Randy W Posted December 26, 2005 Report Share Posted December 26, 2005 (edited) Jiaying found an ad in one of our local Chinese papers for a broadband phone company which provides you with a local Chinese phone number. Does anyone have experience with iTalkBB? What is iTalkBB? iTalkBB (iTalk Broadband) is dedicated to serve the global Chinese community with the state-of-art broadband phone services. iTalkBB Global Unlimited Plan Monthly Charge: $24.99 With iTalk BB Global Unlimited Plan you can make unlimited phone calls anytime to anywhere in US, Canada, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, plus more than 20 countries worldwide for only $24.99 a month.* Including unlimited free incoming calls from China. Like the freedom of unlimited calling worldwide and receive unlimited calls from your friends and family in China? This is the best you can get! Your choice of area code Unlimited local and long distance calls to 20+ countries in the world Unlimited incoming calls from China to your assigned China phone number No additional tax and fees Free Advanced Features: China Phone Number iTalkBB Phone Card Caller ID Call Waiting Call Forwarding 3-way Calling Call Flash Transfer Call Hold * Including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Vatican City¡£ Except for US, Canada, China and Hong Kong calls to mobile phones are not included in this unlimited plan. It also says: Offer expires 11/30/2005.30 day money-back guarantee, so try out our service risk-free It's unclear if the Global Unlimited Plan expired, or the 30 day money-back guarantee. The next plan is the Residential Unlimited - $19.99/month, and 2 cents/minute to China, making it less competitive with OneSuite. Edited December 26, 2005 by Randy W (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonado Posted December 26, 2005 Report Share Posted December 26, 2005 http://www.broadvoice.com/rateplans_unlimited_world.html I think broadvoice is similar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy W Posted December 26, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 26, 2005 except that iTalkBB would REPLACE your existing phone service, providing you with both a US number and a Chinese number for free calls FROM China, if I am reading it correctly. Is someone familiar with this service? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_dawei Posted December 26, 2005 Report Share Posted December 26, 2005 http://www.italkbb.com/cgi-bin/eng/eng_index.php call:1-877-italkbb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercator Posted December 27, 2005 Report Share Posted December 27, 2005 I'd be interested to hear if anyone is having any luck with this. $100 a month is a $100 a month, and that is what I spend in a month at OneSuite, even at 2.9c/min... If she can call me free... But I would need to know it works fairly well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomandQing Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 I'd be interested to hear if anyone is having any luck with this. $100 a month is a $100 a month, and that is what I spend in a month at OneSuite, even at 2.9c/min... If she can call me free... But I would need to know it works fairly well...178075[/snapback]I have Voneage, which I have been very successful with for over a year. But I still often have $60-$75 phone bills from calling China. Before Voneage, my bills were $200-300! But I just looked over that iTalkBB service and I think it looks very good. I will probably try it. I like that it gives you a Chinese number so your SO can call you for free. It will cost you 2 cents per minute but that is nothing. I pay 6 cents with Voneage when I call her and she must call me regular long distance. This way, I can call her for free and she can call me free to her and 2 cents a minute charged to me. I know she will like that. You can also have her calls forwarded to your work phone while you are at work. What do you think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ShaQuaNew Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 Randy, most of the VoIP companies out there are letting the new user pick their telephone numbers. I have Vonage, and have been using it for over two years now. With it, and other compananies like it one can pick or change their number to a local number anywhere in the world. I considered adding a number for Lan rather than using a calling card company, but never got around to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ShaQuaNew Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 I'd be interested to hear if anyone is having any luck with this. $100 a month is a $100 a month, and that is what I spend in a month at OneSuite, even at 2.9c/min... If she can call me free... But I would need to know it works fairly well...178075[/snapback]I have Voneage, which I have been very successful with for over a year. But I still often have $60-$75 phone bills from calling China. Before Voneage, my bills were $200-300! But I just looked over that iTalkBB service and I think it looks very good. I will probably try it. I like that it gives you a Chinese number so your SO can call you for free. It will cost you 2 cents per minute but that is nothing. I pay 6 cents with Voneage when I call her and she must call me regular long distance. This way, I can call her for free and she can call me free to her and 2 cents a minute charged to me. I know she will like that. You can also have her calls forwarded to your work phone while you are at work. What do you think?194869[/snapback]I also have Vonage, but recommend you not call direct to China unless you've picked a number that is local for your SO in China. Online calling card companies like onesuite and dynasky offer rates at or about two cents a minute.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nygatl15 Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 Jiaying found an ad in one of our local Chinese papers for a broadband phone company which provides you with a local Chinese phone number. Does anyone have experience with iTalkBB? What is iTalkBB? iTalkBB (iTalk Broadband) is dedicated to serve the global Chinese community with the state-of-art broadband phone services. iTalkBB Global Unlimited Plan Monthly Charge: $24.99 With iTalk BB Global Unlimited Plan you can make unlimited phone calls anytime to anywhere in US, Canada, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, plus more than 20 countries worldwide for only $24.99 a month.* Including unlimited free incoming calls from China. Like the freedom of unlimited calling worldwide and receive unlimited calls from your friends and family in China? This is the best you can get! Your choice of area code Unlimited local and long distance calls to 20+ countries in the world Unlimited incoming calls from China to your assigned China phone number No additional tax and fees Free Advanced Features: China Phone Number iTalkBB Phone Card Caller ID Call Waiting Call Forwarding 3-way Calling Call Flash Transfer Call Hold * Including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Vatican City¡£ Except for US, Canada, China and Hong Kong calls to mobile phones are not included in this unlimited plan. It also says: Offer expires 11/30/2005.30 day money-back guarantee, so try out our service risk-free It's unclear if the Global Unlimited Plan expired, or the 30 day money-back guarantee. The next plan is the Residential Unlimited - $19.99/month, and 2 cents/minute to China, making it less competitive with OneSuite.177973[/snapback]This is worth looking into. I get my DSL service with my phone. My phone service is aprox $50 per month with no long distance. and $50 per month for DSL. I use my cell for the long distance which I don't use much anyway. I beleive you can get DSL without having cable if you have a phone number, but there will be maybe a one day downtime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim_julian Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 (edited) Skype also allows you get get a HK phone number under the SkypeIn service. A SkypeIn number is $30/yr and includes voice mail. I use Skype as my "home" phone number in Southern California so where ever I am in the world my children and local friends can reach me on a local SoCal call. Whenever I'm on my laptop I can receive these calls or access the voice mail. No charges other than the $30/yr. For another $30 I could also have a HK number but we haven't found this necessary. Lao Po and I use Skype computer to computer and that's absolutely free. I also use SkypeOut service where I can call Lao Po on her home phone or mobile from my computer for about 2 cents a minute no matter where I am in the world. With SkypeOut you use a credit card or PayPal to load $10-20 in your account which is then decremented as you make SkypeOut calls. I have found the voice quality on Skype to be excellent, better than an analog telephone. I've never seen the service go down and I always get through (even on New Year's) unless she has a mobile problem on her end. Edited March 2, 2006 by jim_julian (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nygatl15 Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 Skype also allows you get get a HK phone number under the SkypeIn service. A SkypeIn number is $30/yr and includes voice mail. I use Skype as my "home" phone number in Southern California so where ever I am in the world my children and local friends can reach me on a local SoCal call. Whenever I'm on my laptop I can receive these calls or access the voice mail. No charges other than the $30/yr. For another $30 I could also have a HK number but we haven't found this necessary. Lao Po and I use Skype computer to computer and that's absolutely free. I also use SkypeOut service where I can call Lao Po on her home phone or mobile from my computer for about 2 cents a minute no matter where I am in the world. With SkypeOut you use a credit card or PayPal to load $10-20 in your account which is then decremented as you make SkypeOut calls. I have found the voice quality on Skype to be excellent, better than an analog telephone. I've never seen the service go down and I always get through (even on New Year's) unless she has a mobile problem on her end.194968[/snapback]This means, she must live in Hong Kong, yes?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ShaQuaNew Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 Skype also allows you get get a HK phone number under the SkypeIn service. A SkypeIn number is $30/yr and includes voice mail. I use Skype as my "home" phone number in Southern California so where ever I am in the world my children and local friends can reach me on a local SoCal call.194968[/snapback]The days of telephone monopolies are over.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lele Posted March 3, 2006 Report Share Posted March 3, 2006 Skype is good. Everyone I know uses it...however, I still only use it for computer to computer, until a local mainland china number opens up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim_julian Posted March 4, 2006 Report Share Posted March 4, 2006 This means, she must live in Hong Kong, yes?! 194982[/snapback]Huh?? Totally confused .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cocolei Posted March 4, 2006 Report Share Posted March 4, 2006 This means, she must live in Hong Kong, yes?! 194982[/snapback]Huh?? Totally confused .... 195631[/snapback]I am confused too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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