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I find some comments amuzing, etc. I have used Instant Messenger for several years now. Mybe 5 years or so. My international calls (Australia and Asia) used to range from $30 to $150 monthly; for the past several years: costs:zero!! I used to talk daily for a few minutes; now less often. Sometimes the conversation lasted more than an hour!! Occasional problem: echoes and slight delay; but 99% of the time, no hitch; clear voice; better than regular phone! Now I use Webcamp, but is not necessary. I find that the older version of Instant Messenger much easier to work with; the current version a little more difficult, but still you can get it through. I talked regularly from the midwest with partieis in California, Washington (dial-up) and Florida (dial-up); almost daily. It works! The number of failures in the past years can be counted on one hand. (I have cable modem; the other party can have a dialup; it still works. In Australia and Asia, both parties have broadband, but before they had broadband, they used dial-up and it worked! What happens is that occasionally when the traffic is bad: you cannot connect; or you connect, then 15 minutes later, get cut off; but you can re-connect most of the times. I passed a detailed direction on how to set up, etc., to a member of this forum a year or 2 ago via an e-mail. If there is a real interest, I will be happy to post the directions. I learned this from a son 6 years ago when he was a freshman at Stanford. "Dad, get a headset; you already a speaker and sound card in the computer, we can cut our phone bills." Cost: $5 for the headset. The hardware you need are the ones I just mentioned; nothing more. Conservatively, if I save $50 a month, that is $600 yearly; multiply by 5, that is $3,000! Sorry for sounding preachy; I have been eating a lot of good local peaches later!!
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