Drafted my son-in-law to do a little cross comparison calling using the new FREE wifi calling apps, specifically Talkatone and Viber as they are currently rated as the best of the brand new bunch of brand new wifi phone apps.

Talkatone sux -- sorry, it is just very very poor sound quality.   Also it takes you 5 clicks to make a call off of your favorites list and three clicks to end the call and to shut down the app.

Viber is much better,  two clicks to make the call and one to end it (and that shuts down the app).    Viber is MUCH easier to use, neater graphics and VIBER HAS GOOD SOUND QUALITY.

Viber also lets you pick your Viber number, mine happened to be picked to be my normal old cell phone number, so guess what, I don't have to pay somebody $45 to let me reuse my old phone number when my service ends.

Viber also strives for completely free and all calls and texts between Viber users are 100% free.   Viber must charge for calls made outside the Viber family as they have to route it through Sprint's service, but such calls (Viber -> out, they call them) only cost you 1.9 cents a minute to make.


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I don't make a lot of calls myself, really.     Most of my phone calling is to family and most of that is in response to my wife and daughter.

My wife and my daughter need a full cell phone service for road calls, etc. in case of a flat tire, etc.   I really need to be able to GET a call more than anything else.

So, I am considering getting my wife a Republic Wireless $10 a month set up that allows her to call anyone from anywhere.   I might be able to just keep my old phone once it is off Verizon's dollar sucking machine and use wifi and Viber to make my relatively few needed calls.

I can get Viber put on to all my family members phones so when I ring them or text them it goes through by Viber >IN< for free.   They can text me if I happen to be out of wifi range and the text will pop up and signal the inbound text sound just as soon as I am back in wifi range.   This will cause me to check the text message.

The text might be as complicated as "call me", which I would then be able to do.


Viber and others are striving to make wifi calling a free reality --- with this many guys trying to pull it off, I think they may eventually be successful at it.   If you are interested in a full lesson that explains the whole thing in all its NON-complexity, go here.

http://heavy.com/tech/2014/07/how-to-use-viber-app-to-send-text-messages-and-...      the pricing of .099 and 4.99 mentioned is for bulk purchase of minute certificates

If you get the impression AT&T and Verizon might jest be dinosaurs in the making -- ya got it !!!     $4.99 worth of minute certificates would last me a year, most likely as most of my calls will be >IN< Viber to my family.


Remember, Viber runs off any phone, any tablet, any PC, literally just about any device at all with wifi and a mic and a speaker.