Landline Calls from Europen Hotels to USA

[idearr]

I will be in Milan and Paris next month. Sadly my vacation will include a few hours of work-related conference calls. For sound quality reasons I hate doing conference calls from my cell phone - much prefer to use the landline from my hotel room. Is there anyway to avoid exorbitant hotel charges? Sometimes the number to dial into a conference call is a 800 number, other times not. Thanks for any advice.

 

[niehlin2]

I used Google Hangouts for conference calls when working from hotel room outside the US. The quality was always good as long as the wifi was good. It's free calling to the US and Canada.

 

[idearr]

I used Google Hangouts for conference calls when working from hotel room outside the US. The quality was always good as long as the wifi was good. It's free calling to the US and Canada.

I have free wi-fi calling from my cell, but want to be able to use the hotel phone for better sound quality. Google Hangouts won't help with that, will it? (Not familiar with GH but from quickly looking at website I get the idea it requires making the call from a cell or computer - is that correct)?

 

[niehlin2]

I used my iPad or iPhone to call or receive calls The sound qualify was excellent. It's even better with QC-15. You should be fine if you use headphone on your cell with free wifi. I also used VPN in combination with GH so that I could receive calls from US. So far I really like GH. Hopefully some people can give other good suggestions too.

 

[ukinny2000]

I second the use of GH. Far better than Skype and other VoIP solutions I find

 

[billatq]

If you don't mind using twimlets and setting up a twilio account, it's not too hard to make up a local access number where you are that forwards elsewhere. Some companies also have local access numbers in many countries, though it would obviously depend. Also, if you have a carrier that supports wifi calling (e.g. T-Mobile), you may already have access to wideband codecs that sound better than on a regular mobile phone.

 

[idearr]

If you don't mind using twimlets and setting up a twilio account, it's not too hard to make up a local access number where you are that forwards elsewhere. Some companies also have local access numbers in many countries, though it would obviously depend. Also, if you have a carrier that supports wifi calling (e.g. T-Mobile), you may already have access to wideband codecs that sound better than on a regular mobile phone.

Thanks, I will look into twilio. Never heard of it, but it sounds like it would allow me to use the hotel phone to call a local number in Italy that would foward to my conference call dial-in. Worth a shot.

I do have T-mobile and I do use wi-fi calling overseas, but in my experience neither wifi calling nor cell calls match the clarity of landline phones. I am hard of hearing so can't afford to lose the 15% clarity advantage I perceive from landline phones. Hence my very specific question which you answered.