My fiance lives in Morocco and we are trying to find the least expensive way to be able to talk to each other.. I heard there may be some VOIP options but I don't know the companies available for Morocco. Any Ideas or first hand experience? Right now I am using a phone card.. 57 cents a minute.. Yes you can use VOIP in Morocco. We do in our house and in our business.
You need to subscribe to a VOIP service where you are (I assume America).
You get their adapter or Gizmo and you can connect it here to the dsl connection and have an American telephone number.
We use Vonage, we live in Agadir.
Zelo, zelo brother!!! You are incorrect. VOIP and Vonage is not just for usa/canada/uk. You can only subscribe to phone numbers from those places and you have to pay in those funds but YOU CAN USE IT IN MOROCCO or any other country for that matter. I have friends who use it all over Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Phillipines, Saudi etc etc etc.
If you are in USA and have family here you MUST get it! Of course I didn't read through your entire post because it is much to long for me to want too, haha, so maybe somewhere in there you realized you made a mistake and said Vonage is good to use here. lol Sign up for vonage and send him the stuff to use. :D
EDIT: Actually, you buy the vonage and you send him the stuff to use while it is signed up under your name and adress --you get the bill but he can use it from there and call you with it for free basically (just about 30 dollars a month or so with taxes).
Maybe Sarah T will come and answer this. She lives in Morocco and uses Vonage.... Sorry no VOIP in Morocco. Vonage is only for US/Canada/UK
http://www.vonage.com/avail.php?lid=nav_...
There are phone cards out there that are a lot less than 57垄/minute. Check out the Phone Cards section here
http://www.bestmorocco.com/cards.php
Again that is from US to Morocco. In Morocco there thousands of teleboutiques with differering cards. Every once in a while they run specials and once I got a 2:1 where I talked for like 30 minutes on 50DH which is about 21垄/minute. How that happened I don't know.
The other way (and the most popular by far) but the most inconvenient is to talk computer-to-computer. Cyber Cafes all have headsets and Skype/MSN/Yahoo/etc... and free headsets to use. They should range from 4DH to 10DH/hr. At 4DH that is .008垄/minute (4DH is 50垄 divided over 60 minutes).
A great article about calling Morocco can be found here:
Cheapest Way To Call Morocco
http://ezinearticles.com/?Cheapest-Way-t...
Yes I wrote that but I don't want 750 word to bog down this post.
Wishing you luck!
EDIT: Apologies link to article is not live... here it is raw.
Calling Morocco can be an expensive proposition especially if you are using a cell phone. Cingular charges $2.69 - minute from the US to Morocco (that is over $160 for a one hour call!) on their regular plans to a land line and $2.80 to a Moroccan cell phone. Using a World Plan can ease your pain (56c & 67c respectively to landlines and cell phone calls) but then you will lose other features such as additional minutes to your rate plan. Sprint's international rate is 77垄/minute with a monthly charge of $3 for an international plan.
If cell phones are not bad enough, Bell South鈥檚 landline 鈥淏asic Rate鈥?is $4.67/minute and can go as low as 52垄/minute with select plans. Other landline carriers are comparable. So what is one to do?
There are a few options to consider when calling overseas to Morocco and each person will find they will have different needs than others therefore there is no one perfect solution. There are, thankfully, some solutions that make the pain easier.
鈥淲orld Plans鈥?鈥?as discussed earlier, choosing a world plan is a great way to cut the rates of your calls 鈥?in some cases as much as 75% or more. With the savings of a world plan comes higher domestic rates and at times premiums added to your bill (that should be factored in to find what you are really paying per minute).
VOIP (Voice Over IP) 鈥?the best-known VOIP is Vonage, but there are more and more companies everyday that are coming out with VOIP. VOIP uses your high-speed internet (cable or DSL) and a special router and telephones to make calls instead of using traditional phone lines or cellular service. Using Vonage and an example, you can call to Morocco for only 25垄/minute. The downside to VOIP is quality of service and the need for a broadband connection. Additionally, you will need to purchase special equipment and your choice of telephones is severely limited. If you are calling FROM Morocco to the United States, you can get a U.S. telephone number and pay the base monthly rate ($24.99/month for unlimited and $14.99/month for 500 minutes). Again reception is only as good as the internet connection you have, and in Morocco, internet reception is generally very poor and therefore VOIP is not an option if doing anything more than calling home to family and friends.
Calling Cards 鈥?the best known way to call to Morocco (and Morocco to the world) is by use of a calling card. One purchases a calling card with a specific amount of dollars attached to it (ie. a $20 calling card) and then like a regular phone in reverse, your money on the calling card goes down for each minute you use the card*. This is by far the most convenient way to call and the least expensive. It is also the most convenient. Unlike VOIP, you can call from anywhere (another person鈥檚 house, a cell phone, etc鈥?. The calling card comes with a toll-free number to call and a PIN-number** to activate the call. You dial the 800-number, enter your pin, and then call the number you want to connect. Although this can seem like a hassle, the 800-number can be programmed into a telephone or cell phone so there is quick access to the number.
Just like traditional calling plans, there is a wide variety of calling cards and all of them have their plusses and minuses. Most calling cards will carry some type of fee. These can include: monthly fee, per-use fee, and inactivity fees. In addition, calling cards round off their minutes differently. One calling card can have a low per-minute fee but have a connect fee and round their calls to 3 minutes (if you talk for two minutes you are charged for three). Other cards (often called flat-rate cards or no-fee cards) don鈥檛 charge any additional fees but have a higher per-minute charge. Cards typically round to the nearest minute (typical with cell phones and most landline phone companies) but can be as high as three minutes and as low as one second.
A card that has fees but low rates/minute are great for long conversations whereas those who make shorter and more frequent calls may want to opt for a flat-rate phone card. There is also the issue of what phone card to use. Again, depending on the country you are calling from and the country you are calling to this is going to vary. I do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Skype. Without a doubt. Assuming you both have reasonable high speed internet access. Even if he needs to go to an internet cafe, (which are everywhere in the large cities in morocco) it is already on most machines and if you both have it, it costs nothing in network, even to video call. Zero cost is hard to beat. Even if he is calling you on your cell or land line then it is pennies per minute. |
