An update to my Tello post
 

My friend in Germany had instant response ability to a 2FA prompt from his US bank today, using the Tello line. I've pasted some posts from an active Slickdeals.net Tello thread, about a strategy for banking data and minutes if you have a low-priced plan bucket. This would make sense if you predict high usage occurring in a subsequent month. The lost sunk cost would be de minimis (~30 cents on the $9/month plan my friend signed up for), if you were disciplined to start a new month's billing, at the 29th day. Explained below:

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• "Also, if you're new to Tello, you can always start a new month anytime. Say it's been 22 days and you're out of data....you can just start the new month then and reload your monthly data allotment. You can also grandfather in unused data, but you HAVE to restart your month manually before the month is complete. Say you have a 10 GB/month plan but only use 7 GB....if you restart your month say on day 28, you'll get 10 GB for the new month + 3 GB from the previous month for a total of 13 GB. If the month "autopays" and renews on it's own, you lose the 3 GB and start with a fresh 10 GB only."

• " I've been doing this for over a year on a 2nd phone I use exclusively for travel hotspotting. I paid for 15GB of data the first month. Every 29 days I toggle my account between the 1GB and 2GB plans. This prevents the unused balance from resetting on renewal day, and slowly builds banked data I can use in an emergency (like the weeklong power outage we had last June). Anyone can do this, as long as they set a reminder and have the discipline to do it every. twenty-nine. days. (Or sooner if the banked data is close to depletion.) And no, I don't have to do this on Day 27 in February. Lol. "

• "Another post already explained, but to reiterate: if you renew prior to the auto-renewal any unused buckets will carry over to the next month. So if your son is on the 2GB/unlimited minutes plan which is $10, check the date of your next renewal. The day before, manually renew at 2GB/300 minutes for $8. And let's say he uses 1.5GB of data and 150 minutes that month, then when you renew for the next month, I would downgrade to the 2GB/100 minutes for $7. The unused data and minutes will rollover, so he will have 2.5GB and 250 minutes to use in the next month. And if that seems like the sweet spot, then the next month you can manually renew for the exact same plan. You don't have to change anything to get the rollover. Here is the FAQ: https://tello.com/help_center/wil...anguage=en "

Has anyone used this service? Their eSIMs are also pretty darn cheap.

Skype was pretty good in that it allowed access from Dubai / UAE. A lot of the other services are blocked ( believe you can't make WhatsApp calls??).

Anyone know of Dubai friendly alternatives? It appears Viber may be an option.

It would be better to use VPN software. Not that it is 100% guaranteed to work. FWIW Saudi is the same with WhatsApp calls.

RIP, Skype had a great run, longer than most other communication apps

GV doesn't work from Dubai?

No idea.

I hope they spend my $5.45 balance for a good cause , there has to be a million dollars worth of small balances.

Perhaps I'm missing something but it looks like you have to buy credits before you can make free calls. ???

No. But not all calls are free on Skype, only freephone numbers in a few geographies.

Well, somehow I'm missing the trick. I enter a 1-800 US number and click 'Call'. It says 'Dialing 18001234567' then immediately there's a boing and 'Call ended'. :(

Select ‘US’, then just type in ‘800XXXXXXX’; no ‘1’ to start.
(Though actually dialling in the plus sign first, i.e. ‘+1’, would work.)

The way you’re doing it (without the +), I think it’s trying to dial something like +1 (18O) O12-3456(7), and failing.

Anyway, it’s going away soon…

Yeah, sorry; I'm not talking about Skype, although I guess that's how it looks. I'm trying the app from voipcheap that DaveS mentioned in post #19. In post #20, DeathSlam said

> My main requirements are to be able to call an 0800 US landline number for free ... and it looks like this will acheive [sic] that ...

That's my main requirement too and I'm ttrying to use this new program to achieve that -- but no joy so far.

I think you will need to add some credit before you can make free calls. When I add €10 it gives me 3 months of free calls to some numbers. I have not tried +1800 ones though. After the 3 months, calls are chargeable but usually something like €0.01 per minute. I rarely top up more than once per year. If I do, it is usually because I have called somewhere like Saudi Arabia which is relatively expensive.

Right. Back to the search for a Skype replacement.