OT: Which Is the Better Deal?

[Ash]

When it comes to math, I am absolutely horrid.
It has always been my worst subject.
That, and I'm a frugal fellow who's always looking to save a buck.  
(I pick pennies up off the ground)
Maybe you guys can help me.  I'd appreciate it.

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I have a cell phone and I use I-Wireless
I use MEGATALK and I use the Pay In Advance plan.
I pay $39.99 plus tax for UNLIMITED calling to 75% of Iowa.
Iowa taxes you 5 cents on the dollar.
I naver make out of state calls and 99% of the time I make local calls.

To give you an idea as to how much I use my phone:
In the 2 1/2 months since I first set up service, I was on it for 37h, 57m and 22s.  That number is accurate as of 0700 hrs, Sept 9, 2005.

I'm thinking of ditching my cell because I rarely use it while out and about and trying out SKYPE instead.

I was particularly looking at the SKYPEOUT setup.
SkypeOUT is "a low cost way to make calls from Skype to friends who still use those traditional landlines or mobile phones."
Meaning, I can use it to call anyone from my p.c. (which is joined to me at the hip when I'm home)
There are NO CONTRACTS with SkypeOUT.
It's Price-per-Minute.

The going rate for SkypeOUT is:

"Destination · Rates per minute: US Dollar excl. VAT=USA $ 0.021
US Dollar incl. VAT=$ 0.024"
(I'm guessing VAT is some kind of tax)

So, based upon my average usage, which is the better deal?

(I have a cable broadband connection by the way)



Post Edited (09-09-05 07:26)

[Mr_Vindictive]

VAT is "Value Added Tax".  If I'm not mistaken, that's mainly used overseas which makes sense as I believe that Skype started out in Britan.

I'm a person who really can't recommend any type of VOIP service wether it be Skype or Vonage or the like.  I work for an ISP and we had VOIP services for customers until the FCC 911 rules went into place.  I helped write all of the code needed for the system (Asterisk.org) and although the code was tight and everything worked fine with it, we still had a lot of problems.  We had to use various equipment from other companies for long distance and such like Coppercom.  There was always difficulty with the phones.

I think right now, it's a technology that is in it's infant stages.  I say stick to a POTS like and/or a cell phone until the technology gets a bit better.  I know I will.

[Ash]

Thanks for the advice Ska....

I've had experience with VOIP before.
I used Dialpad constantly back in 2000 and 2001 when it was free.

VOIP has been around for at least 6 years now and I do consider it to be pretty reliable.
I never had any problems with Dialpad back then....the basic service has only improved over the years.

That being said, and disregarding reliability and quality issues and simply looking at it all from an economic point of view, which is the better deal?



Post Edited (09-09-05 07:27)

[trekgeezer]

My daughter is in Tokyo going to school and she uses Skype to talk to her friends and she calls home from her laptop to home all the time at like $.02 a minute. Sometimes at work I call her from my PC (at home we have dial up and Skype can't handle that very well) and it is just like she's in the room with me.

You know they now make Skype phones which connect to a USB port (even have wireless models).

Skype is a good deal. I think you are going to see people like Google and Microsoft trying to get into this business.

I think Skype is a good deal. They have a service that is in Beta right now called Skype-In that assigns you a phone number for your PC that people can call. So if you have a Skype-In number in Chicago and you're in Europe, people in Chicago can call you no-charge. It even has free voice mail.

[odinn7]

I use the Virgin Mobile pay in advance cell phone service. I don't use a cell too often but I carry it just in case someone needs to get in touch with me in an emergency. For me the pay in advance set-up works great as I can drop $20 on it for time and I barely go through that in 2 months. No contracts, no credit checks, no credit card needed...you can't beat it....that is unless you're like some people and need the cell phone attached to your head.

Now, let's get down to the math part of your question. Any freakin' idiot should be able to figure this out fairly easily. I have a hamster at home who could do this because it's so simple. But, for your benefit, I will write it out for you...

IF:
 d/dx (f (x) + g (x))= d/dx f (x) + d/dx g (x)

THEN:
xex2 erfc x= (2/J;;)xez2 e-12dt, ~-~=.25(-.005)0, 7D

H0(z) -Yo(z), -Y1 (z), 1 t&(t) -Yo(t)ldt - (2/7r) In z
lm [HO(t)-Yo(t)]t-'dt, 2-'=.2(-.01)0, 6D

Duh!

[Mr_Vindictive]

trek_geezer wrote:

> Skype is a good deal. I think you are going to see people like
> Google and Microsoft trying to get into this business.

They're ahead of you Trek.  :)

http://talk.google.com

[Ash]

Google talk seems very similar to the new version of Yahoo Messenger.
Calling from p.c. to p.c.

I'm not interested in that.

I want to make calls from my p.c. to landlines and cell phones.

[Ash]

So no one knows the answer?

I'm suprised!
I figured at least one of you would know.

[odinn7]

I already spelled it out for you as simple as I could:

IF:
d/dx (f (x) + g (x))= d/dx f (x) + d/dx g (x)

THEN:
xex2 erfc x= (2/J;;)xez2 e-12dt, ~-~=.25(-.005)0, 7D

H0(z) -Yo(z), -Y1 (z), 1 t&(t) -Yo(t)ldt - (2/7r) In z
lm [HO(t)-Yo(t)]t-'dt, 2-'=.2(-.01)0, 6D

Duh!

[Georgie Boy]

ASH.  The cost of both is so close as to not really make much of a difference.  I would stress to you that you need to keep some sort of basic phone system available to you.  In the event of a sitruation such as hurricane, or more likely in your area, tornado, you will want access to phone or cell lines since they tend to come up faster than power lines.  Many times they are still up and going when all other service is knocked out.

Stay with a basic bottom line land system or cell.  If you get off paying under $50.00 per month, you are doing well and won't find a much better deal.

If you are curious, lowermybills.com is pretty good for making comparisions.