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Travels and personal perspectives on Iloilo and Panay Island

Telephone Services for the Expat in the Philippines

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When you live in the Philippines, or elsewhere overseas, you may wish to maintain a telephone number in the U.S.  For example, because I use my U.S. credit card overseas they sometimes call me with a “fraud inquiry” to find out if I authorized a particular charge.  There are many other circumstances where you may wish to have a permanent U.S. phone number so that people can reach you by phone or fax no matter where you may be in the world.

There are a number of options for maintaining a U.S. phone number.  Vonage, Skype and other VOIP vendors offer such numbers.  I have had a Skype U.S. number, but now use Maxemail (www.maxemail.com) because it’s cheap and reliable.   I found the Skype answering system to be unreliable and besides, more expensive.  Especially annoying was that it would constantly “lose” our personalized message and so play a generic one.  Callers are reassured if they hear a personalized message in your own voice.  Getting a computer-generated generic message can raise more questions.

With Maxemail, you can choose a number in a specific city (that costs more) or you can accept whatever number they assign you.  With the proliferation of cell phones, having a number in the area code where you live has become pretty irrelevant.  I use the “Lite” versions of Maxemail which costs $24.95 per year.

Once you have your account with Maxemail, you can record a personal message  in your voice which will be played when someone calls your number.  Callers will be given the option of leaving a voice message or sending a fax.  The messages they leave are saved and immediately sent to your e-mail address.  There will be an e-mail in your inbox with an attached audio recording of the telephone voice message.  You can choose which audio format works best for you.  I use Real Audio.

If you receive a fax, it will be converted into a PDF file and sent to your e-mail address.  You can also send faxes (at a small extra charge) using the Maxemail service.  Supported file types include: .doc, .xls, .txt, .pdf, .tif, .html, .htm, .gif, .jpg and others.  I almost always use PDF.

We don’t have any interest in Maxemail, except that it works well for us.

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Posted by GOIloilo on 01.07.09 6:33AM under Philippine Retirement

Read Comments
  1. Posted by lei on 04.02.10 11:54 pm

    hi! try using MAGICJACK, u can buy it from the states. That’s what we use to talk (unlimited calls) to relatives in the US/CANADA.
    check this link>>>http://www.magicjack.com

  2. Posted by GOIloilo on 04.03.10 10:16 am

    Magic Jack is very popular with expats living in Philippines. I have not yet tried one as Skype meets my needs and I don’t have to buy anything.

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