Staying Connected with Friends & Family Abroad

After months of exploring my options, I’ve finally/almost settled on how I will stay connected with family and friends abroad while I’m in Australia.

Skype

Skype is a voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) service and software application. Download Skype and you’ll be able to communicate with other Skype users by instant message, voice, or video for free. Beyond that, Skype offers three pricing plans for calling land lines and mobile phones as well as services such as group video calling and screen sharing and different international rates. Skype is also available for Windows Phone, Android, iPhone, and iPad.

Free Skype to Skype calls are a great option for staying in touch with friends and family. The only drawback is that both callers have to be signed into Skype. That usually means being at the computer. Using the smartphone app requires WiFi. Therefore, it may require some coordinating with the person you want to talk to.  Additionally, this could be challenging for those less tech-savvy friends and family members.

There are three alternatives for those folks who’d rather call you on their home phones or mobiles, but they’re going to cost you. One is purchasing an online number. It’s USD$18 for 3 months or USD$60 for the year. Get a local number and your friends and family can call you without accruing long-distance charges. For you, it will still come in through the Skype application on your computer or smartphone, but for them it’s like making any other phone call. If you’re  not signed in, you can set up voice mail or opt for call forwarding (rates apply).

The second and third options are Skype’s home phone adapters, which start at USD$59.99, and the Skype-ready cordless phones, which begin at USD$69.99. Both of these allow you to make and receive calls without being tied to your computer.

During my research, I’ve communicated with a few people who use a Skype-ready cordless phone and are happy with the results, but the friendly and helpful Skype agent I spoke with actually recommended I pass on it, subtly suggesting it’s not very good. Instead he recommended sticking to the computer and smartphone apps with an online number and getting Skype Premium, which is currently USD$4.49 a month and offers unlimited calls, group video calls, and group screen sharing among other things. While I’m sticking with Free and Pay As You Go for now, I did purchase a Skype number.

magicJack 

I first heard about magicJack from a friend in Australia who uses it to call pals in the States. In my conversations with expats on this topic, nobody had brought up the magicJack, but when I asked about it, people came out of the woodwork and raved about how much they liked it.

The latest version is called magicJack PLUS. You can plug it into the USB port of a computer or into the router. It also has a standard phone jack. Buy it and set it up in the U.S. with a local number. Connect it to your router in Australia and you’ll be able to make international calls at local rates. For me, that means free because I’ll just be calling friends and family in my local area code.

What I really like about the magicJack PLUS is that plugging into the router and using the phone jack means it works with your house phone; you’re not tied to the computer. For family and friends back home, they can just pick up any phone and dial a local number to reach you. You can avoid international charges completely.

I was suspicious about magickJack PLUS. It just sounded too good to be true and its website did not inspire confidence. It reeks of “as seen on TV” scams and it’s not upfront about how it works exactly and how much it costs. I decided to trust my friends and expats on this one and ordered it.

Setting it up was pretty easy. It adds an application to your computer where you will register your magicJack PLUS and select a phone number as well as track your calls and accept or ignore them if you choose to use the magickJack PLUS via the computer instead of the router. Be careful as you register your product because there are several screens with up-sell buttons and you could end up signing up for more than you expected. You’ll also open an online account where you can upgrade, change your settings, see your calls log, etc.

Searching for “cost” was the only way I was able to find pricing information on the magicJack PLUS knowledge base. According to that, it’s $69.95 plus shipping and handling, which includes a year’s worth of local and long distance calling to the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. The final bill came in at $85.78 for one year.

The way magicJack PLUS presents itself is shady, but perhaps that is unintentional. It seems to work well and provide an excellent solution for making and receiving international calls from your home phone at local rates.

Viber

Viber is an app available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Blackberry. It lets you make free calls and send free text and photo messages to another Viber user on any device, network, or country for free. It’s similar to Skype, but has a  few differences that are worth checking out:

• Viber does not require registration or passwords.
• You don’t have to be signed into Viber. The application automatically launches when a call or text comes in.
• Viber automatically detects who among your contacts has the app. Skype doesn’t yet offer contacts synchronization.
• Viber does not offer video calls; Skype does.
• Viber is available for Blackberry; Skype is not.
• Viber does not have different statuses (i.e. online, away, do not disturb, invisible, offline); Skype does.
• Viber is only a smartphone app; Skype has a desktop client.

While similar to Skype, adding Viber to my telecommunications widens my net just a little bit more. It certainly doesn’t hurt to have it.