www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Go to onesuite.com-I usualy purchase $10 at a time.You can call anywhere pretty cheap.I think Cr is 8.7 cents /minute.

I have been using Tel3 for 1.5 years now, Pro, and have never had to pay for a "premium plan". There are no connection fees with Tel3 that I know of; I check my minutes and my calls and my remaining time rather frequently, and I've yet to see any connection fees, "plan fees", or anything else. *shrug*

_________________
"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Ch. 16

Mike, try to keep up. The bidding now is down to 4.5 cents per minute. BTW, you sold your plan short - according to their website they actually charge only 6.9 cents per minute to CR

Steven, I never said you HAD to pay for a premium plan. What I said is "to get that 8 cent rate on Tel3 you have to belong to their premium plan". Their STANDARD plan comes without any monthly fee BUT with that plan level you pay a slightly higher 9 cent rate. Obviously, if you call less than 195 minutes per month, you're better off going with the standard plan and paying the higher rate. But, which ever way you go, Tel3 costs more than either Magic Jack, Skype or Orange's Jupiter Card. To be fair Tel3 also comes with extra features like up to 99 speed dial numbers and pinless dialing (when dialing from a pre-registered phone number). YMMV but personally I think I'd rather have to punch a few extra numbers and pay half the rate.

BTW, I just checked out the Jupiter website http://www.jupitercard.net/p/info.php/Jupiter. They also have pinless dialing (if calling from a pre-registered phone) but the fine print also says something about "Service Taxes & Surcharges - Up to 20% for most countries" (Up to 40% for select countries?). Knowing ICE, CR could be one of those "select countries". But, even at just 20%, that adds nearly a penny on to their per minute rate and so raises the "bidding" back up to 5.4-6.3 cents per minute. That's still a good rate (btw, they also offer a 10% discount for calls made between 9PM and 7AM).

Personally, I've used Pingo at 6.2 cents per minute (6 cents even to CR cellphones). If the tax on the Jupiter Card calls is 40%, then Pingo would be a little cheaper. But the Pingo card also comes with a $1 monthly maintenance fee (starting a month after you first use the card). I've only used them when I had a lot of calls to make and needed to use up most of the card the first month, so the leftover minutes that got eaten up by the maintenance fee later didn't really add that much per the minutes I actually used. Still, if I need to use a card again, I'll have to look into the one that Orange recommended. Thanks, Orange.

Pro I added the info on Magicjack because sometimes the quality of sound and connective out weight cost. Nothing pisses you off more than spending an hour to get through only to have the sound so bad you can't understand what is being said; though this seems more a problem at night and weekends

_________________
If a little's good than a lot's better and too much is just right

DB,
Thats a very valid point that it is not just a matter of cost. I said as much when I closed my post with this comment: "So it is not just a simple matter of what is "cheapest", but what works best for you based on your calling patterns and what added conveniences you're willing to pay for."

To the aspect of what is most cost effective for you and your calling habits and convenience factors I would certainly add call quality as you've suggested. We might want to add customer service to that as well. The problem with those last couple of aspects is that they're not as easy to compare between providers based just on what you can read on the web. I've never used either Jupiter or Magic Jack so can't say anything about their call quality, let alone how their quality compares to each other or to Pingo. However, I have used Pingo and can tell you that for me their call quality has always been as good or better than any international calling quality I've experienced in the past, no hissing or static, no dropped calls and the only problems in understanding due to my own understanding of their spanish or their understanding of my english.

Beyond any of that however, "rightly or wrongly", Mikey was asking what was "cheapest" not what was "best". I think it is good that we all point out the importance of other factors in making his decision. But even just addressing his specific requirement of cost there is no one right generic answer even there. It all really depends on him - how often he calls, how long he calls for, whether he's calling from a home phone or computer or other locations, whether he's calling a CR land line or mobile number, whether this is a one time need or he will want to reuse the card each month going forward, etc.

It's all good....but I don't know where you're getting the rate quote. I just checked my call hx, again, and I am paying just what the web site says: 7¢ per min to a landline and 7.6¢ to a cell account.

Nonetheless, the data provided in this thread causes me to re consider who I shall use for USA and international long distance as there are more options out there. Then again, a good advantage to Tel3 is that it lets me register several phone lines under my account so I can access number dial from that registered phone and not have to dial the 800#....the advantage being I'm paying less....

_________________
"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Ch. 16

I don't know which website you're referring to. I got my figures from this page: http://www.tel3.com/jsp/plansandrates.jsp. Its actually a penny more than even that if you use their toll-free access number.The Jupiter Card also allows provides local access numbers and allows you to register the number from which you make most of your calls to allow for "pin-less" dialing, although I'm not sure if you can register up to 10 different numbers as you can with Tel3. So, I'm not so sure that is any real advantage. BTW, another factor that might make a difference for some people is that the minimum purchase for Tel3 is $25 or ~4.6 hours of calls to CR. The Jupiter Card comes in amounts as little as only $10 or ~3.1 hours of calls (assuming the 20% tax).

Pro-thanks for the update.At 6.9 or whatever my $10 lasts a long time.Beats the $8.14 i paid for a 1.5 minutes before i new better.

You're right. Whether one pays 4.5 cents per minute or 6.9 that is still a long ways from the 27 cents that Mikey says Verizon Wireless is charging him (with a $4/mo access charge). And for the amount of time that most of us call to CR each month, $10 probably buys more than enough hours to cover it, so we're not talking about a ton of money either way.

Looks like we're dealing with two different outfits, Pro. Here's where my data is coming from: http://www.tel3advantage.com/ and this is the provider listed on this CRT website.

You can sign up, initially, for $10.00, but that's the only time $10.00 comes into play.....after that it's at $25.00 per recharge. However, the way around that is simply to let the account "die", don't refill it, and set up another account as I described earlier.

The JUPITER card sounds and reads pretty good as well.

_________________
"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Ch. 16

That's wierd. They are 2 different domains, but they are similar domain names and the graphics and everything else also also looks similar, so I'm sure they must be somehow related. The Flex Plan on your link does have the rates you posted, which are lower than the rates on either their Standard or Premium Plans that were listed on the link I used, so I'm not sure why they would even offer those other plans. OTOH, there might be different restrictions involved or those other plans may work out better for calling certain other countries. Who knows? Still, if you're going to let the account die without refilling anyway, you might be better off going with either Pingo, which is .8 to 1.6 cents less per minute depending on whether you're calling a land line or a cell or the Jupiter Card which, depending on how much ICE fees they pass on, is .7-1.6 cents less per minute if calling a land line (or 1.3-2.2 cents to a cell).

Like I said earlier, the important thing is not to pay those ridiculous Verizon (or AT&T, TMobile etc.) rates. Once you start dipping down into these prepaid discount cards, there is a bewildering variety to choose from. Although you do have to watch out for those hidden fees, they all have very cheap per minute rates.

Yeah, I saw that too: And they're so related they have the same mailing address!

_________________
"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Ch. 16

Here is one more choice with several plans based on your calling patterns.
http://www.enjoyprepaid.com/enjoyprepai ... ection.jsp
It has always worked well for me. Many options and some with no fees and no taxes. Maybe droped a call prior to connection, 1 out of 30. Overall works well.

The cards with no fees charge 6.5-7.5¢ per minute. If you like online calling cards, the one I posted is cheaper (4.5¢) and also charges no fees.

http://www.comfi.com/Phone-Card/Jupiter

I only offered it becuase I did not see a clear response to the taxes and surcharges question? If it is there and I missed it sorry.

If you are using this service do they have extra surcharges and taxes if so what are they?

[BTW, I just checked out the Jupiter website http://www.jupitercard.net/p/info.php/Jupiter. They also have pinless dialing (if calling from a pre-registered phone) but the fine print also says something about "Service Taxes & Surcharges - Up to 20% for most countries" (Up to 40% for select countries?). Knowing ICE, CR could be one of those "select countries". But, even at just 20%, that adds nearly a penny on to their per minute rate and so raises the "bidding" back up to 5.4-6.3 cents per minute. That's still a good rate (btw, they also offer a 10% discount for calls made between 9PM and 7AM).][/quote]