Web Phones Hit The Road

CBS' Larry Magid Tests Phones Which Go Global, But Seem Local

(CBS)  I'm more than 7,000 miles from home but when I called my wife from my hotel I didn't have to dial an area code and the hour-long call didn't cost a penny. Instead of paying more than $1 a minute to call long distance or $2.50 a minute to use my cell phone, I placed the call via the Internet. And, thanks to Vonage, neither Patti nor I had to sit in front of a computer to talk on the phone.

What's more, the service doesn't just let you make outside calls. You can receive calls as well. After Patti and I spoke, the phone in my hotel room rang with a call from a friend of mine who didn't even know I was out of the country. He called my regular home/office line, which rang here in Cairo.

I'm in Cairo to speak about Internet safety at a United Nations Conference on violence against children

I found out before I left that the hotel where I'm staying has a high-speed Ethernet port in the room. So, along with my clothes and toothbrush, I packed my Vonage Internet phone adapter — the one that I use to make and receive Internet calls from home. After plugging the adapter into the Ethernet port and a small phone into the adapter, I'm able to make and receive calls just as if I were home. Anyone who calls my regular home/office number can reach me in Cairo without having to pay for an overseas call and every time I pick up the phone to make a call, I get my regular dial tone. If I'm calling people who live near where I do in California, I don't even have to punch in the area code.

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Just how good is the sound quality? Listen to CBS News Correspondent Charlotte Burke's conversation with Larry from Egypt.

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Vonage is one of several companies that are not only making it cheaper to make calls from home of office, but dramatically improving communications for those of us who travel. The company's basic service starts at $14.95 and includes 500 minutes anywhere in the U.S. and Canada as well as low-cost international calling from anywhere in the world. For $24.95 a month you get unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada. Setting up the service requires that you plug a free adapter into your wired network. If you're traveling somewhere that has a wired Ethernet port, you can take the adapter — and your home or office phone number — with you. The Vonage service doesn't know or care that I'm in Egypt. All they know is that the adapter is connected to the Internet. Regular long-distance calls to and from the Middle East tend to be considerably more expensive than calls to many other regions of the world, so I'm saving a lot of money using Vonage from here.