Hi,

I saw an add for a free internet answering service and it said you would never miss a call, because you would hear the message while you are on-line. Do any of you use this? I think it would be cool if there weren't any catches. There's always so much good advice here that I thought I'd ask.

-- Jo-Ellen (pls5638@hotmail.com), May 08, 2002

Answers

I use Callwave. I don't know if that's the one you're referring too. I love Callwave. It answers the phone and takes the message, then downloads it and plays it for you, all while you're online. I've never had any problem with it at all.

-- Deena in GA (dsmj55@aol.com), May 08, 2002.

Hi, Deena that is the ad I saw. I think I'll try it then. Thanks for the info.

-- Jo-Ellen (pls5638@hotmail.com), May 08, 2002.

With these services, don't you have to pay for some other service that your local phone company provides?

-- Christina (introibo2000@yahoo.com), May 08, 2002.

Hey, I, at least, need more information. This sounds very interesting and I know I can look it up on the internet but it's nice to actually hear from someone who has done it, how something works. Can you share experience? Are there extra charges from the phone company----for example call waiting or some such?

-- Rosalie (Dee) in IN (deatline@globalsite.net), May 08, 2002.

I use Callwave. It was free in the beginning but then they started charging. If you have a very low use, I think they let you have it for free yet, not sure though. Anyway, I pay 2.95 per month which includes Caller ID on Callwave. To have this service you need to have "call forward on busy" put on your phone line by your local phone company. There usually is a charge for this. My company charges $3.00. What happens is that when you are online and someone calls you, your phone line is actually busy so the "call forward on busy" kicks in and forwards the call to Callwave which then goes through the message procedure, etc. It is still cheaper to have Callwave than a second line. ADSL is nice but most rural people can't get it plus it is spendier. One more thing, we noticed that Callwave does bog down the computer if you don't have enough memory (RAM).But we upgraded our RAM and have no problem now. Callwave has a lot of ads that flash and so on. Callwave also has a feature to get faxes online too. Plus, from a survey they just sent out to their subscribers, they are looking at offering voicemail and possibly instant messaging to your cellphone plus forwarding your online messages to your cellphone, etc. There are other companies out there too - one is Pagoo.

-- JoAnn in SD (jnehls@nvc.net), May 08, 2002.