I've had Ooma for 7 years, and have never had a problem. Well, now I have one. I need to make an international call to Japan. Their rate is 4 cents a minute. I need to make hotel reservations, so it should take less than 5 minutes (~ 20 cents). But in order to do that, I have to put a minimum of $10 into my account. I asked if whatever's left after my call can be applied to my monthly bill. Nope, it just sits there. At the rate I use it (20 cents every 7 years), it'll take 350 years to use up that $10.

My cell plan is just as bad (AT&T). I can add a monthly plan to call internationally (starts at $15), or pay like $3/minute to call.

Can anyone think of another way I can call internationally for free (or a reasonable price)?

Just looked at Google voice... looks like the same issue there. You have to buy credits, minimum of $10.

When I was stationed at Aviano in the late 80's, I had to pay something like $2-3 per minute to call the United States.

That's like $5 per minute in today's dollars.

rz,

$0.04 per minute isn't a bad rate at all. Even Google Voice, which is dirt cheap, charges $0.02 to $0.04 per minute.

Personally, I'm inclined to say the amount of time you've spent on this between thinking about it and posting on the forum about it has cost you more than the $10.00 min you'd need to pay Ooma to just make the call. At this point, just drop the bucks, make the call and be done with it.

FWIW, I'm surprised you have to call the hotel to make the reservations. No means for you to do it via the hotel's web site or via something like Orbitz?

Robert

how much did you save with OOMA over the past 7 years?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2022 07:00PM by gadje.

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Robert M

FWIW, I'm surprised you have to call the hotel to make the reservations. No means for you to do it via the hotel's web site or via something like Orbitz?

Robert

This

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Embarassing myself on the Internet since 1978.

$10 is the minimum, since they have to process the credit card transaction.

rz,

Yup. I had to call Italy and threw about $15 to $20 on my Google Voice account. Still have over $10.00 and it's been there since mid-year 2015. In my case, it was a business call. Didn't even think twice. Just put the money into the account, made the call and got it done. Like I said... You've already spent way too much time thinking about this.

Robert

Do you have a VPN? Can you choose a server in Japan and use wifi calling? Just thinking out loud here.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2022 07:44PM by Dennis R.

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Dennis R
Do you have a VPN? Can you choose a server in Japan and use wifi calling? Just thinking out loud here.

crafty.

Even a free VPN service should have the bandwidth for a phone call.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2022 08:49PM by Racer X.

Pay Robert a dollar to use his Google voice account credit

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“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

I dropped $10 in my Oooma account when we had to talk to a lawyer in Germany. 10 years ago.

I've got about $7 left.

It is nice not to have to worry. I can recall the bad old days when my wife's calls to me in Pakistan ran about $25 for a 10 minute conversation. Or when I used MCI's system to make long distance calls (with a touch tone generator) to my girlfriend (now wife). Still cost around $200 a month. In 1980.

"Operator, I would like to place a collect long distance call to 201-555-1212. "Momitsagirl""

I did finally end up using the hotel's website to make the reservations. Problem was that they only take reservations in 10 day increments, and I am staying for 24 nights. So I had to make 3 reservations. I will try to straighten it out when I get there.

Skype, Viber, LINE - do they all have minimums? I used Skype for Taiwan the last time, don't remember if I had to put down much more than the call cost.

Ok, so SKYPE and Viber minimum credit is $5.00. Viber is also $5.99/month for unlimited international calls.

LINE has free calls to Japan, US, and some other countries for up to 5 min duration.

WhatsApp does not have the capability of calling land line numbers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2022 01:12PM by dk62.