Web Phones Hit The Road

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

(CBS)  If you have a laptop, you can either use Vonage "Softphone" ($10 a month) to make free calls or if you're not a Vonage subscriber you can easily buy time on the Skype service to make calls to North America, Western Europe and Australia for about 2 cents a minute with higher rates to other countries.

You can speak directly into the laptop's built-in microphone and listen through the speakers, but for best call quality, you should carry a small headset (starting at under $10) that plugs into the laptop's microphone and headphone jacks.

Skype requires that you place calls through your PC but you can call regular phones. You don't have to pay a monthly fee to use the service but you do need to prepay a minimum of 10 euros (currently about $12) which buys you about 600 minutes of phone usage.

Skype has recently introduced a service for incoming calls. SkypeIn costs 10 euros ($12) for 3 months or 30 euros ($36) for a one-year subscription. SkypeIn assigns you a telephone number in the area code of your choice and if your PC is turned on, connected to the Internet and running Skype software, it allows you to accept incoming calls.

Skype also has a free service that lets you call from PC to PC but the free service doesn't allow you to call regular phones.

In all but one way, having my home/office phone with me in Cairo is wonderful. I can save a great deal of money on calls, and friends and colleagues can reach me without having to even know where I am. There is one problem though. Cairo is 10 hours head of Pacific Daylight time. If you plan to give me a call, please don't do it at 6:00 p.m. California time. If I were home, the worst you'd do is interrupt my dinner. Here in Cairo you'd wake me up because it would be 4:00 in the morning.

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A syndicated technology columnist for nearly two decades, Larry Magid serves as on air Technology Analyst for CBS Radio News. His technology reports can be heard several times a week on the CBS Radio Network. Magid is the author of several books including "The Little PC Book."