main1

Hello Fodorites--My husband and I are traveling to Italy soon. I don't expect to be using my iPhone much for calling or data while we are traveling, but have signed up for the AT&T Passport program which gives me some data and texting for one month. They will bill cell calls to me at $1 per minute. We expect to do most of our iPhone business when we have wifi and will use texting, FaceBook and FaceTime to keep in touch with family at home. I have one exception to this--my 98 year old mom. She's been pretty tech savvy up until the last couple of years. We used to Skype when in Europe and have FaceTimed as well. But that seems too hard for her now and the landline is all she can seem to manage. Have any of you successfully used the AT&T Global WiFi calling app or WePhone? I'd be interested in hearing about your experiences about dialing to a US landline from Italy via wifi. We don't need video--I just want to be able to check in with her every few days and chat for a few minutes without breaking the bank. Thanks so much in advance for your help.

Andrew

I use the Google Hangouts app to make free calls to US phone numbers, even to landlines. I use it in the US, and I have been using it in Europe for the last few years. It works surprisingly well.

The only catch is, you must add a +1 in front of the US number to call it from Europe.

If you want to receive phone calls from the US in Hangouts (for free), you also need a Google Voice phone number. It is a kind of forwarding service that works with your existing phone service...but after you have set it up, you can turn OFF forwarding to your cell number (so you won't receive the calls via AT&T in Europe) and instead can tell Hangouts to accept incoming calls. It's all part of your Google account; Google will figure out that you have a Google Voice number and associate that with Hangouts on that phone.

Google Voice gives you a new US phone number which your mother could call to reach you in Europe, on Hangouts. Google Voice also has free voicemail; she can call you for free on her landline (assuming she has free US long distance on her landline; your Google Voice number will probably not be a local number for her) and at worst you can get voicemail, find a WiFi connection, and call her back for free with Hangouts.

main1

Thank you very much for the information, Andrew. I'll look in to Google Hangouts!

Heimdall

I call US landlines with Skype from the UK. You need to add credit to your Skype account, but calls are very cheap. Not sure what the cost would be from Italy, but it's easy to check.

Andrew

I would try the AT&T WiFi Calling app too. I would try it and Google Hangouts soon, before you leave for Europe. Both apps should work the same in Europe as in the US. Google Hangouts requires you to verify an existing phone number before it will let you call phones, so do that before it costs money to do i in Europe.

If your iPhone is paid off, AT&T will unlock it by request, and you could even buy a SIM card in Europe - and use Google Hangouts with it, not just on WiFi but anywhere. Just a thought...

Robert2016

As far as I understand it, only T-Móbile offers free WiFi calling back to the States with selected mobile phones. I've used it over the last few years.

Andrew

Robert2016: <i>As far as I understand it, only T-Móbile offers free WiFi calling back to the States with selected mobile phones. I've used it over the last few years.</i>

Sounds like AT&T's WiFi Calling - to call US domestic numbers - is free also:

https://www.att.com/shop/wireless/fe...i-calling.html

<i>Q: Do charges apply for Wi-Fi Calling?

A: With the exception of premium numbers, calls you make to domestic numbers are included in your smartphone rate plan. </i>

Robert2016

It's nice to see that AT&T has finally added free WiFi calling while traveling abroad, but unlike T-Mobile, you need to have one of their International programs when traveling.

With AT&T you do get unlimited talk and text, great if you are going to send all day on the phone when outside of a WiFi zone, but turning the Day Pass ($10/day) on and off when you want to use it would be a pain. I'd have to be on the phone for 50 minutes/day when outside a WiFi zone in order to run up the $10/day additional charge.

The AT&T passport program seems reasonable until you understand that local calls are $1.00/minute (incoming or outgoing) vs T-Mobile's $0.20/minute with no need to purchase an international roaming plan.

And from what I understand, the free WiFi calling feature offered by AT&T only works when you are in one of the AT&T hot spots. You also have to use their WiFi app in order for it to work. So, what happens if the hotel you happen to be staying at isn't one of their AT&T hot spots? T-Mobile has no such restrictions. Any WiFi hot spot works. I don't need to hunt around for one of AT&T hot spots.

Andrew

Robert2016: <i>And from what I understand, the free WiFi calling feature offered by AT&T only works when you are in one of the AT&T hot spots.</i>

Would it really be too much trouble for you to spend 15 seconds googling something instead of posting misinformation qualified by "from what I understand?" Because that isn't true, either.

I know T-Mobile is wonderful for you, but it's not a great match for everyone. Some people don't have great T-Mobile reception where they live. In my case, it's not worth the extra cost to me to pay their per-month fee for regular mobile service, just to get their international roaming package. Simply spending $30 USD on a SIM for one trip is a lot cheaper for me than the hundreds of dollars a year extra it would cost me to have T-Mobile for my cell phone service over the course of a year.

Robert2016

Yes, WiFi calling works on your home system and at AT&T hot spots on their nationwide system, but it's not quite the same internationally, according to AT&T: http://www.att.com/shopcms/media/att...Live_Links.pdf

Andrew

Your link refers to AT&T Hotspots. WiFi calling is not mentioned anywhere.

main1

Thank you all for your input. I've downloaded the AT&T wifi calling app, Google Voice and Google Hangouts on my phone. Hopefully, I'll manage to make one of them work to call Mom's landline while I'm in Italy.

Andrew

If you can make them work now, they should work in Italy! As I said, Google Hangouts needs to verify a US phone number one time before you can make phone calls with it. Don't wait until you get to Italy to do that.

Google Voice is something more complicated that you probably don't need, though I'd be happy to explain it to you. I would remove Google Voice for now, to avoid confusion later. If you don't care about receiving incoming calls, you won't need Google Voice.

main1

I tried using Hangouts to call my mom today. I wanted to verify I could do it for sure without cellular, and just on wifi. I tested it by putting my phone into airplane mode and then enabling wifi. Worked great. I'm not sure what you mean by verifying the phone number--my phone number? Or the one I'm calling?

rs899

"I'm not sure what you mean by verifying the phone number--my phone number?"

He meant your phone number. If you got it working you are all set.

Just remember this in Europe :

"The only catch is, you must add a +1 in front of the US number to call it from Europe."

Andrew

Right - some people including a recent poster here could not make any calls with Google Hangouts until she verified her cell phone number with Google (something that was not clear in her case, but she found somewhere in her Hangout settings that Google was waiting for her to enter a code they sent as verification; she just did it again and then she could make calls).

If you installed Google Voice first(?), then you would have had to verify your number at that stage - so you wouldn't have had to do it again with Hangouts.

But if you have made a call with Hangouts and it worked, you are good to go - just add the +1 in Europe.

main1

Thanks for clarifying Andrew. I appreciate that. Yes, they verified my number in Google Voice. I anticipate that all will go well when I try calling via Hangouts from Italy.

Andrew

If you signed up for Google Voice, then Google should have given you an additional phone number. If you call that new phone number, it will forward to your existing cell phone number that you used to sign up. (You can turn off that forwarding though.) But you can also tell Hangouts (in your account settings in Hangouts) to receive calls on that new Google number, in case you want to give people a number in Italy to reach you (without them having to make an international call). Google gives you voicemail too for that number - you can listen to it (or read it) in the Google Voice app.

Note that you can't make calls with the Google Voice app outside of the US - it won't work for calls. Hangouts will work to make calls though.