Conor Meagher Fan Club

Check out Yahoo! Voice service . It’s great! I’m charged $0.010/minute to call the US and for $2 a month, I have a local phone number that routes to my computer in Korea! No need for an international phone card! Contact me via Y! Messenger at iloveconordotcom or by phone at 913-828-5555. It seems crazy, but it really does work.

Yahoo Undercuts Skype, Telcos on Voice Call Rates
Fri Dec 9, 2005 1:04 AM ET

By Eric Auchard

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. said on Wednesday the company plans to allow computer users to make and receive calls from phones at rates that undercut eBay-owned rival Skype and are significantly below traditional phone companies.

Yahoo said a new version of its Yahoo Messenger text, voice and video communications software to be introduced in the next few days will include “Phone Out,” with low per-minute charges for calls from computers to phones, and “Phone In,” a low-cost subscription service for phone callers to call computer users.

The world’s largest Internet media company said it plans to charge one cent per minute to Yahoo Messenger users calling the United States from, say, Russia, or anywhere else in the world and 2 cents a minute to call 30 other countries including Australia, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Korea.

In all the Yahoo Messenger phone-calling service will be available in 180 countries, according to Terrell Karlsten, a spokeswoman for the Sunnyvale, California-based company. Details were due to be available shortly at http://voice.yahoo.com/.

Blair Levin, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus and a former staff member of the Federal Communications Commission, said in a report to investors that Yahoo’s move is part of a broad and growing challenge to traditional telecommunications carriers.

While unlikely to lead consumers to replace traditional phone services on a broad scale, he said, computer-based phone services will put further pressure on phone company revenues, even as they raise regulatory issues about whether to begin requiring Internet services to meet costly phone regulations.

“We believe pricing is dropping to a level where price itself is likely to be less of a factor driving a consumer’s choice,” Levin wrote. Instead convenience, ease-of-use, and how well voice-calling can be integrated with other computer services will be what differentiates Time Warner-owned America Online’s AIM, Yahoo, Microsoft’s MSN and Skype.

YAHOO TRADES BLOWS WITH SKYPE

Yahoo, which has offered some voice calling features via instant messaging software for five years is seeking to recapture momentum from Skype, which has in two years built up a base of 68 million users worldwide, including several million of Skype Out computer-to-phone, low-cost calling services.

Yahoo Messenger calls to the United States are half the price of Skype’s 2.1 cents per minute. But the Skype rate applies to nearly 30 countries, making it comparable with Yahoo rates. (http://www.skype.com/products/skypeout/rates/)

“In a basic sense, Skype is functionally identical to AIM, MSN or Yahoo,” said Nick Shelness, an instant messaging analyst with Ferris Research based Perthshire, Scotland who was formerly a chief technology officer at IBM’s Lotus division.

“All three — AIM, MSN and Yahoo — have had audio capabilities for quite some time. They just didn’t stress those features,” he noted.

Yahoo Messenger also offers e-mail links, text messaging to mobile phones, photo sharing and video calling services. The new low-cost calling services rely on deals struck with a variety of traditional long-distance carriers which Yahoo inherited through its acquisition of Dialpad in June 2005.

“Historically communications have been stuck in a bunch of different silos,” said Brad Garlinghouse, Yahoo vice president of communications products, and a former executive at Dialpad.

“The home phone is one silo, the work phone is a silo, the mobile phone is a silo, instant messaging is another silo and mobile phone text-messaging is another silo,” he said of how Yahoo plans eventually to tie together communication services.

Phone In, the phone-to-PC service, costs $2.99 a month or $29.90 a year, allowing people to select a personal phone number, and receive incoming calls at no additional charge.

As an example, San Francisco residents using the service who have friends or family in London will be able to choose a local London-based phone number. UK callers to the number would be charged for making a local call.

Travelers can have multiple numbers that allow them to have local numbers in each country they visit, starting first in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States with other countries to follow, Yahoo said.

The new version of Yahoo Messenger allows users to search for contacts they have entered the system by name, by Yahoo nickname, by phone number or other contact details. Users can then choose to communicate via text, voice or e-mail.

To encourage use of its phone calling services, Yahoo said that, for a limited time, it would offer a free headset to users who sign up for its Phone Out service. Localized versions in various national markets will be available, Yahoo said.

I’M DONE!!!! No more class until January 4th! The Christmas show went better then we thought it would and some of the mothers gave the teachers presents. I have a new winter hat and money towards Outback Steakhouse. It looks like free steak tonight! Yum-yum.

Birthday shoutouts… Joe Knipp (26) and Choi Hye-ran (23)!

Pre-birthday shoutout… Gramps (99)! Love you!

About two weeks ago, two new teachers started at AMS, Peter and Clare. They’re a young married couple from the UK. So now we have 6 foreign teachers (3 from the UK, 2 from the US, and 1 from New Zealand). The British are taking over again! Run for the hills!

Peter tells me this weekend that he was talking to his Dad and he said that he’s been following “the website” to keep up-to-date on how he’s doing. Well, Peter had no idea what website he was talking about. But apparently his Father found this website and has been reading it. I bet you can Google “American Montessori School” and it brings up this website at some point. If Peter’s Dad is reading this, I’d like to write him a personal message.

Dear Peter’s Dad,
Peter is doing well and does a good Neil Diamond impression. He has really fit in at the school and is finally learning all the kids names. This weekend they (Peter & Clare) got me a bathroom mat (cold floor) and body wash (dry skin) for a gift exchange at work. They really listen to my needs or they are trying to tell me something. If Peter doesn’t come through on Christmas this year, then you can blame me because I keep taking his money in Poker. Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers,
Conor

One week from today is the AMS Christmas Show and every one is not ready. There’s still costumes to make, lines to learn, songs to sing, and nogg to stir. Well maybe no nogg, but their milk here is so thick that it kind of taste like it.

I have one more doctors appointment in the wee morning hours this friday. I’ll get an x-ray to see how well the medication has worked. Hopefully it will be my last visit.

It’s freakin’ freezing (here) Mr. Bigglesworth.

I got a pretty beefy desktop computer this weekend. It makes my apartment look…. more like an apartment. The LCD screen is a nice touch. Well, I’d like to say it’s working well, but I’ve been having a internet speed problem since day one. My ISP guarantee 60-100Mbps. download speeds, but a 14.4k modem is out preforming it right now. It’s really strange, because I can download files fast, but browsing a website is slower then molasses. I hate it when I can’t fix a computer problem or it’s out of my control. No e-mail, no Flickr, no Chefs/Isles radio, and no MSN Messenger. I think God is punishing me for all the times I drank milk without a glass. I’m not posting again until it’s fixed. Errrr…

Update:
Weeeeeeeee…. this internet connection rocks! I’m averaging about 95Mbps (11MB/sec)! The ISP guy came today and found out the cable behind the wall to the jack was bad. So he just crimped a new cable and plugged it in from the hub where the cable line is. I knew it wasn’t the computer. Now I need a TV capture card, so I can watch ALL my channels.

Did you know that if your a foreigner in Korea with HIV, that you can get deported? I thought that was a good opening question for my trip back to the hospital. Well I didn’t get any huge surprises. Actually they didn’t talk about my blood work at all. It was just to see how I was feeling and whether to continue the antibiotics. The doctor was a respiratory specialist though, so it was a good second opinion. When he saw my x-ray of my left lung, I think he was in agreement with the ER doctors, because I got my medication continued but he changed it a little. Plus I got dihydrocodeine (liquid codeine) for my cough. I’m going to sleep good tonight Also, they setup another appointment to see how I’m doing. With the national health insurance it’s only $8 per visit and my 4 different medications were less than $10. Social health care is nice.

Before I begin writing, I’d like to say that I’m NOT in any immediate danger or serious pain.

Last night I came down with a very high fever. This was not the first time I got a high fever. It seems like I would always get them at then end of a week work. I’ve gone to a private practice in the building my school is in (twice), but since I had a cold, I think I was misdiagnosed. So this Friday I felt very weak and tired, so I thought I’d stay in and make sure I get rest. Then Saturday I felt a little better and did some errands, but in the late afternoon I started to get hot. So I went to lay down, but nothing would help. I was burning up and the Tylenol that I took wasn’t helping. So I decided to text my friend from work who went to the hospital last week because a kidney infection. Plus her husband is a doctor, so I thought I ask her what she though. She was very helpful and told me to go the ER in Seo-hyun. But it took me a little bit to find inspiration to make the trek to a hospital in a foreign country. After weighting the options I got up and went. The main reason I went, is because I knew there was something wrong that water and rest couldn’t cure me or at least in a reasonable time. I’d say the hardest part of the whole night was taking a taxis to and from the hospital. Korea got it’s first day of snow last night, so it make things a little more difficult. Going to the ER was quite an experience. It’s not something you normally do on a Saturday night. I just thought it was interesting to compare and contrast how things work from what I’ve experienced when I worked at St. Joseph. Eventhough I didn’t work in the ER, I made visits quite frequently to bring medication. This is a generalization, but if you ever want to meet great people, go out with people who work in the ER. They really know how to handle stress and stay upbeat. Anyway, I found that a Korean ER is pretty much the same as an American ER. The only big difference is the patients. Nobody had stab wounds or head trauma. It was just some minor conditions. The guy next to me just drank too much and had high blood pressure. It was also a very calm and quiet. Nobody was screaming for medication or moaning about pain. I can remember some crazy nights in the ER at St. Joe. So I explained my symptoms to the doctor and started the basic checks (blood pressure, body temperature, allergies, etc..). Then more tests which was good because I wanted pinpoint what I had and not speculate. Everything took about 2 hours and the results from my preliminary tests show that I have a bacterial infection in my left lung (pneumonia). I’m going back tomorrow to get the results from the blood work which will confirm it or anything else. I was also given prescriptions for a couple days which is antibiotics and Tylenol ER. Today the medication is working well and it’s good to know that I have an idea what’s wrong with me. Eventhough pneumonia is a serious condition, I feel that my case is a minor one and with antibiotics I should be fine. Plus I think my cold is more annoying then anything else. I’ll try to update after I get my blood work back.