I just got off the phone with my husband and he said the usdb was changing phone companies. I can't remember the name of the new company. Has anyone else heard anything about this?

I talked to my son on Friday and he said they had received a memo about the phone service, but it wasn't clear exactly. If I find out anything, I'll post it here.

My husband said when I talked to him Sunday that the phone service would be offline Monday while they changed companies. supposedly it is supposed to make it much cheaper for inmates to call loved ones off their own money. He put 40 dollars in a pre-paid service and says he can call me twice off of that money before he has to put more in. I will let you know once I know more, he is set to call me either Wed or Fri.

Erin

Just talked to my son via the new and "improved" phone service. The cost-savings are non-existent. For the first minute it is $5.89 and for every minute thereafter it is $0.89. Not a good deal in my opinion.

Lisa, I think the last thing on the "officials" mind is to institute any type of savings on the family's part. By the way, these high phone fees - who exactly reaps the benefit from them? How are things going with your son? I know you are planning a visit soon.

Pam

Pam, from what I've read here and on other sites about the phone service fees, I think the facility gets most of the benefits but I'm sure the carriers aren't providing the service out of any philanthropic behavior! My son's doing fine from what he tells me. He sent me a pencil drawing he did of a tiger with a gazelle in its jaws. For someone with no formal art training, it's excellent. Yes, we are planning to visit the first weekend in December as that will fall immediately after his birthday. Wish I could take a cake.....and ice cream......and presents.....and bring him home afterwards!! How are things going with your son?

Take care!

When I talked to my husband on Friday it was a direct connection, not a collect call. He said when he calls out of his own account, their is no connection fee and it is 40 cents a minute for a 20 minute call. So cheaper but less talk time, but we will make it up with more phone calls then once a week :-). I hope that everyone else can take advantage of this somewhat cheaper phone call setup and get on board. I am not sure how they sign up but from what my husband said, it was pretty easy.

Erin

PS: Husband had the flu for a few days so I hope no one else catches it. Sounded pretty nasty but short lived. Also 10 days now until I get to see him! Yeah!

Seems like the ideal way to go would be to deposit funds, rather than call collect (which seems logical--duh!) It would be cheaper for me to send him $50 month for a phone account than to pay the $75 for a call every two weeks.

Hi,

My inmate is at Camp Pendleton brig at California. And I am living an oversea where is aver 10,000 miles away from the brig. We can hear each other over the phone when I am at there for visiting him only. He has told he can not call me here because of a collect call. Does anyone know about if I can find some phone company to send his calls to my cell phone here in Japan, or if so, how much it cost us for the phone?

sweety,

you might be able to make an account with prison calls online (PCO) www.prisoncallsonline.com or outside connection www.outsideconnectioninc.net.

there are threads about the different levels of customer service between these two companies; i have found outside connection to be significantly cheaper for me. PCO's website says that they can send calls anywhere in the world.

good luck to you and feel free to pm me if you have more questions!

:)

Hi,

Thank you for the reply soon. I have asked to those two companies if they can help our phone calls. I am waiting for their writing back.

I hope I can start hearing from my inmate from the place to my phone here soon.

sweety,

you might be able to make an account with prison calls online (PCO) www.prisoncallsonline.com (http://www.prisoncallsonline.com) or outside connection www.outsideconnectioninc.net (http://www.outsideconnectioninc.net).

there are threads about the different levels of customer service between these two companies; i have found outside connection to be significantly cheaper for me. PCO's website says that they can send calls anywhere in the world.

good luck to you and feel free to pm me if you have more questions!

:)