In general, Canada is very friendly towards VoIP technology, so if you live inside Canada as I do, you must have a long list of telecom carriers that offer you good rates to call Canada. But if you are outside of Canada and want to call your families and friends inside, you probably don't have any handy options to call cheap. A little clarification first: by saying "call cheap", here I mean the calling rate to be under 5 cents per minute.

So what are the quick options, if any? To me nothing is quicker than downloading a pc to phone software, deposit some bucks, then start calling. If you have the similar mindset we can narrow our search to an array of VoIP software for worldwide internet users. Let's take a quick look at them:

1. Skype

Skype is quite popular nowadays, and it's no mistake to go with Skype, the price is 2.1 cent, but with VAT added, it will be 2.4 cent per minute. Skype also offers an unlimited calling plan but it has nothing to do with you - it only offers to North American users where phone calls are already cheap. So you have to go with Skype's pay as you go plan.

Upside: popular, sound quality and pricing.

Downside: none

2. Vbuzzer

Vbuzzer is a Canadian product, it offers cheaper rate than Skype does when dialing Canada (http://www.vbuzzer.com/ld/callcanada.php) - 1.5 cent per minute. It means 40% cheaper than Skype, and with $10 deposit, you can almost double your calling time with Vbuzzer then with Skype. In terms of quality, Vbuzzer is slightly better than Skype, in voice clarity, much better in voice consistency, according to my experience.

Upside: excellent quality, good pricing, also an excellent instant messenger with multi protocol support.

Downside: none, except as a Canadian company, I don't know why they are charging fees in US Dollars.

3. Betamax series

I call it Betamax service because it has many affiliate websites, all with voipxxx.com such as voipbuster, voipcheap etc. Believe me there are a lot of them. Each of the sites, at their early launches, are typically offer free minutes to many countries: US, Canada, UK, and many other European countries. Once they build up the user volume, they will require you to make a $10/$20 deposit and they tell you it is good for the next, say, 4 months of free call. You are happy so you make the deposit, but it happens that you don't call a lot in the next 4 months, Betamax is then charging the full payment and raise their price to very high. Then the next site will be born shortly, if not simultaneously.
As a user, you can play their game by searching the new born site, and take advantage of their "free promotion" - but don't make any deposit as they may require, because you simply don't need to, why pay them when there will be always new promotions ahead?

Upside: free or very cheap minutes when promoting
Downside: questionable business practice of revoking deposit and raising price

4. Yahoo Voice

Yahoo Instant Messenger is a very popular IM, but I have no stats to show how popular Yahoo Voice is, it could have millions of users, but not myself yet. In writing this blog, I checked Yahoo Voice website, and surprisingly find that their call Canada rate is very cheap, 1 cent per minute, yes one cent per minute. I probably should try it next time. This company has very broad product lines, but the problem is that none is dominant. What a pity!

Upside: no comments as I have no direct experience
Downside: no comments as I have no direct experience

Here is a video to explain how to dial Canada.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtLtHGACYMo

For additional information, please visit Vbuzzer blog about dialing Canada.
http://www.vbuzzer.com/blog/voip-service/how-to-dial-canada-with-vbuzzer-messenger.html

Other related information about dialing Canada

Contents
http://www.vbuzzer.com/blog/voip-service/how-to-dial-canada-with-vbuzzer-messenger.html
http://www.squidoo.com/Dialing-Canada-Really-Cheap
http://johnmathon.tripod.com/blog/index.blog?from=20080924
http://www.geocities.com/torontophonereview/DialingCanadaReallyCheap.html
http://ca.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-cTrLQ3kldLS4YOYd9AAsLzq9ROcP0gEeNxU-?cq=1
http://jjmathon.livejournal.com/1048.html
http://livetoronto.blog.com/
http://jjmathon.blogr.com/stories/8189566/
http://clearblogs.com/torontojournal/141306/Dialing+Canada+Really+Cheap.html
http://www.etribes.com/node/mine/176912
http://jjmathon.multiply.com/journal/item/4/Dialing_Canada_Really_Cheap
http://torontojournal.netcipia.net/xwiki/bin/view/Blog/DialingCanadaReallyCheap
http://www.soulcast.com/post/show/155824/Dialing-Canada-Really-Cheap#
http://toronto.terapad.com/index.cfm?fa=contentGeneric.fnybiubbrwogcncr&pageId=245695
http://jjmathon.tooum.net/switchboard/blog/71441:Dialing_Canada_Really_Cheap
http://torontojournal.tumblr.com/post/51729712/dialing-canada-really-cheap
http://torontophone.weebly.com/dialing-canada-really-cheap.html
http://john862.vox.com/library/post/dialing-canada-really-cheap.html
http://weblog.xanga.com/jjmathon/675852699/dialing-canada-really-cheap.html
http://torontojournal.zoomshare.com/2.shtml

Videos about Dialing Canada
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtLtHGACYMo
http://www.dailymotion.com/stoneellis2029/video/11524411
http://s37.photobucket.com/albums/e51/stoneellis2029/?action=view&current=ccdce918.pbr
http://www.jumpcut.com/view?id=0F07FFB28A6911DDB5E0000423CF382E
http://media.putfile.com/Dialing-Canada-Cheap-with-Vbuzzer
http://sclipo.com/video/dialing-canada-cheap-with-vbuzzer
http://en.sevenload.com/videos/MbiT4Oy-Dialing-Canada-Cheap-with-Vbuzzer
http://share.ovi.com/media/stoneellis2029.public/stoneellis2029.10006
http://www.youtube.com/rss/user/stoneellis2029/videos.rss
http://www.spike.com/video/dialing-canada-cheap/3038280
http://www.vidiLife.com/index.cfm?f=media.play&vchrMediaProgramIDCryp=11C8F76B-3439-4C4C-9BDE-4
http://www.bolt.com/stoneellis2029/video/Dialing_Canada_Cheap_with/3487671
http://www.dropshots.com/stoneellis2029#date/2008-09-23/17:31:06
http://eyespot.com/share?cmd=permalink&r=0XCzIG2UEDi5BbiEJW40IWxB1l
http://www.grindtv.com/video/more/Dialing_Canada_Cheap_with_Vbuzzer/?user=444299
http://www.livevideo.com/video/D93D4029213646BC84EC6EEA1B6B33F5/dialing-canada-cheap-with-vbuz.aspx
http://www.motionbox.com/videos/a79edbb61616e62e
http://sharkle.com/video/205422/
http://www.stickam.com/viewMedia.do?mId=181075589
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v16044475t59x9xaJ
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/3576091/9884406
http://vimeo.com/1805730
http://www.esnips.com/doc/855f024b-52b3-4a6b-bbbb-e93931c83dc2/Dialing-Canada-Cheap-with-Vbuzzer

RSS Feeds
http://www.squidoo.com/xml/syndicate_lens/Dialing-Canada-Really-Cheap
http://johnmathon.tripod.com/blog/rss.xml
http://livetoronto.blog.com/atom/
http://jjmathon.blogr.com/stories/rss20.xml
http://jjmathon.multiply.com/feed.rss
http://torontojournal.netcipia.net/xwiki/bin/view/Main/BlogRss?xpage=rdf
http://jjmathon.tooum.net/switchboard/feeds/all/RSS2.0
http://torontojournal.tumblr.com/rss
http://torontophone.weebly.com/2/feed
http://john862.vox.com/library/posts/atom.xml
http://www.xanga.com/jjmathon/rss
http://torontojournal.zoomshare.com/rss.xml

Canada's internet phone landscape has been changing fast, many services were launched back in 2005 & 2006, some are still doing well now, more disappeared from our sight. There is one Canadian internet phone service provider (http://www.vbuzzer.com/ld/canadainternetphone.php) that I tracked and liked from the beginning throughout today, this provider is Vbuzzer. In my opinion, Vbuzzer offers the best quality, the most reliable service, at very low price, if not the lowest in Canada. While using vbuzzer for 3 years, I witnessed its constant improvement of the product, the website, the functionality, and design.

1. The software - Vbuzzer Messenger

Vbuzzer Messenger is a similar concept of instant messaging with pc to phone functionality. At its launch, Vbuzzer is just another soft phone that offer cheap but often cracked phone calls, since then it slowly but steadily evolve into an excellent IM.

- It offers all in one instant messaging with MSN, Yahoo, AIM and ICQ Instant Messenger
- It offers VoIP pc to phone, and phone to pc calling capability
- It offers internet fax over the very same Instant Messenger
- It offers RSS feeds syndications on the IM
- Its user interface is neat

2. The website

Vbuzzer website has undergone major upgrades every 6 months, if not 3 months, I don't have a close track on their site, but every once in a while, I can see that they added a couple of features here and there, like call forward, call fork, etc.

3. The functionality

It is clear that Vbuzzer team is very busy, and they produce result - you can see a bunch of products listed on the website, from Vbuzzer Messenger, to mobile VoIP, to mobile phone call back, to Asterisk configuration, to VoIP ATA box configuration, to video conferencing, web conferencing, to video mail, to internet fax. In the last few years Vbuzzer has made itself a full blown communication service provider.

4. User Interface

The user interface of both website and vbuzzer messenger have improved every few months, the design is getting neater, cleaner, and friendlier. Recently I found they also upgraded their account management interface, which looks much better than the old version UI.
I have a Vbuzzer Toronto phone number with unlimited Toronto calling plan, I use it with a Linksys RT31P2-NA router ( a Linksys router with VoIP ports integrated). I always have dial tones in the line and never had any problem calling in & out, and the quality is the same as my previous Bell line, literally, no difference in voice quality!

Calling other cities of Canada is pretty cheap, 1.5 cent per minute, well, 1.7 cent after tax, but still, it is cheaper than most of the service providers I know. With that calling quality I get, 1.7 cent is like a breeze, and $10 or $20 deposit does go a long way with Vbuzzer, literally months.

Recently I start to use Vbuzzer as the only IM running on my desktop, after running MSN, Yahoo, and Skype on one computer, I start to look for an all in one alternative, and I'm glad that Vbuzzer provide this unified messaging feature. The experience is so far so good, I never missed any IM from my buddies at MSN and Yahoo. After running all of them altogether, I decided to shut down MSN, and Yahoo, and leave Vbuzzer only on my desktop.

So in my view, Vbuzzer is a superstar in the drama of Canada's internet phone revolution. Any Canadian that is looking for quality internet phone service should take a serious look at vbuzzer (http://www.vbuzzer.com)

Here is a video to explain Canada Internet Phone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I6Oy1ThB38

For additional information, please visit Vbuzzer blog about Canada Internet Phone.
http://www.vbuzzer.com/blog/voip-service/smart-canada-internet-phone.html

Other related information about dialing Canada

Contents
http://www.squidoo.com/Vbuzzer-Canada-Internet-Phone-Service
http://hubpages.com/hub/Vbuzzer-Canada-Internet-Phone-Service
http://johnmathon.tripod.com/Toronto-phone-review/index.blog/1845546/vbuzzer-canada-internet-phone-service/
http://www.geocities.com/torontophonereview/CanadaInternetPhone.html
http://ca.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-cTrLQ3kldLS4YOYd9AAsLzq9ROcP0gEeNxU-?cq=1&p=6
http://jjmathon.livejournal.com/1449.html
http://livetoronto.blog.com/3958025/
http://jjmathon.blogr.com/stories/8197608/
http://jjmathon.blogster.com/vbuzzer-canada-internet-phone-service_061008153417
http://clearblogs.com/torontojournal/148507/Vbuzzer+Canada+Internet+Phone+Service.html
http://jjmathon.multiply.com/journal/item/5/Vbuzzer_Canada_Internet_Phone_Service
http://torontojournal.netcipia.net/xwiki/bin/view/Blog/VbuzzerCanadaInternetPhoneService
http://toronto.shoutpost.com/33513/vbuzzer-canada-internet-phone-service
http://www.soulcast.com/post/show/157860/Vbuzzer-Canada-Internet-Phone-Service
http://toronto.terapad.com/index.cfm?fa=contentGeneric.fnybiubbrwogcncr&pageId=245696
http://jjmathon.tooum.net/switchboard/blog/71577:Vbuzzer_Canada_Internet_Phone_Service
http://www.tumblr.com/dashboard
http://torontojournal.tumblr.com/post/53359027/vbuzzer-canada-internet-phone-service
http://john862.vox.com/library/post/vbuzzer-canada-internet-phone-service.html
http://weblog.xanga.com/jjmathon/677308078/vbuzzer-canada-internet-phone-service.html
http://torontojournal.zoomshare.com/2.shtml
http://www.etribes.com/node/mine/177791

Videos about Canada Internet Phone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I6Oy1ThB38
http://www.dailymotion.com/stoneellis2029/video/11543371
http://s37.photobucket.com/albums/e51/stoneellis2029/?action=view&current=c71c9b66.pbr
http://www.jumpcut.com/view?id=3C220D7E8B3811DD99E0000423CF3686
http://media.putfile.com/Best-Canada-Internet-Phone-Powered-by-Vbuzzer
http://sclipo.com/video/best-canada-internet-phone-powered-by-vbuzzer
http://en.sevenload.com/videos/UUmUyll-Best-Canada-Internet-Phone-Powered-by-Vbuzzer
http://share.ovi.com/media/stoneellis2029.CanadaInternetP/stoneellis2029.10008
http://www.youtube.com/rss/user/stoneellis2029/videos.rss
http://www.spike.com/video/best-canada-internet/3038948
http://www.vidiLife.com/index.cfm?f=media.play&vchrMediaProgramIDCryp=5816DD4E-C4BB-4C90-9670-D
http://www.bolt.com/stoneellis2029/video/Best_Canada_Internet_Phon/3488184
http://www.dropshots.com/stoneellis2029#date/2008-09-24/14:20:13
http://eyespot.com/share?cmd=permalink&r=0XCzIG2UEDl08riEJW40IWxCl7
http://www.grindtv.com/video/more/Best_Canada_Internet_Phone_Powered_by_Vbuzzer/?user=444299
http://www.livevideo.com/video/2959FBEFB028447584F1139A8A413ABF/best-canada-internet-phone-pow.aspx
http://www.motionbox.com/videos/a79ed5be1c1fe32e
http://www.stickam.com/viewMedia.do?mId=181096208
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v16055399BWESR8Bq
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/3583838/9903245
http://vimeo.com/1814417
http://www.esnips.com/doc/f217a8e8-5a83-4ba0-9771-69fb8423a746/Canada-Internet-Phone

RSS Feeds
http://feeds.feedburner.com/vbuzzer
http://www.squidoo.com/xml/syndicate_lens/Vbuzzer-Canada-Internet-Phone-Service
http://hubpages.com/hub/Vbuzzer-Canada-Internet-Phone-Service?done&rss
http://johnmathon.tripod.com/Toronto-phone-review/rss.xml
http://ca.blog.360.yahoo.com/rss-cTrLQ3kldLS4YOYd9AAsLzq9ROcP0gEeNxU-?cq=1
http://jjmathon.livejournal.com/data/rss
http://livetoronto.blog.com/atom/
http://jjmathon.blogr.com/stories/rss20.xml
http://jjmathon.blogster.com/feed
http://torontojournal.netcipia.net/xwiki/bin/view/Main/BlogRss?xpage=rdf
http://www.shoutpost.com/blogs/feeds/t/toronto.xml
http://jjmathon.tooum.net/switchboard/feeds/all/ATOM
http://torontojournal.tumblr.com/rss
http://john862.vox.com/library/posts/atom.xml
http://www.xanga.com/jjmathon/rss
http://torontojournal.zoomshare.com/rss.xml

Calling card has been a long standing business in Canada, since the deregulation in the long distance market in 1980s. Coupled with flux of immigrants and boom of internet, Canada phone card business has undergone a curve of early adoption (1990s), mass reception (2000-2002), and recession (2003-). I use the word "recession" as the calling cards as a whole are facing strong competition from alternative products like Vonage, Skype, who developed millions of customers from 2003.
My view of the calling card business is pessimistic, although they are still widely popular among many ethnic users, they are facing some serious problems, unless these problems are being addressed and solved, they will continue to lose market share week after week, month after month, and year after year.

Problem 1 - Distribution Channel verus Direct Sales

Before the cards can be sold to consumers, they first need to be physically produced in plastic cards, then shipped to all the retail stores, then sold to buyers in cash. In the internet era, all the distribution networks can be avoided, a service provider can simply sell calling cards on the web - because the critical part of a card is the PIN - and the PIN is just a series of numbers that you can deliver to emails or SMS electronically. Actually, in Canada there are some electronic calling cards (http://www.vbuzzer.com/calling_card.php ) like Vbuzzer. Compared to the web to consumer business model, traditional calling card will have a hard time to compete as their networks are indirect and more expensive - which means they can't compete in price.

Problem 2 - Hidden Fees

Every time you look at a calling card poster, you are gonna learn a few more tricks how to apply hidden charges - connection fees, no connections fees but administrative fees, higher price after 3 minutes, per minute billing, or very early expiry days etc. They reflect the harsh business environment of the whole industry, if they sell in straight terms, they will look very expensive, which means nobody will buy the cards, so they have to cheat...

In contrast, in the direct selling mode, for example, web to consumers, cheating is not popular, the vendors avoided a lot of expenses in the distribution channel so they still do fair business.

Problem 3 - Inconvenience of use

Of course, when you need to dial a 10-digit access number, then a 9-digit PIN, then another 10-digit or 13-digit international phone number, the whole process isn't very pleasant, right? Not to mention that you have no call history that you can check up, no bills to show your usage, etc. It is okay when you don't have other alternatives to save money, but for many people it becomes increasingly bothersome to use the product.

Problem 4 - Competition

This is big, and real. Whenever I open a web page I can see Vonage ads, Skype ads, or somebody else's ads. A lot money has been thrown into the internet phone business, or pc to phone business, and the money has helped developing millions of customers, this means calling cards have lost a few million customers in the last few years. I try not to be too pessimistic, but I can't paint a brighter future for the industry when it faces such strong competitors.

Maybe I'm biased, or maybe I'm simply not possessing the knowledge the industry players are possessing, nonetheless, I can't see any light in the tunnel for the calling card business in Canada.

Here is a video to explain Canada Internet Phone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbLqydGj3oo

For additional information, please visit Vbuzzer blog about Canada Calling Card.
http://www.vbuzzer.com/blog/voip-service/calling-card-canada.html

Other related information about dialing Canada

Contents
http://www.squidoo.com/Canada_Calling_Card
http://hubpages.com/hub/Canada-Calling-Card
http://johnmathon.tripod.com/Toronto-phone-review/
http://www.geocities.com/torontophonereview/ Canada-Calling-Card.html
http://ca.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-cTrLQ3kldLS4YOYd9AAsLzq9ROcP0gEeNxU-?cq=1&p=8
http://jjmathon.livejournal.com/1696.html
http://livetoronto.blog.com/3981745/
http://jjmathon.blogr.com/stories/8199628/
http://jjmathon.blogster.com/canada-calling-card_091008131827
http://jjmathon.bravejournal.com/
http://clearblogs.com/torontojournal/149738/Canada+Calling+Card.html
http://www.etribes.com/node/mine/178020
http://jjmathon.multiply.com/journal/item/6/Canada_Calling_Card_
http://torontojournal.netcipia.net/xwiki/bin/view/Blog/CanadaCallingCard
http://toronto.shoutpost.com/33780/canada-calling-card
http://www.soulcast.com/post/show/158467/Canada-Calling-Card
http://toronto.terapad.com/index.cfm?fa=contentGeneric.fnybiubbrwogcncr&pageId=258119
http://jjmathon.tooum.net/switchboard/blog/71629:Canada_Calling_Card
http://torontojournal.tumblr.com/post/53830551/canada-calling-card
http://torontophone.weebly.com/4/post/2008/10/canada-calling-card.html
http://john862.vox.com/library/post/canada-calling-card.html
http://weblog.xanga.com/jjmathon/677695924/canada-calling-card.html
http://torontojournal.zoomshare.com/2.shtml

Videos about Canada Internet Phone
http://www.jumpcut.com/view?id=B7B994A494AF11DD9B0F000423CEF682
http://media.putfile.com/Best-Canada-Calling-Card
http://sclipo.com/video/best-canada-calling-card
http://en.sevenload.com/videos/evecahz-Best-Canada-Calling-Card
http://share.ovi.com/media/stoneellis2029.BestCanadaCalli/stoneellis2029.10009
http://www.youtube.com/rss/user/stoneellis2029/videos.rss
http://www.spike.com/video/best-canada-calling/3044276
http://www.vidiLife.com/index.cfm?f=media.play&vchrMediaProgramIDCryp=4F214AF1-5B54-4280-AFB3-E
http://www.dropshots.com/stoneellis2029#date/2008-10-07/13:43:29
http://eyespot.com/share?cmd=permalink&r=0XCzIG2UEE0n4HiEJW40IWy00x
http://www.grindtv.com/video/music/best_canada_calling_card/?user=444299
http://www.livevideo.com/video/BD88E38E73614B2387A1A43A0F5D290A/best-canada-calling-card.aspx
http://www.motionbox.com/videos/a790d4b11c1ee22e
http://www.stickam.com/viewMedia.do?mId=181239229
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v16188470K4QF4nbz
http://vimeo.com/1915811
http://www.esnips.com/doc/c8b21f91-f399-4cb1-b9c5-e402755dd998/Best-Canada-Calling-Card
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/3668283/10095473

RSS Feeds
http://www.squidoo.com/xml/syndicate_lens/Canada_Calling_Card
http://hubpages.com/hub/Canada-Calling-Card?done&rss
http://johnmathon.tripod.com/Toronto-phone-review/rss.xml
http://ca.blog.360.yahoo.com/rss-cTrLQ3kldLS4YOYd9AAsLzq9ROcP0gEeNxU-?cq=1
http://jjmathon.livejournal.com/data/atom
http://livetoronto.blog.com/atom/
http://jjmathon.blogr.com/stories/rss20.xml
http://jjmathon.blogster.com/feed
http://jjmathon.bravejournal.com/feed.rss
http://jjmathon.multiply.com/feed.rss
http://torontojournal.netcipia.net/xwiki/bin/view/Main/BlogRss?xpage=rdf
http://torontophone.weebly.com/4/feed
http://john862.vox.com/library/posts/rss.xml
http://www.xanga.com/jjmathon/rss