CENTRAL AMERICA (May 24, 2007),

After six days of suffering through Customer Service Hell with one of the major phone companies, I have decided to share my reprisal with all of you. This information I will share with you is so damaging to the phone companies, that I fear retribution and have taken leave to an undisclosed country in Central America.

So what bit of information is important enough to have me writing this from thousands of miles away? Well keep on reading and I will teach you how to save thousands of dollars a year in phone bills. This information can save everyone money but especially those of you who spend tons of money on those long distance calls to Mexico, Europe and the Philippines. I will also teach you how those same relatives can call you whenever they want for just $2.50 a month.

First off, I can not take credit for this information, and it was actually my Filipina wife who educated me to this brilliant way of usurping the phone companies. Before we were married, I was spending hundreds a month just to talk to her, and she was constantly buying pre-paid phone cards so she could call me. That's when we discovered VOIP. With VOIP my wife could call me for 1 cent a minute, and since she was able to get a number with the same area code as mine, I call her back and it's virtually free.

Voice over IP technology is not brand new, and many of you have seen this technology advertised without even realizing it. Corporations such as Cisco's Vonage are rushing to lock their customers into contracts for VOIP before the public discovers the competition.

So how was my wife able to get a Ventura County area code while living in the Philippines? She discovered the service, Yahoo's Voice, through her Yahoo Instant messenger. Lycos and Skype also offer this same service, and all three of these VOIP providers will save you and your relatives thousands of dollars. Since I am most familiar with Yahoo's Voice, I will briefly explain how to set it up so that your phone bills disappear.

First my wife went to the website (http://voice.yahoo.com) to sign up for the service. There you will need to decide if you want the "Phone In" or "Phone Out" service. My wife utilizes both and I will explain why. The "Phone In" service allows you to pick a local phone number, and anyone from a PC or landline can call you. This is the service that your long distance relatives will want to sign up for.

Once the "Phone In" service is selected you will be taken to a page where you can select the area code for the phone number you want. I live in Ventura, so my wife selected an 805 area code. She now has a local Ventura number while residing in the Philippines.

The "Phone In" service is just $2.49 a month.

My wife still had to sign up for the "Phone Out" service so she could make an outgoing call as well. This outgoing call costs her 1 cent a minute. Most of the time she will call and just let the phone ring one time. I see her number on my caller ID, and then call back from my regular landline. Since she has the 805 number, it is a local call for me and virtually free for both of us.

The "Phone Out" service allows you to purchase blocks of minutes, which are automatically credited to your account. The price for up to one thousand minutes is $10.00. Since my wife hangs up the phone before there is a connection, she is not charged the penny and her $10.00 block has lasted for over 7 months.

This got me thinking that maybe I should discontinue my residential phone service which costs me over $50.00 a month, and replace it with the "Phone Out" service. With $50.00, I could purchase almost 90 hours of call time, and the best part is that it's all under my control.

So I know your thinking "What's the downside?". Well the biggest downside is that you can not make emergency 911 calls from this type of call plan. If you were to get rid of your residential land-line and use the "Phone Out" service, any emergency calls would have to be made from your mobile phone. Another down-side is that your computer must be connected at all times.

I will say on a positive note, that my wife and I have had no issues with clarity or connection with these services. They even make wireless phones so you aren't making calls through a head-set. This technology is so easy to use and if it doesn't save you money, well then my name isn't the Apathetic Apostle.

As they say in Central America...Pura Vida!