Placing and Receiving Calls
| Placing a Call | Guidance for Domestic and International Calls | Receiving a Call | Using Sounds and Background Music | Placing a Call on Hold | Forwarding Incoming Calls |
Placing a Call
With Yahoo! Messenger’s calling features, you can place an Internet call from your PC to another PC, to a traditional phone, or to a mobile phone anywhere in the world. The PC-to-PC feature is packaged with Messenger and is free for both you and the person you call. The Phone Out feature, which allows you to call another phone, is a premium service that requires a prepaid Yahoo! Voice account (see the Signing Up for Yahoo! Voice tutorial). You’ll need a headset or a microphone and speakers to use these features. To ensure that they are set up properly, read through the setup task in the Introducing Yahoo! Messenger’s Call Features tutorial.
Tip: You can’t place PC-to-PC calls to contacts outside the Yahoo! network, such as your Windows Live™ Messenger contacts and your Pingbox™ visitors.
Important: Emergency 911 calling services are not available through Messenger’s call features. Inform others who use this product that they must dial 911 through traditional phone lines or mobiles.
Here’s How
Begin a call in one of the following ways:
With the cursor over the person’s name in your Messenger List, click the Call button for a PC-to-PC call or open the contact card and click a phone number if you have a Phone Out account and want to call a traditional phone or mobile phone.
If you’re already having a conversation with the contact, click the phone button in your conversation window or, if you have a Phone Out account, click the arrow to the right of the Call button to select another calling option.
If you’re making a Yahoo! Phone Out call, you can type the full phone number in the Contact Action Bar, then press the Enter key on your keyboard. For help with making a domestic or international call, take a look at the next task.
Tip: The first time you make a Phone Out call, a window displays asking you to select your country. If you didn’t choose your country as described in the Signing Up for Yahoo! Voice tutorial, now is the time to do it.
The call area opens in the conversation window for PC-to-PC calls and in a separate window for Phone Out calls, and Messenger places the call.
Tip: If you make a Phone Out call to a phone answered by an automated attendant asking you to enter various numbers in order to route your call—you know, "Please press 1 for more options"—click the dial pad button in the call window to open the dial pad where you can select the numbers you need.
If your contact answers your call, carry on a conversation just as if you’re both on the phone.
Your can end the call by clicking the End Call button.
What’s Next
If you find calls to another country a bit tricky, take a look at the next task for guidance on placing both domestic and international calls.
Words to Know
- Contact: a person with whom you interact; someone to whom you might want to send an email, instant message, or text message.
- Conversation: an exchange of instant messages between you and a contact.
- PC-to-PC calling: the ability to call another person’s computer from your computer; similar to placing a phone call. Both you and the person you are calling must have a Yahoo! ID and be logged into Yahoo! Messenger.
- Pingbox: an embedded box on a Web page where visitors to the page can send you instant messages and which lists visitors on your Messenger List.
- Windows Live™ Messenger: Microsoft® Windows’ free instant messaging application.
- Yahoo! Phone Out: a pre-paid Yahoo! Voice account that allows you to make calls using Messenger from your computer to any regular phone or mobile phone in over 30 countries.