Almost Free Telecommunications

Hi All,

Long story short, Last week my iPhone was stolen from my car. My fault for thinking my neighborhood and more specifically my neighbors would not steal something from my vehicle directly in front of my hose. I have replaced my iPhone with the least expensive, no contract phone I could get and boy is it small, cheap and featureless. OK well that got long…

Anyways it made me do some thinking about my telecommunications. For those of you that have an iPhone you are stuck with not only the rates for your calling plan but also an additional $40 a month for data access. For me this came to just under $80 monthly. $80 just to have a cell phone? I know I am a bit old but it was not all that long ago when phone companies only charged you less than $20 a month for your house phone.

Well, I have had enough so I am changing up. My company advertising, flyers, business cards and Truck all have my cell phone number on them. I have 4 months remaining with my contract for AT&T and then I get to change up.

Currently my plan is to get a mobile hotspot ( MyFi or similar), they cost about the same as a normal Cell phone charge of $50 a month. I will be dropping my cell phone into a blender and sending it back to AT&T just for some giggles.

Once I have the mobile hotspot I will be able to take my Netbook with me anywhere and have internet access. With that access I will be using my MagicJack and a headset to make any calls I need to make on the road or in the house. Once I do this I will take my cell phone number and have it directly forwarded to Google Voice.

Google Voice is like a consolidated voice mail box for any and all of your numbers. It will let me goto the internet site and listen to my voicemails and even let me call out with the click of a button. The best feature is that when a voicemail gets recorded it automatically gets transcribed into English text. You can listen to the recording or read the text (transcription is not all that great yet). Then if you want to call the person that called you there is a button to call the number.

The best part is that Google Voice will dial your phone (magicjack) than dial out the number so everything is free! all you need is internet access and MagicJack.

The MagicJack website where you can get the device for just a few dollars ($12) a year and it allows you to call anywhere in the US for FREE! and only $.02 a min overseas. The drawback is that you need internet access. Note: there are plenty of free wireless hot spots these days for those that do not have internet at home or do not want to purchase and pay for a wireless hotspot.

Google Voice is free but you need to sign up and request access because it is still in the beta phase.

The best part about this all is that I will not only have mobile phone access, but also Internet data access all for one low monthly price.

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