Leaving the phone company out of the loop
When veterinarian Tom Tribolet moved to Buenos Aires to try his hand as a thoroughbred racehorse trainer six years ago, staying in touch with his sons in Arizona and California meant spending upward of $500 a month with the Spanish-owned company that controls half of Argentina's phone service.
Today, Tribolet can call anyone he wants in the United States and Canada any time he feels like it. And his monthly bill comes to $40.
He did something that was not even possible a little more than a year ago: He got himself telephone service, with a Phoenix area code, in his suburban Buenos Aires home.
``My phone calls back home are better than they were before, and they cost nothing,'' said Tribolet. ``It's like magic.''
