LifeTips – December 2006

Each month, we will introduce you to something exciting or new that has come to our attention – something that will likely simplify your life. In this issue, we want to tell you about this amazing new service for mobile phone users, called MINO.

MINO is a Voice-over-IP (VoIP) solution allowing you to make calls from your mobile phone to over 40 countries for about 2 cents a minute using the data connection on your phone (4 cents if you are in Canada). Each call uses about 1 kilobyte of data (approximately 5 cents from your mobile carrier) to initiate the call then routes the call through the MINO network to the receiving party. For example, a 10 minute call to the United Kingdom is roughly $3-4 dollars through your carrier versus $.25 cents with MINO.

When you sign-up, MINO provides you with 50 cents free to make calls with, enough for about 25 minutes. The software installs easily, quickly and directly on your phone and is available for most BlackBerry, Palm, Windows Mobile, and Java-based devices. Setup is simple with just a PIN number to enter and your mobile phone number. When you run out of money you can refill your account with preset dollar amounts through the MINO website.

The newest software version for the BlackBerry is far better than their previous version. Originally, you would have to look up the phone number you wanted to dial in your address book, remember it or right it down, then enter it in the MINO application - tedious and unnecessary extra steps. In their newest implementation you can dial directly out of your address book making it far more valuable and useful than ever before.

You can read more about MINO, the technology and service at www.minowireless.com.