The telephone is a 100-year-old
technology. It's time for a change. Charging for phone calls is something you
did last century.
Niklas Zennstrom
Not long ago I
wrote a blog about Canadians
being held hostage by cell phone providers. I was livid at the cost of
mobile long distance rates. My provider really got my goat after jacking up my
rates and not crediting my account in compensation, so I had the Canada to U.S.
long distance portion of my plan removed – saving me $20/month. Now unfortunately,
if I make any Canada to U.S. long distance calls on my Smartphone these bandits
are going to bill me $0.50/minute. Anyone that knows me can tell you that there
is no way on God’s little acre that I'm ever going to pay $0.50/minute to call
the States.
And so, the hunt
began for how to make free long distance calls from Canada to the U.S.; but I
had criteria:
- To call anyone – many companies will give you free long distance ONLY if you’re calling someone who uses the same app
- Keep my phone number - most of these free long distance companies give you a special number that you have to use
- Dial directly – no access numbers, PIN numbers, etc.
- My phone number shows up in call display
Quite frankly I
couldn’t find anything that met my criteria until my Techie Guru told me to use
Google Hangouts. I’d completely dismissed Google Hangouts because when it first
launched you had to connect with people who were also using Google Hangouts.
Now it’s all changed. You can call anyone, anywhere in North America free. Once
you have Google Hangouts all you do is download the Hangouts Dialer (there’s
one for Android and Apple) and make your calls. I talked for 54 minutes
yesterday with my friend in San Diego and it was totally free. I checked my long
distance usage with my cell phone provider and there is no record of the call.
International calling is also available; it’s not free but the rates are
drastically cheaper than the cell phone provider bandits.
Stick it to the
cell phone provider bandits and stop paying them for long distance plans. Use
Google Hangouts instead.
I hate it when people text:
Call me.
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today.
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