Texting and Email: Communicating from Saudi Arabia

People forget that Saudi Arabia is considered a newly industrialized country. It's modern and very tech savvy. So yes, internet works fine and it’s fast.

APPS TO USE TO TEXT (FOR FREE)

Texting also works – but I would have to pay extra for overseas texts….I think. I might be wrong on this, but because I had to pay extra to text from the US to Canada, I'm assuming the same rules would apply for texting from Saudi Arabia to the US.

So I’m currently experimenting with the following FREE ways to text people or send photos to friends:

1) WhatsApp

2) Facebook Messenger

3) Skype IM

4) iMessaging and FaceTime (free if your friends have an iPhone)

All of the above work, but I'm finding with some of them, you end up with some texts from "creepers" who text random women they find on Facebook, etc.  I'm still figuring out the privacy and security features to prevent this.  But can't really complain as they are free.

VOICE CALLS AND MAGIC JACK MAGIC:

Yes, I can call people, but again, it’s expensive so I’m planning to use Skype and Facebook. KAUST interviewed me through Skype and it worked fine. Some people here say they are using Vonage to call home -- so that is another option.

I ended up getting Magic Jack -- which has turned out to be amazing.  Magic Jack gives you a US number and you can call any number in the US and Canada for free from anywhere in the world.  You could access from your computer, but I used the Magic Jack App on my phone so as long as I have Wifi, I can call people whenever.

Email also works including Facebook emails. In other words, I’m not feeling deprived on how to communicate with people. It’s mostly the time change that sucks. I’m 10 hours ahead of Phoenix so when I’m up, my friends and family are sleeping.

The technology is the same as in the US, although my iPhone 4 is completely obsolete here so they are more advanced in some areas and have all the techno gadgets you could want. Once I get an iPhone 5, I’ll buy a sim card (no crazy locked-in contracts here) and I’ll be able to tell you more about the fees for texting overseas – and if it’s still free to iMessage iPhone-to-iPhone (even to people in the US), which will be good news to my fellow iPhone users and my mom who loves her iPad.

I will have a new phone number though as Verizon wouldn’t let me keep it. I'm planning to get my new number next week as I'm learning that Saudi Arabia does everything via cell phone.  In fact, I can't get a mail box or bank account without a mobile phone number as it seems the transactions are all through that.

ACCESS TO ENGLISH TV:

Yes, they have cable TV. My townhouse comes with a complimentary package that has over 300 stations from Asia, Europe and a couple US stations. There is also an additional cable package I can buy that will give me all the US stations. Those that have it say you get the shows one day after they air in the US which is pretty good. I haven’t looked into it yet as I’m not a big TV watcher.

There is also the option to purchase a US IP address for $60 a year that will give me access to US Netflix and other sites. I got PureVPN which has been pretty good.  The only limitations so far is that for some reason I can't watch videos on HULU or ABC.com. I can get Spotify, Pandora CBS, FOX and NBC. So no more Castle for me, but lots of Grimm and Blacklist.