Technology Making It Easier, Cheaper to Stay Connected Globally

Just because I’m on a business trip in Australia doesn’t mean the rest of my business has to go “down” or “under.”

Technology is making life easier and quite a bit cheaper to do business from the road. The Internet is also making it possible to get low-cost local phone numbers in cities around the world, which makes it economical to turn your business into a “global” company.

Getting phone messages has always been a pain when I’m overseas. Sure, I can call my home office’s answering machine, but who wants to pay for an international call to listen to messages?

Instead, I have both my business phone and my fax number forwarded to my Jfax number. I wrote about Jfax (https://jfax.com) several months ago as an economical way to send and receive faxes via e-mail. But the $12.50-a-month service can also deliver voice messages via e-mail.

If anyone leaves me a voice message while I’m in Australia, it’s automatically delivered by e-mail as a small file that I can listen to through the speakers of my notebook PC. The service answers in my own voice, and I can change the outgoing message remotely if necessary. Jfax also lets me send faxes back to the United States from abroad at a fraction of what a hotel would charge.

You can also use Jfax to create a virtual presence in cities around the world. In addition to local California numbers, Jfax, for $12.50 per month per city, can assign you a local phone number in Sydney, London, New York or any of 40 major cities around the world. With this system, your business can look global with “local” overseas phone and fax numbers. Of course, you’ll have to call people back, but with new low-cost overseas rates, calling back might be cheaper than you’d expect.

Most long-distance services offer optional international calling plans with attractive rates, depending on the country you call. The only catch is that you usually have to pay a small monthly fee to get the lower rates. But there is a way to make cheap international calls without having to pay a monthly fee.

In the past, I’ve been critical of those “10-10” numbers that you use to bypass traditional long-distance services. Some are owned by the major long-distance companies and many have minimum charges, surcharges or monthly charges that make them more expensive than standard long-distance services.

Never use any of them without calling the customer service number and asking if there is a connection charge, a minimum charge, a monthly fee or any other “gotchas.”

One exception is 10-10-297. You pay 10 cents a minute for interstate calls, 5 cents for calls within California and low rates to many countries, according to its Web site and a customer service operator. It’s 25 cents a minute to call Australia. A one-minute call to Britain costs 11 cents. Calls to Mexico range from 17 to 42 cents depending on where you call. Other rates vary, so don’t make a call without checking the rates at https://www.1010297.com or calling (800) 787-7887.

Another service, VoiceNet ([800] 259-9964), isn’t cheap but is less expensive than some. It costs only 99 cents to open an account, so it’s not a bad backup.

You can often get much better rates by buying phone cards in the country you visit. When you get to your destination, stop at a newsstand or tobacco shop to see if they offer international calling cards. Read the fine print carefully. Some have steep connection fees or charge more if you use them from pay phones. I’m paying about 28 cents a minute to call the States from Australia, which isn’t too bad.

It’s also possible to use the Internet to make international or domestic calls, but I haven’t had much luck. Net2Phone (https://www.net2phone.com) enables you to make calls by speaking through your PC’s microphone and listening through the speakers. You can download the software for free and test it by calling any toll-free (800, 888 or 877) number in the United Staes, even if you’re out of the country.

I did just that from Sydney, with pretty bad results. Most calls were poor quality. Internet telephony is evolving rapidly, but it still has a ways to go.

Getting Internet access from overseas can also be a hassle, but some providers offer low-cost international access. I’m using AOL here in Australia, which charges an extra $3.95 for access in Sydney and most major non-U.S. cities. Microsoft Network (MSN), CompuServe and several other large ISPs also offer international service. Another option is to ask your ISP if it participates in an Internet “roaming” program. Ipass (https://www.ipass.com), for example, allows members of participating ISPs to sign on from any of 300 local numbers in 150 countries.

So with my e-mail, Web access, incoming phone messages and relatively cheap long distance, I can do my stateside and Australian work at the same time. As they say around here, “No worries, mate.”

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Technology reports by Lawrence J. Magid can be heard at 1:48 p.m. weekdays on KNX 1070. He can be reached at larry.magid@latimes.com. His Web page is at https://www.larrysworld.com or keyword “LarryMagid” on AOL.