Making International Cell Calls on the Cheap

If you are traveling overseas and don’t want to pay a ton of money for your cell calls, this column is for you. This week, I am in Australia speaking at a security conference and I thought I would share with you both my research and the actual results. The issue is that international roaming is expensive with your US-based cell phone.

If you want to keep in touch with family and business colleagues back home when you travel, you have the following alternatives Buy a phone calling card once you get to your destination and use it from payphones or your hotel, Don’t do anything and use your existing US phone, Use Skype (or something similar) and your computer to make VOIP calls Buy a new SIM module for your existing phone, or Buy a new SIM module and a new phone. The calling card is a decent option, depending on where you are going and what your hotel charges for both toll-free and local calls.

Some are still back in the profiteering stone ages and charge almost as much as the cell providers on a per-minute basis, even to make a local call or to connect to the calling card provider. You should know that some calling cards may not work with some pay phones, according to Dan Dern. He also reminds me that you might want to invest in a DMTF tone generator if you need to call back to a stateside answering machine – some foreign phones don’t generate the correct touch tones. You can use the Java applet on your computer here. Skype is another option, and there are various plans and you can assign local in-country numbers to the same account. You do need a computer and a headset to make calls, though, which may not work for everyone. more>>>