It's a small world after all... (Cheap calls overseas)

Every so often, the progress of telecommunications is so thrilling that you want to break out into singing "it's a small world after all..." - well, maybe not you specifically.

I discovered Jajah.com following a reference at techcrunch.com. It's an amazing service that allows you to spend about the same cost of long distance domestically - but you use your own cell phone or land line. The way it works is that you enter your contact numbers on the web (or also on your cell phone) and then the number of someone you want to call anywhere in the world, and Jajah will connect you by calling you first and then calling the other guy. Call quality is pretty much only limited by the quality of your own local lines (which tend to be far better than the internet here which limits my ability to use SkypeOut.

Calling from Asia overseas has been enormously expensive. Before I found Jajah, I was basically spending more than half the cost of my hotel by calling direct off my cell phone. Now the cost is generally around $0.035 cents USD - which is even better than Skype plus I'm no longer at the mercy of the connection speed! This compares to a cost of $0.40-50 USD calling direct from my cell phone even using a "cheaper" dialing prefix (17951). Another fantastic feature I've been using is the ability to use the conference call feature which lets you call a bunch of people at once. Stuff like this makes travelling and running a global enterprise far easier to keep in touch and considerably less hard on the wallet.