My Daughter is moving to Australia next month with her family. A friend has told me that I can use my computer to phone her for free which would be really good as it would be expensive to keep in touch with her. Can you tell me if this is true and how I can do it?
What your friend is talking about is Voice over IP (VoIP). It is most commonly referred to as Skype but there are others, Jajah for example. With Skype you can make cheap or free calls using your computer and the broadband internet connection. You will also need a microphone, speakers or a headset. These are available from about £15. You both need to download the program from www.skype.com and create accounts. This will give you both Skype names. When you add each other as contacts you will be able to see when you are each on-line and can call each other for free. If you have webcams attached you will also be able to see each other too. This just plugs in and should work straight away. You can search for other skype users by their name or email and build up a contact list. You will be able to see which ones are available to talk at any time and even have several people connected to a single call. Please do bear in mind that some internet providers put a cap on the amount of usage you can make each month with VoIP and some mobile broadband packages block it completely. I hope that this keeps you in touch with your family when they are so far away.