Wednesday 26 October 2011

Vietnam - inexpensive phone calls from US or Canada?

I have a mobile phone in VN and a business to check in with in Canada. What is the best (and least expensive) way to stay in touch when more urgent than email? I am thinking of changing my phone in Canada to internet telephony which I am told can then be answered from a PC in VN as if I were in Canada ... comments?
Vietnam - inexpensive phone calls from US or Canada?
If you can talk over PC-to-PC...then you can use lots of software for free calls (I use Yahoo Messenger as I'm already using it as my chat tool).



If you want to talk PC-to-LAND line or Mobile...then you have a couple of options:



1) My family in VN uses a combo of a phone card and calling through the internet...seems pretty cheap but option 2 may be cheaper, especially if you don't have internet at home (just in theory, not sure...you would have to verify the rate with Yahoo via calling from Vietnam to Canada).



2) I just signed up for Yahoo Phone Out which is buying your minutes through Yahoo and calling out via Yahoo Voice (Yahoo Messenger). The rates seem pretty decent...for example for me to call Vietnam from Canada which is normally very expensive (0.45/min last time I tried with a phone card) is only costing me now 0.10/minute and you can set it to automatic top-up...it gets charged to your credit card. Of course phone to Canada from VN is always cheaper than the reverse but hopefully the same logic will apply for you as it did for me.



This might be very good news for you if it's true...the price list states that calling US/Can is only 0.01/minute --%26gt; thats only 1 cent/minute. So, if it holds true FROM no matter where you are...then you can't beat that deal! Just confirm first if you can...I've never tried to call inside to North America from overseas yet.



Hope that helps. The link for your further research is below.
Vietnam - inexpensive phone calls from US or Canada?
use a phone call..
er. . .

i remember there was this one phone card that you can use

it's like $5 or something

and it lasts for a while
if you go to the post office and call canada its cheaper
Land line phone is better for the one in US or Canada. In VN they sell phone card in the amount of 300,000 dong that you plug in you mobile phone, it last a while for call international. In the US, there is a service: 10-10-719, cost about 29 cents/min to VN, not sure about Canada. Hope this help.
*** URGENT ***: Update to answer posted by %26quot;M8BS%26quot;.



Just wanted to clarify my previous post to your question (I'm actually the same person, with multiple yahoo accounts...and I didn't know how to modify my original answer).



I discovered that the Yahoo Phone Out feature is only available for US residents...sucks for me too. So, I hope you haven't already tried to purchase any minutes - thus the %26quot;urgent%26quot; tag in the first line of this answer.



Sorry for getting your hopes up about %26quot;Phone Out%26quot;...there's also Skype if you want to look into that which may offer cheaper rates by calling via the Internet using Skype but I haven't researched too much into this yet.



Good-luck!