After months of people asking if I am living in a tunnel I can finally drop Skype and make calls via a phone card! I have no idea why when I use Skype to call out it sounds like I am in a cavern, but it does. So my conversations consisted of what? what?! WHAT!!! OK I will call you back. ICE, the telephone/electricity company here is government owned and currently the only game in town. For some reason (read $$$ here) they do not let you use Skype on your cell phone to call out. You can forward incoming calls to your cell, but cannot make Skype calls that way. In both of the houses I have lived in there was no internet option save the data card over the airwaves. Because of their gross underestimation of how many people would want to actually use the internet, there is hardly enough bandwidth to have any kind of performance over these cards. I am able to work at a decent speed, well mostly, but trying to use VOIP and run anything else is virtually impossible. So I shut down every application with the exception of Skype and repeat myself incessantly. This makes teleconferencing for work virtually impossible. So if I had a phone meeting I was using an office at Mario's brother's shop or hoping I would not have to share a desktop while on the phone. The nicer folks would call me so I could let the call go to my cell and they would conference me in. Those days are gone - YIPPPPIE!
While we were at the feria I decided to stop at the used books stand in the back corner. I had seen the ad for it on Craigslist and really wanted to read some english. I do miss english here. So I stopped and there is this sign - phone calls to the US 6 cents! Woo hoo - now I had been looking on the internet for phone cards, but couldn't fins any that let you call from CR to the US - only the other way around. So I bought one to try out. I also bought books and cheese, yeah there's always a mixed bag at the feria. I spoke the vendor for a while, what a nice woman. Mario was laughing because he knew I was liking the english for a change of pace. But anyway the card is great! I got 200 minutes for $12 (she takes a little profit on the card). I used the whole 200 minutes over the weekend and in meetings today so I emailed her for more and asked for a card with more than 200 minutes. Within a few hours she had gotten me 2000, well I will have the codes tomorrow, but whew what a relief! Everyone I talked to asked why they could understand me, my dad's really happy cause he was the biggest complainer!
The info for anyone who is interested in these cards is:
http://puravidaconnections.com/
or email 6cents@puravidaconnections.com
I am not selling the cards, just passing the info along. It was a godsend for me so maybe someone else is having the same issues.
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Hi Mary Lynn,
ReplyDeleteWe had some trouble with Skype, too, when we had only a 3G line. You might try a MagicJack to see if that's better. It's voice only but you can plug a regular phone into it (or use your computer's sound card). You could borrow ours to see if it will work. A subscription is $70 for 5 years, all calls to N.A. are FREE and their int'l rates are slightly better than Skype.
Pura vida!
Hi Casey!
ReplyDeleteThanks, I have magic jack too. I actually lent it to Mario's brother's family while his brother was in the US. I like Skype because I can forward it to my cell so I can get my calls from work in the feria! Ok well maybe they have figured out I am not in the office ALL the time.
I had an issue with magic jack in that people could hear me fine when they called me, but when I called out they said it was garbled. It may be my laptop or the fact that I am on a data card.
Also for work I need to be on the phone and doing screen displays and the data card just can't handle it. I am waiting patiently for the Tico "soon" so I can either have CableTica or SKY internet. Until then the phone card is the cheapest solution.
Thanks again!!
Mary Lynn