Moving to Grand Cayman - What to do?
larrybob:
I am setting up 4 obi 110's in Brazil. My first thought was to just use the obi without a land line. I found a little red phone to use. The phone would be the "bat phone" directly to and from the states. This has worked been working perfectly from Brazil with Google voice. ( I initiated all the accounts here in California). The call quality is much better than a traditional long distance call to Brazil. It worked perfectly on incoming and outgoing calls.
Then I got motivated, and now am programing the obi 110's to use with a land line. The beauty of the obi 110 is its ability to bridge calls from Google voice to the land line. I don't know how much you understood form all that reading.. but this is how I am setting it up, from a users perspective.
When the phone is picked up in Brazil, the caller hears a Brazil dial tone and makes local calls as if the obi was not there. If they want to call the states, they dial **1, they hear the U.S. dial tone, and call as if they were in the US.
Incoming local calls and calls form the states ring the phone the same way, the person in Brazil, who answers will not know the origin of the call until they start speaking.
There is a way to have the obi recognize friends through their caller id. Once these numbers are programed into the OBI, a caller with one of these numbers will not ring through to the phone in Brazil. Instead they will be greeted by a voice menu system with 3 options. 1 to ring through, 2 to call the U.S. and 3 to get a callback.
So, if my friend's grandmother wants to call the States, she calls her grandson... hears her three choices in Portuguese, presses 2, and then dials the 10 digit U.S. number ( or a speed dial).
If my friend wants to call me form his cell phone in Brazil, he calls his own home number, gets the three choices, but selects choice 3. He gets a call back to his cell phone (In Brazil, incoming cell phone calls are free (to the cell phone user)This saves his expensive cellphone minutes). He hears the three choices again, this time selects choice 2 , and calls my 10 digit number in California.
Finally, if I want to call my friend's grandmother in Brazil, I call my friends Google voice number , I reach the obi box in Brazil, it presents me with the three choices, I also choose choice 2 but dial the 8 digit local number in Brazil, the obi recognizes this is a Brazil number and bridges my call out through the line port in Brazil.
There are many ways to program the flow of calls through the Obi audio attendant,I programed the routing to be automatic, depending on what number is being dialed( since U.S. numbers use 7 digits and Brazil uses 8 digits.)If this would not have worked out, there are manual ways to signal the obi how to bridge and route a call.
Once all is working I will post a summery of all I changed, and what changes do what.
I hope this explanation, has showed you how the OBi is much more powerful than Vonage type system.
One last thing, I use a product like Vonage called Ooma. It is a fantastic plug a play system, and comes complete with a physical answering machine. ( I have been using this long before the obi was available.) . I brought it to use on vacation in Colombia South America, and no one knew I had left my home in California.The calls are free after you buy the box ( about $200) , but you pay about $3.00/ month in taxes. I switched over a good friend to Ooma from Vonage, and he is very happy with it. If you are not technical at all, and want an all in one system, I would go with Ooma, over magic jack vonage, or anything else out there. If you can follow easy video instructions for the easy set up of the obi, you will have no trouble setting it up for Google voice on a dedicated phone. If you can follow help on this forum, you can go further with the obi, and also bring in the benefits of a local land line. (and or a local Voip provider where you are.)
aandaritter:
Quote from: larrybob on December 22, 2011, 11:05:57 pm
I don't know how much you understood form all that reading.. but this is how I am setting it up, from a users perspective.
Hey larrybob,
Wow! That makes a lot more sense now! I remember reading several different things where people were punching in codes to make the OBi do special stuff, but it didn't make much sense to me. Your explanation definitely shows that this device, if configured properly, could possibly be extremely helpful.
I tried to figure out whether incoming calls to a cell phone are free in Cayman, but there wasn't anything on the LIME (telecommunications company) website that I could find. I remember seeing something about how one plan had a feature that when you're out of minutes that you could text someone and ask them to call you (because the incoming minutes were free), but I don't remember where I saw it (it might have been a different company, but I think that LIME is going to make the most sense for me). I imagine that it would be nice to have this feature set up for convenience, but there is still the issue that the calls from a land line to a mobile phone are charged at the higher rate per minute.
Man, there's a lot to learn about this stuff. It looks like I'm going to be transitioning from just picking up a phone and making a call to learning a bunch of methods and codes, all because I want to save some money. It sure is cool that this option is available, though, and I sure am glad that there are so many people that are willing to help a newbie like me figure it all out.
Thanks so much for the thourough explanation!
Andy
aandaritter:
Quote from: DaveSin on December 23, 2011, 06:49:22 am
Incoming calls to Lime Mobile is a free call!
Hey DaveSin,
Thanks for the info.
My cellphone experience is very limited (I just have a simple LG flip phone). I see lots of people using the fancy smart phones, but don't really have much knowledge as to the capabilities of them. When researching the mobile calling plans with LIME, I saw that every plan includes "Data", but I'm not really sure what that means. The plans listed have 50 MB, 100 MB, 250 MB, and 500 MB of data included, depending on which one you choose. I don't understand how to interpret megabytes of data into minutes of usage using the OBiON App. Plus, it appears that the smart phones are insanely expensive. I've always had the attitude that a phone is just for making and receiving calls and that I don't need all of those extra features (maybe it's time for an attitude adjustment). When looking at the available phones from LIME, I don't see any labeled Android or iPhone. Many of the less expensive phones listed Wi-Fi as a feature, and some of them listed 3G, but they didn't have any 4G phones listed.
Apparently I still have a lot to learn.
Thanks again,
Andy
aandaritter:
Hello again All,
My new OBi110 has arrived and I have gotten it set up! Right now I'm still in the states, but it is making and receiving calls beautifully. This is such a cool device! It's a bit overwhelming though looking through all of the variations on set up options, but I am intrigued as to what all it is capable of doing. For right now, I'm just satisfied that it will let me make and receive phone calls, but I'm very eager to get down to Grand Cayman and see if it works just as easily there. Once I get that figured out, I may even play around with the more advanced features.
Thanks so much for everyone's help, and I may have to reach out with more questions in the future.
Andy
CaptainSteubing:
Hi Andy,
Quote from: aandaritter on December 21, 2011, 08:02:10 pm
I have just gotten a job in Grand Cayman and will be moving at the end of January. My wife will be staying behind to get the house sold, and will then move with me in July. Her mother, my parents, friends, etc. will all be staying in the United States, but are all going to want to be able to call us without having to deal with obscenely expensive international phone bills. In addition, we would also like to be able to call back to the states.
Welcome to Grand Cayman when you get here!
Sorry, I haven't read your initial message on the forum until now; was on vacation. I've got multiple Obi's that I use, and they've been working very well for me both with Google Voice and with a SIP Provider. I use them in a setup linked into my Asterisk PBX.
If you have any questions such as which ISP to go with in Cayman or anything else, please contact me via a personal message on the forums, I'd be happy to give you my e-mail address/contact details.
All the best,
Arthur
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page