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January 22, 2007

Calling for free... almost :-)

I found myself far from a broadband computer the past few days, but needed to place international calls. The problem is that these calls are very expensive to place from a mobile phone, and I would not want to scare Magnus away from his new job with my phone bills.

Here is a tip.

Marratech's own Manager has two subscriptions. One at Broadvoice ( inexpensive flat rate for USA and Canada) (for the USA and Canada) and one at WX3 here in Sweden.

With just a web interface on my mobile, I log into our Manager and do the following:

1. I press the Dial Out link on the front page.
2. I select a room we created called Phone Booth, select the SIP line with WX3 and dial my mobile number. When it rings, answer.
3. I go back to the Dial Out link. Reselect the room called Phone Booth and select the Broadvoice SIP line. I then dial the number in North America I want to call.

BINGO! Pick up your mobile and you will be talking to the USA for free (apart for a local call charge from WX3) from your mobile in Europe.

With a bit of scripting, this can be made automagically!

What happens is that the Marratech Manager connects both calls for you, making sure that the voice from one call goes into the other and vice versa.

Great way to make cheap international calls when you are on the go.

Posted by Serge Lachapelle at January 22, 2007 03:11 PM

Comments

This is very cool. I have even heard of people walking into a Starbucks Coffe shop or any other location with a wi-fi hot spot and using a wi-fi enabled PDA to access the Marratech Manager to esablish a call from a phone in Europe to their US cell phone. Using Marratech and Broadvoice is much cheaper than calling Europe directly from the US cell phone.

Magnus

Posted by: Magnus Hedberg at January 22, 2007 08:00 PM

Interesting tip. No web on my cell. I just use a calling card like to call cheap on my mobile. Buy hey, nice hack!

Posted by: GeorgeT at January 22, 2007 10:06 PM