wah lau eh!

GoPhone has US$5 for 200 smses, US$9.99 for 1000 smses, and US$19.99 for unlimited smses for a month. Get any of those to avoid the crazy 15 cents charge for sending and receiving smses on your GoPhone.

For less than US$50, I get unlimited data for the whole month on my US mobile phone, great for mobile internet junkies like me.