My son will be studying in the States this fall and we're looking for the cheapest way to stay in touch from Italy. Not being a techie, can someone help with the pros and cons of the various means out there?

Look at the voice over internet protocol...I have voip your life which I had to get in the states...but from what I understand there is something similar her I think it is called Lingo..it allows me to talk to anyone in the states and for them to call me all for $25 per month...I also have skype and that is free when you do it through the computer...for both of these you need DSL...but there are so many others much more knowledgeable than I who I am sure will help you....

I have a similar question. Right now, I'm in the States. Hubby and I moving in August. Did any of you get/sign up for Vonage before heading over? What can you tell me about it? Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I am also a little technologically challenged.

the reason I went with Voip Your Life instead of Vonage is that i did not have to have a contract plus many people I knew did not like that company or their policies (I do know one peron here who has vonage and has had no problems)...But for either one of them you have to do it before you leave the states and have it sent to you there...and no one is as technologically challenged as I am ..believe me...the epople at Voip your life wer great...you can google them to get their phone number etc...

Thanks for your input, Joan! Just one more question. Can I register my parent's phone number? Would that work, because essentially, wouldn't they be using their # to dial the same #? Told ya - technologically dumb here!

I don't know what you mean by registering your parents number...when you get voip they give you a number actually they gave me 3 numbers and I could choose what cities I wanted them to be from. so these are the numbers I gave to friends and family and all they do is call me like they would anyone else long distance...ie 212-334-4782 and i do the same when I call the states...i believe if i want to call a number in Europe it costs per minute...but I use my Italian cell phone for those calls..but they can only send the equipment to you in the states...then you will need dsl when you get to Italy for this to work....my apartment had a phone so I did not need to get that...

I use skype, but recently my brother got me something called magic jack which lets you plug any normal phone into your USB port and then make calls as you would from a regular phone. My parents use it from the US to call me and I recently started to use it from here to make calls to the US. It gives you a US phone number so you can make and receive calls s long as you are online.

I think it cost $40 to buy the jack and then $20 a year after that, but I'm not sure as I didn't buy it.

The connection is good and it's nice to talk on a normal phone, as opposed to a headset. The only problem I've had so far is getting it to work on my mac. There is a download for it, I just haven't gotten it to work yet.

I have Vonage at home and I haven't had any major problems. My husband and I signed up in the states when they had a deal providing the first several months for free. I love the fact that I can plug my cordless phone into the box and freely walk around my house when conversing (which I think on Skype you have to be at the computer or have the skype phone). We pay $25/month for unlimited calls and you can call most of Europe for free. We travel a lot and so we can forward our calls to other numbers when we are gone and also they e-mail us our voicemail.

I do have to say that we had to use their customer service twice (an initial setup issue and a billing mistake) and that was a bit painful, but if you have the patience to deal with them when you need to, then I think it's worth it. We have had no problems with the sound quality with fastweb's internet.

Another option for 10 euro per month is Teleconomy Internationale. Free calls to US, Canada, the EU.

Thanks for the info. It's all so overwhelming. I don't know what will be the best for us... we're still trying to weigh the pros and cons of everything, but that Teleconomy Internationale sounds pretty interesting!

Well, OK I'm in Italy and my son will soon be in the States. Is Skype free for international calls? Would it be cheaper to set up service from the States?

quote:

Originally posted by TracieB:
Thanks for the info. It's all so overwhelming. I don't know what will be the best for us... we're still trying to weigh the pros and cons of everything, but that Teleconomy Internationale sounds pretty interesting!

You can sign up for it online at www.187.it

quote:

Originally posted by steve:
Well, OK I'm in Italy and my son will soon be in the States. Is Skype free for international calls? Would it be cheaper to set up service from the States?

It's free to another computer set up with Skype. It costs peanuts to a landline. My wife puts €10 credit into her Skype account and talks (literally) for hours to her daughter in Australia (via the daughter's landline).

I imagine that Teleconomy international would do well enough for outgoing calls, but for calls from the States?

quote:

Originally posted by Bill 2:

quote:

Originally posted by TracieB:
Thanks for the info. It's all so overwhelming. I don't know what will be the best for us... we're still trying to weigh the pros and cons of everything, but that Teleconomy Internationale sounds pretty interesting!

You can sign up for it online at www.187.it

Bill2 don't you have to have Telcom or some Italian phone service to do this?

Yes, Telecom Italia.

Just a side note, it's actually Teleconomy InternaZionale. Was confused why nothing turned up at first in searches, then just realized the typo.

Thanks Shawn. I'm getting sloppy.

Hmm.. I'll need to find out what phone service we'll be getting. That'd be a good sponsor question.

BTW, sorry for completely hijacking this thread, steve! I didn't mean to make it all about me!!

Pretty sure the landlines down in Sicily will be Telecom Italia too. They seem to be all over.

Cool! I'll pass along that info to my hubby and see what he thinks. I love that their are options out there... I was worried we would be having to pay an arm and leg to call our families.

If both of you have Skype, Skype to Skype voice or video chat costs absolutely nothing. If you use Skype Out or In (calling a line line from Skype or a land line calling to Skype) then you pay a few cents/minute. I travel abroad frequently and use Skype for calling home and into meetings; it works great and is very inexpensive. US toll free numbers can also be called from abroad, which at times is very helpful.

One other tip - If you have a computer or laptop with Bluetooth, you can use your cell phone bluetooth earpiece with Skype so no need to sit in front of the laptop when on a call..

My opinion is that Skype is the way to go. It is also helpful to be able to call from USA to cellphone in Italy in which case Rebtel tends to be a bit cheaper (i.e., about 20 cents/minute).

If he's going to have a cell phone there and you want to just be able to call on a whim you can set up an account at OneSuite.com. It's like a calling card but you prepay online and then you just call with the access number and account and it's really cheap. $30 will get you like 500 minutes or something like that and there's an access number for Italy so your son can use the same account to call the US. You can add money easily when it runs out etc. That's what me and my parents did when I lived in Italy last summer and we still use it every time I travel to Italy.

I have Skype PRo. For under 10 Euros a month I get unlimited calls to fixed lines around the world and even cell phones in some countries included (US is one of those countries). Included is 3 Skype In numbers that peope can call me on, so I got one in New York, one in Pennsylvania and one in San Diego---where all my technoogically challenged friends and family live. When they call me they use their phones and make a local call...but it rings on my SKYPE phone in Italy. I downloaded their new BETA version which seems to have some bugs stil, but their older version on my laptop works just fine.

You can sign up by the month, three-month or year, I believe.