The 3 Best Ways to Drastically Reduce your iPhone (Or Any Phone) Bill

Late last year I got my first iPhone (I know I know! Three words : 2 year contract.) With the increase in monthly bill, I was inspired to seek ways to reduce it. And I found them. Many. I thought you'd like to know too.

These days, it seems there's nearly as many ways to save money using your phone as there are types of phones. But they all seem to have a weak spot: Requiring you to do numerical gymnastics, or making your caller i.d. on the other end look like something to avoid.

While those may have monetary benefits, they can reduce your productivity, and make you look less professional. So I was pleased to have made series of discoveries in the past week that put it all together, with minimum effort, maximum results.

Follow these steps and you'll be well on to your way to smarter, cheaper, more connected communications.

First, for your domestic calls, get Skype. Then, go into your account and get Skypeout so you can use it to call land lines and cell phones, from your computer. Deals vary from country to country, but here in the US, I was able to get unlimited calls in the US and Canada for $2.99/month (they call it a Subscription) This gets you additional options, such as voicemail and forwarding to the phone number of your choice. Or you can get pay as you go credit. Less of a deal though.

Next, buy some credit. $10.00 is the minimum. This can be used for a variety of purposes, but the two you'll likely find most useful? Wi-Fi via Skype, which gives you access to Wi-Fi where otherwise it's a sea of locked access and bulk purchase amounts, even if you need just a few minutes. The other thing to unlock is the ability to change your outbound Skype caller ID  to that of your cell phone number. That costs 45 cents credit in SMS to that phone to validate it. All of these options are to be found via clicking the Account->View Account menu bar links. Or directly from your Skype contact list, the top right corner.

You've now closed the familiarity gap, with your number rather than 5555555 or Unknown Caller displaying on the other end.

Next, go get the Skype app for your iPhone. You can now make phone calls via Skype, showing the same number as the cell you're calling from. As of this writing, that can happen only via wifi. But, praise be to the Apple gods, it will soon be possible via 3g. This means that, barring being in an Edge only zone, you can make calls using none of your monthly phone plan minutes.

Call internationally? Two smart options here: Either choose a Skype subscription that allows for international calling, or, to provide always an always available option, go sign up for Rebtel, usable on land lines and now, iPhone (app link) What it does is brilliant: It converts all numbers you select into a domestic dial number, that gets you calls to places like Brazil (from the US, for example) for less than 2 cents a minute. The iPhone app does the courtesy of telling you exactly how long you could call each of your contacts, based on your remaining credit.

Even better, in a select number of those countries is the possibility to make a free call. Basically, you call using the given Rebtel number, ask the person on the other end to note the (domestic to them) number on the caller ID. They call you back, at no cost to both of you.

Want to go even deeper? Get a free Google Voice account (by invite only at this point) and set your number for the region you're most often when not at home, or where you do most business. It's changeable at any time, for a  $10 fee. At long last, Google Voice can be used on iPhone, via a web based app, circumventing the logjam around an iPhone app being approved.  Google Voice also gives useful options like incoming voicemail transcription, outgoing voicemail that can vary by caller, the ability to listen in as someone records a voicemail, to mark unwanted callers as "spam," and to choose when calls do and do not get forwarded to your various phones.

You now have the ability to have "presence" via your local phone number in the region you seek to work in, and you now show as calling from that number, on your iPhone, your Android phone, or ye olde landline even.

There you have a tightly integrated strategy to connect with the world, seamlessly, at much less cost. What other problems can I help solve for you? I'm here to serve.


Image credit: Sateda on Stock Xchng