Hi All,

I've been 'lurking' on this site for quite some time now! I've just found this thread, and thought that I would pass on my experience with keeping in touch with my fiancee, who is in Bago City (Negros Occidental).

For SMS I use 'Fishtext' most of the time now. The service is reliable, and costs just 1p per text to PH, although my mahal has just got a limited 'contract' number, and that seems to cost 1.3p! I will have to ask FishText why it's more expensive. The FishText application is a Java application, so you need a compatible phone (look for 'MIDP 2.0 support!) - I had to buy a cheap one on eBay - but it's paying for itself very quickly! (I was paying 15p per text on Orange payg) The FishText application leaves a little to be desired, but I will continue to use it because of the savings. For the other direction I had been using a PH sim set to 'roaming' ... but that conked out a few months ago, and I'm patiently waiting for a new one to be sent over!

For calls I have been using '1stDial'. I buy a £20 card from a shop, and 1stDial add on another £10 credit! The call cost is 6p per minute. It's not 100% - sometimes the call quality is poor, but re-dialling usually gets better quality. Sometimes I don't get to hear a ring tone ... which is confusing! Once or twice I've got through to a wrong number! You register online and get a London number to dial for each PH number. I wouldn't be without this now as it is so cheap! Because of the 50% addon, the effective rate is 4p per minute - a little less than the 80p per minute that my Pipex landline charges! (Although all UK numbers are included in the monthly charge.)

By far and away the biggest 'hassle' of keeping in touch is the unreliability of the PH electricity supply! When we are both at home and my mahal has power, we talk for hours on Yahoo or Skype!

Hope this might help someone. See you on another thread sometime!

Cheers!