Unlimited calls to Philippines, our experience so far

[Kevin-n-Merlaine 14]

The brownouts do suck when it comes to Magic Jack. We used it and her family still has it installed. It's not all that convenient but the price is right At the suggestion of a member here, I set up a rebtel account and I've been very happy with that! It's only .06 a minute or so to call any phone anywhere in the Phils. Just throw 25 bucks into the account with my debit card, it posts instantly and away she goes

[moonandsun 16]

The brownouts do suck when it comes to Magic Jack. We used it and her family still has it installed. It's not all that convenient but the price is right At the suggestion of a member here, I set up a rebtel account and I've been very happy with that! It's only .06 a minute or so to call any phone anywhere in the Phils. Just throw 25 bucks into the account with my debit card, it posts instantly and away she goes

Thanks for the info. I just signed up for rebtel. I will give it a try tonight. I also spend $150 a month in phone calls. It would be nice to cut that down.

[Atencio 43]

I have Rebtel for backup. Their service has been very good.

[aurora07 6]

i use Skype to call my hubby in the US. I pay $6.99 a month for unlimited calls to mobile and landline. The internet connection at work is great so there's no delay at all. It only sucks at home when my connection is slow. Having an iPad or iPhone helps too. You can just install it there and call from you phone as long as you have internet conenction along with your mobile plan, otherwise you have to look for a wifi spot.

Edited October 28, 2010 by aurora07

[mrsean 4]

Read the fair use rules

The Service is subject to a fair usage limit of 5,000 minutes per Customer per month. Also, no more than 3 different numbers per Customer can call the DID.

Once these limits are exceeded, the Company may suspend or cancel the Service at any time without notice. Subscriptions are for individual use only. Each subscription is to be used by one person only and is not to be shared with any other user (whether via a PBX, call centre, computer or any other means). The Company reserves the right to change this fair usage policy at any time. Changes shall become effective within thirty (30) days of publication of the revised version on www.pinoytawagunlimited.com. Your continued use of your subscription after expiry of the 30-day period shall constitute your acceptance to be bound by the terms and conditions of the revised fair usage policy.

not my plan!! over a year and have three differant numbers call there unlimited i guess i am special!!!

[Atencio 43]

not my plan!! over a year and have three differant numbers call there unlimited i guess i am special!!!

I guess you are. My life story, day late and dollar short

[Armenia 18]

When I'm in front of my laptop but my husband is away from a PC, we use MagicJack ($20/year unlimited).

When we're both in front of a computer, we use Skype and Yahoo for calling, texting and IMing.

When I'm away from my laptop, I use either

- a PLDT budget card (PHP1.50/min or ~3.5 cents/min) to call him on his phone, or

- a SmartBro SIM card (unlimited internet PHP200/5 days) in my cellphone for e-mailing, Skype/Yahoo texting and IMing. I don't use the SIM card for calling from my phone because the internet connection is not that fast/call quality is not good; or

- a Smart Pinoy SIM card. Husband also has a Smart Pinoy SIM card so I can send him SMS using the allocated Free text or PHP1/SMS.

Edited October 30, 2010 by Armenia

[Merry Ann's Mykul 0]

The echo experience on Magic Jack is depend on the connection maybe they have a bad signal. So far it really saves a lot of $$$$$ as in UNLIMITTED just one payment of $20/yr you can talk 4ever. For those who are 1st timer you will buy MJ for $39.99 that is good for 1 yr. After 1 yr you re-new it for $19.99 for one yr. So try it mga kababayan it really works.

[Kevin- 13]

The internet available where I need to call is very poor. No DSL available, only Smart Bro, and it's far away from a tower, so the signal is weak. We used to be able to use voice chat on YM or Skype, but the service has deteriorated to where we can't do that anymore. If we want to talk, it has to be on the phone.

Last time I checked, it was a while ago, I could not find any unlimited services that reach there. Good to know about Tawag and Rebtel though. Tawag is the first one which seems to possibly cover the right areas for us. Recently I've been using Google Voice at $0.17/min, but Rebtel beats that at $0.129/min.

Interestingly, it seems Tawag's terms previously had a "fair use" policy listing the 5000 minute limit. I can see this by viewing Google's cache of the terms page, but the current page does not have that policy anymore. I suspect they now just go by a non-specified fair-use limit which gives them more flexibility to cancel abusive accounts. Anyways, 5000 minutes is 2 hours and 45 minutes per day, which is probably enough for most people. If I had known about this many months ago, I would probably have used all 5000 minutes every month talking to my sweetie! But she'll be here before we would be able to set this up. Might be good for talking to her family though.

I set up a rebtel account and I've been very happy with that! It's only .06 a minute or so to call any phone anywhere in the Phils.

I can't find a $0.06 rate for the Philippines on Rebtel's website, how'd you get that rate?

[Atencio 43]

My Rebtel rate connecting to Smart mobile is 13.5 cents/minute. It has went up since I first joined.

[wayfarer1983 0]

Magic Jack is $20 a year? That's too good to pass up!

We used to have Magic Jack but cancelled the subscription since we're on Skype all the time anyway. I have Skype credits though, which I use to text him.

[gary9891 10]

There's usually a bunch of posts on this topic. I wanted to share our experience so far with what we tried. We are using Pinoy Tawag unlimited and this is our second month.

It look a while to get setup from our intial order but now we are paying $39 a month flat rate and my wife is enjoying talking to her mom and family without worrying about phone bills. Our phone bill before sometimes was $150 a month or more..

The company sent a special SIM Card to her family in Philippines which they put in the cell phone and we got a local phone number in our city to call (no long distance) and when we call our local US number the phone rings in Philippines and her family answers.

http://www.pinoytawagunlimited.com/

So far it has worked real well for us and we definately are saving money. With all our other costs of being newly married and travel it did help.

My wife likes the phone cards. She gets them at our local Asian store for 5 $ each and she gets about 47 minutes each card. She calls her family cell phone (province in Mindanao). She uses 4-6 cards per month. So for 30-35$ a month she gets a lot of time to catch up on the gossip at home. My asawa would buy 1 of the available cards and see which gave her the most time.