I have been looking into the ultimate solution for my VOIP calls. I want the cheapest calling plan that I can find on the internet. Communication between me, my friends and my clients has been very important piece in my daily life.

I used to use pincity.com’s phone service, which allows me to pre-paid the calls and make cheap calls to Taiwan, China, Hong Kong. However, their service have been very unstable and the call quality are worst than ever before.

What I am running into is that I have to run Skype, Yahoo Messenger, AIM and MSN on my desktop. I used to run ICQ as well. Now I am making international calls to contries with Yahoo Messenger, which is very very cheap. I called my mom in Taiwan for 50 minutes, which cost me less than US $1.00. It’s $0.015 per minute call while Skype charges $0.021 per minute.

Problems? There is not much problem with the call quality with Yahoo Voice, but does with Skype. Sometimes it has a little bit delay, but not so bad. How about incoming call? I found that AOL is providing a very nice service called AIM Phone Line. Check out www.aimphoneline.com. It provides a FREE local phone number that you can receive unlimited incoming calls and voicemails. The best part is that you can listen to your voicemail from the web interface without installing the AIM software or even from any phone, not like other services. Yahoo messenger Phone-in service and Skype’s skype-in phone services require you to install the software on the computer which you want to check your voicemail.

In addition, AIMphoneline allows you to setup an alert or notification to your email and even cellphone, when you receive a voicemail. That is so cool. I will get an alert that “I’ve got an voicemail” on my cell phone with Call-ID. Then I can call my local phone number and listen to my voicemail on my cell phone or any phone. You can even setup a speed pass to a phone number, so you just press * to access your voicemail box without enter password.

WOW! I have to say that AIMPhoneLine totally enhance the way I communite with my friends. One other very good example is this. I was traveling in Taiwan. My friend is trying to contact me from Phoenix Arizona. So I connect my laptop with Wi-Fi in the coffee shop in Taiwan. I open my AIM software and take my friend’s call. The best part is that my friend is calling me for FREE. Because he is calling me through the local phone number. That’s just too wonderful. Isn’t it?

So what is my VOIP solutions?

I use Yahoo Voice for outbound call to anywhere in the world with low rate and good quality. I am taking call and voicemail through AIMPhoneLine. Wait! What about Skype? I hate Skype. These are the reasons.

  • The calling quality from Skype to Asia is just as bad as using pincity.com’s pre-paid phone card.
  • The Skype-in is expensive compare the FREE service from AIMPhoneLine.com
  • I can only check voicemail through Skype desktop software.
  • I don’t get any notification that I have an voicemail.

So Skype is out. However, I just found out one thing about the FREE phone number from AIMPhoneLine.com. In order to keep this free local number, you will need to receive at least one call to the number every months. Otherwise, they will pull the number out and give that to someone. Read the last Q&A here.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Want to work hard and play hard?
 Get Inside Story by E-Mail     Subscribe with Your Favorite Reader

Save To Del.icio.us | Digg This | Stumble It



Your Ad Here