Michael and Vanessa Santos of Fresno love talking to their family in the Philippines ... so much so, they do it multiple times a day.
Vanessa said, "It's the fastest way to communicate, you know, by picking up the phone. Not everyone does Facebook or knows how to do email."
But calling overseas can get expensive. The Santos' say their long distance carrier charged as much as 20 cents a minute for a call to the Philippines.
"20 cents a minute is big, if you add it up by 30 minutes, how many phone calls a day, that's a lot," said Michael.
The Santos' would buy $5.00 phone cards which would run out in mere minutes. But with the Magic Jack, they talk for hours for free. "There's no time limit. You can just call for whatever. Calling just to say hi is possibly now."
The Santos' bought the $39.00 Magic Jack for each of their family members overseas. They plug a phone into one end ... the other end into the USB port on a computer. They register a phone number using an area code that matches the one they call the most. In this case -- 559.
The first year of service is included in the purchase price. After that, it's only $19.95 a year.
Magic Jack does have some limitations -- you have to keep your computer running and online in order to use it. And if your power goes out, so does your phone service.
Ooma is another option. It retails for $249.00. The company estimates users will make up that cost in one to two years by eliminating their monthly phone bill.
Justin Cruz said, "You don't even need a computer with Ooma. You can just plug it in directly to a cable line that's for broadband speed and same thing it just uses the internet to go over. You still have all your features call waiting, you still have caller id, all the great features that you would normally get with a basic telephone provider at a much cheaper rate."
Fresno's Best Buy Manager Justin Cruz says it's simple to use and the call quality is great. The main obstacle -- he says -- other than the initial investment, is education.
"It's going to be like anything in technology. People are just scared to switch over scared of the unknown. We can let people know how easy it is and how affordable and more economical it would be to use these options instead of the other ones," said Cruz.
Fresno's Simon Haeder prefers Skype to call his folks in Germany. He and his wife Hollyanne can see and hear his mom and dad ... as if they were in the next room.
Skype works with a webcam and over a computer to computer connection ... voice over internet protocol. And best of all, "It's free. So we tried it out, we really liked it, my parents really liked it so we've been using it ever since," said Simon.
Hollyanne said, "We would never be able to call them on a calling card and talk for that long. We would go through several calling cards."
For those who don't want to be tied to their computer -- Skype is now available as an iPhone app. A subscription is $2.95 a month for unlimited calls to the U.S. and Canada.
For best results, Magic Jack, Ooma, and Skype all require a broadband internet connection.
