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Hello everyone,

What are the best ways you've found for keeping in touch with friends and family back home while living in Ecuador? How frequently do you stay in touch with loved ones?

The best way is definitely instant message, audio call, video call, audio messages and memes.

As for how often it’s definitely every day and sometimes all day, I average about 150 messages a day (sent and received).  Not all are from abroad but it's continuous communication. Video and audio calls I average about 4-5 each day. Then there is sending and receiving photos and those amount to hundreds a month. There's also status updates that some like to use, but I use them rarely. Each method has it's proper use for instance it was my friend's birthday recently, and he whatsapped a funny status in that regard, so I replied to it, and gave my congrats. So that's definitely cool, instead sending an individual message with something like, "hey you know whose birthday it is today?"

Are there local equivalents to common instant messaging and online video calling services that you prefer or are more widely used?

They are the same and my preference is using whatsapp, instant messenger and facetime. 

If there is a sizeable time difference, how do you manage this?

For family, not really as we're essentially in the same time zone. I do however have friends all over the globe, and it's not an issue when it's simply texting or audio messages. If it's a video or audio all, I do think about it.

Do you make international phone calls from a landline or mobile phone from Ecuador? What do you think of the cost?

From both, and the cost is almost the same for both cellular and landline, at least from my experience. And the price per minute is reasonable, I guess, but what's most important is the clarity of the calls because such is usually reserved for professional reasons.

Hello,

Social networking sites such as Facebook and Instagram is one of the best way to communicate to my loved ones while I travel to other places, especially now that I am here in Ecuador where internet connection is much faster (or at least in my location). I seldom communication with them because of the time difference. When I wake up early in the morning, I seldom have time to talk to them (thru video call) and when I go home in the afternoon, they're already asleep and vice versa. So I only get to talk to them once or twice a week. Usually, we exchange messages and can only respond to them when I have time.

I only use Facebook and Instagram to communicate to them. I just use WhatsApp when I arrived here in Ecuador since it's not really a common application in the Philippines.

There's really a sizable time difference - it's the exact opposite like when it's 7AM in the Philippines, it's 7PM here.

I don't make any international phone calls. I haven't tried doing so, and I am not aware of the cost.

Hope this helps.

Aileen

I dont call a lot.     I have family here . Thanks

On top of the usual social media communication, I use The magicJack device and its mobile app.
It works for me.

Most of the folks with smart phones here in Ecuador use WhatsApp...

I probably own the dumbest phone on the planet and daily have to resort to remedial measures... that being said...

On Kindle Fire I use IM from Facebook...

And I never fail to renew my Saldo (minutes) for my Claro  on Fridays and score free Texting messages...

I keep up with folks outside the country using IM and incountry using text.

I love using Skype for video calls, and I still have my Repulic wireless cell phone that I used in the states.
    I have a wifi only plan which is $5/ month.
   When I am at home, I can make and receive wifi calls from the states with it.
   Lastly, I use whatsapp to communicate with my ecuadorian neighbor's- they really love whatsapp in Ecuador. When I'm In The states, I can also use the whatsapp application to communicate with my friends in Ecuador.
    A lot of people use Facebook messenger too.

Its a 5 or 6 hour time difference for me to my family in UK, and for most of them ...... and all my Ecuadorian friends and family...... I use Whats App, which is included in my Claro package.  My mother in UK has no internet, nor a mobile phone, so I have an add-on to my Claro package for lo cost calls to UK numbers, I think its around $0.22 per minute, so pretty reasonable for occasional calls.
For business I tend to use Skype, even for 4 way conference calls, although internet can be a little flaky at times ........ and thunderstorms disrupt fairly regularly!!

With whatsapp, it’s important to continuously update it, and for this app I didn’t have it on automatic update. So for about a week I thought my phone was going bad because people were messaging and calling and sometimes I would hear the notification and sometimes not. 

Then I found out that audio notifications were only missing from people calling and messaging from abroad, and not my contacts in Ecuador. 

Then what do you know?

Whatsapp released an update that addressed this very issue. This was the October 21 update, and I think also the Oct 27th as well.

The lesson here is keep your apps up to date if you want smooth and consistent communication with friends and relatives.