<p>Quick question: What is a good cell phone and potential plan to use for international calls?</p>
<p>I use cingular/AT&T. For $3.99/month I can call England for 6 cents a minute. I have read advertisements for other services that are as low as 2cents/minute, but they have a connection charge.</p>
<p>You need to give us more information - are you calling internationally from here in the US? Travelling internationally? What countries (call origin/call destination)?</p>
<p>Skype is an excellent alternative. For us (we have a home in Mexico), Skype is dramatically cheaper than using a cell phone when we are there. It is free Skype-to-Skype, and quite cheap Skype to land line in another country. It is also pay-as-you-go, instead of a set monthly charge.</p>
<p>There have been other threads on this, which you should search for more detailed information.</p>
<p>+1 for Skype and other internet-based services</p>
<p>you may want to look in to JAJAH. No special device needed. Use regular phone. I think you do need a computer with internet to initiate the call.</p>
<p>My son’s job is on a ship, he travels 'round the world on it. I don’t know what kind of phone he bought, but he got it in Singapore and purchases a different SIM card for every country he’s in. The card comes with a certain number of minutes, which includes calling the US. The phone number changes with each SIM card. He said these phones are very popular overseas, and all his coworkers have them. Then he just uses his Verizon phone when back in the US or in a US territory (such as Guam).</p>
<p>I think that Cingular/AT&T may have such a phone, I’m pretty sure Verizon does not or he would have gotten one of them.</p>
<p>I live in Asia and use my Motorola Razr phone that I bought in the US - it’s an unlocked phone so I can use whatever SIM card is local. When I am in the US for the summer I buy a prepaid SIM card from Cingular/ATT. For long distance calls using a foreign SIM card it’s usually cheapest to buy a calling card locally.<br>
My daughter does this at her university in the US - she uses the calling card with her ATT plan cell phone to call me in Asia for 2 cents a minute. (nobelcom calling card)</p>
<p>*yawn…</p>
<p>Dovetailing on the Skype idea: if your S or D plans on going abroad and plans on using a locally purchased cell phone, you may want to think of forwarding calls to that particular cell phone through Skype. For example:</p>
<p>I’m leaving for the UK in a couple of days. I want to keep in touch with my friends, and more importantly my parents, so I purchase a SkypeIn number ($18 for 3 months), a local number that my parents can dial and they can reach me by Skype. I purchase some SkypeOut credit, buy a prepaid cell phone in London, and forward calls from my Skype (when I’m not on my computer, that is…) to the cell phone. My parents would pay nothing (it’s a local call to them), and I’d only pay the $0.021 per minute through Skype and however much it is to use the cell phone. When I’m on Skype, and I call my parents (or vice-versa), I only pay the 2 cents a minute calling rate.</p>
<p>I’ve actually done this, except for the cell phone purchasing part (I have a Skypein number, but am still pondering whether or not to get a UK cell and have calls transferred there). I don’t want to hassle my parents by having them buy phone cards every so often, I don’t want them to pay exorbitant international calling fees, and SkypeIn was a solution that was easy for my parents. To them, it’s a regular phone call… I just have to do a bit of the technical legwork. (Already done). Takes all of 10 minutes. (It took longer for me to explain it). SkypeIn comes with free voicemail, so you can leave messages for your S or D and they can pick it up once they turn on the computer.</p>
<p>Sounds complicated, but actually remarkably easy.</p>
<p>so I am bumping this because D asked me to get her an international calling card.</p>
<p>She is in the states- but has made lots of friends in Ghana- who are calling her when she is asleep!</p>
<p>I have no idea how much she will be talking to them- perhaps I better start with a fixed amount card?</p>
<p>My D is in Africa for this semester. I purchased a card on callingcard.com and got excellent rates. You can set it up so you only have to put in a security code and then dial.</p>
<p>emeraldkity4 - I call abroad a lot and buy AT&T international phone cards from Sams Club. While the cards available online may appear cheaper, the AT&T international phone card offers the best reception. Also, there are zero hidden charges like bi-weekly administrative fees that can easily eat up your remaining dollars. As with most phone cards, there is a surcharge if used on a pay phone. Charge per minute will vary on the country you are calling. You can call 800-382-8672 to ask the rates of the specific countries; this is the number on the back of my phone card.</p>
<p>My daughter did the same thing as Tlaktan. I talked to her last night while she was on her cell phone in China and it was like talking to her here in the States. Her phone service is cheaper than ours is!</p>
<p>I’m still incurring a large expense by insisting on calling D through my regular AT&T international land-line service, and it’s fine, except for the fact that I’m being charged approximately 10-11cents per minute if it’s to a land-line phone but 28 cents a minute to her cell.</p>