I am moving to switzerland for few months should i get a voip phone to take with me?
Posted: February 1, 2010 at 12:08 pm | Tags: months, moving, phone, should, Switzerland, take, voip
Hello to all of you
I will be moving to Switzerland for few months maybe a year, i need amy family and friends to be able to contact me, as non swiss resident i cann’t own a phone except a prepaid one so i am thinking of getting a phone from here to take with me, what type of plan or phone or company should i go for as the cheapest and decent one.
I am confused with voip phone are they practical? what other alternative i have?
Thank you
The Discussion
see what everyone is saying
Switzerland is totally different from any other European county! You have to pay fees and tariffs on stuff like VoIP even calling cards….so just buy a MagicJack here and take it with you!!!
Most of my family use MJ so they can call back for free to the US with an US area-code…!
also you can not use any calling cards in the phone-booth…I never understood why!
skype works good in Switzerland too….but since we all use the MJ now, we don’t use it much anymore.
One of my cousins works for swisscomm and they always trying to figure out how to put a stop to void users so they can tax it!
You could you any other VoIP like vonage but you can not use it within the Schweiz to make calls.
When it comes to using VoIP from your PC (with HighSpeed Internet), there are many options. Here are just a few:
- Skype is one of the best known. I’ve used it for years with good results.
- Efonica is another service that I have used that works quite well with good rates.
- Gizmo5 is a Skype competitor with similar options and rates.
- CallCentric is a full-service pay-as-you-go VoIP provider that provides a free downloadable Softphone for your PC. Or, if you get a user-configurable VoIP ATA phone adapter (like Linksys SPA2102-NA), you can use it with a regular telephone and no PC required. They also have Calling Card gateways around the world, including phone gateways in Zurich and Geneva. Calls to the USA/Canada are only 1.98ยข/min using their Voip or local Call Card gateway. As well, you can get a VoIP DID phone number anywhere in USA/Canada and Switzerland to receive calls on your Softphone or ATA adapter.
You can get your VoIP Softphones or ATA adapter setup, preconfigured, and tested while still in USA. When you get to Switzerland, it should just be a matter of plug-and-play.
So, as long as Switzerland isn’t blocking Voip over Internet, I think you have a few options to choose from.
If your family and friends also have a VoIP account with any of the above mentioned services, you can talk to eachother for Free using “In-Network” calling. Virtually ALL Voip services allow free In-Network calling between their VoIP account users.