In Canada we pay an exorbitant amount for the use of “airtime” with our cellular phone carriers. Is there a way to actually sign up for a cellular phone plan where you can get unlimited incoming and outgoing minutes? As some of you may know, we use Skype to conference call and to communicate with our clients that are located as far away as Florida.
We have recently began testing a small tool called the Mobigater. It is a small black box that looks like another router or firewall attached to our network. Inside of the Mogator is a SIM card with a private cellular phone number. We setup the SIM card with our carrier on a free “network to network” plan. The folks in the office can call the private number on the Mobigater free… because we are on the same cellular network. The Mobigator then allows us to dial an outside number to anywhere in North America using the attached Skype account. Boom… nearly free outgoing cellphone calls.
I say nearly free because there are costs to setup and there is an additional SIM card on my cell phone bill. The Mobigater, which was ordered from an estore in England was around $160.00 CAD. The SIM card carried a setup fee of $75.00 and I placed it on a monthly plan that will cost about $35.00 per month. This monthly fee is small compared to the outgoing minute fees that my staff and I incur.
Here is how the Mobigator is described at the store;
Make and receive FREE internet calls from your mobile phone with Skype and the MobiGater Pro gateway, which also acts as a PBX system!
Not only can you make free calls to your Skype contacts and cheap calls to SkypeOut contacts) the Mobigater Pro allows you to forward incoming calls to up to 5 different numbers.
An incoming caller will be offered a choice of numbers to be forward to – press 1 for Jon, press 2 for Paul etc…
So all you need is one number, and your contacts can call 5 people – not bad when the call is free!
In my humble opinion the Mobigator is a great addition to any small business that wants to trim some long term costs in communications!
Feel free to drop us a note if you would like more information.
If you are looking for a solution that will allow your small or medium sized team collaborate effectively – please give us a shout.
Cheers –
David A. West, Director
Calgary Website Designer
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