Dell Voice

Until Canadian cell phone service providers get off their collective asses and offer free long distance across North America to their customers, at least we have products like Dell Voice.

If you've ever heard of freephoneline.ca, you'll understand how Dell Voice works. First of all, it's an app that you load onto your cell phone. Then, you register to get your free phone number in any part of Canada that you want. In other words, you can apply for a free phone number in any area code in Canada, not just the one you live in. This has an added benefit, because if you get let's say an Ottawa number, not only can you call just about anywhere in Canada for free, but all of your Ottawa friends and family can call you as a local number, even if you're somewhere else.

Once you have your number, you have to use it at least every 90 days, or you lose the number and have to get another one assigned to your account. To use your number, you just open the Dell Voice app and place a call to almost anywhere in Canada. Your call runs as a voice-over-IP (VoIP) call over your 3G network (using data) or over a wi-fi connection if you have one available. This means no long distance, but for now, it only works in Canada (for free). Dell Voice also offers low cost international calls.

Features include free Voicemail, free Caller ID, free Call Waiting, background incoming call notification, syncs with your existing contact list, Touch Tone Dial Pad, Contact Details Screen, Add Contact, Search Contact List, Call Logging, Mute, Hold, Speaker Phone, Recent Calls, Missed Calls and much more.

The only drawback to this app is that in order to receive calls, the app has to be running on your phone. The good news is that if you get a call on your Dell Voice VoIP phone number, but you miss it, or the app is off, it goes to voicemail. So aside from being able to make phone calls for free across this country, you can also let friends call you on this number that are in the same area code when you are away. So if I'm in San Diego for example, because I have a 403 number, all my Calgary friends can call my phone (as long as the app is on and I'm connected to wi-fi - I don't use data roaming - it's expensive).