Make the Right Call
Sorting Through Your Phone Choices When Overseas

By Roy Furchgott
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, February 4, 2007

The good news is that thanks to technology, staying in touch with home while vacationing in foreign countries can be easy, and it can be free. The catch is that it can't be both.

For instance, it might be easy to use your mobile phone to call the United States from foreign locales, but you can incur massive roaming charges: We're talking up to $4.99 per minute above the regular charges. Or you can make the call for free through an Internet phone service such as Skype, but you'll need a Skype account, a broadband Internet connection, a computer and a headset.

Unfortunately, no one can decide what cost-to-convenience ratio hits your sweet spot. Fast-changing rates, special offers by phone providers and technology that arrives fresh daily means that good deals are swiftly moving targets. You'll need a good Internet connection, a sharp pencil and a calculator with fresh batteries to sort through the options.

The easiest thing to do is simply carry your phone and pay roaming charges, heavy though they may be. But there are ways to lower the cost.

The Basics

First, find out if your phone works where you are going. Different carriers use different transmission standards for their phones. Most European countries use a standard called GSM. Most Caribbean countries use CDMA. U.S. carriers may use either CDMA or GSM, but to make it more complicated, American GSM and European GSM use different frequencies.

Your best bet is to look up your phone by manufacturer and model online to find the specification sheet. It will have details about which bands your phone has, and if it's a "quad-band" or "tri-band" phone, you may be in luck -- those phones transmit on more than one frequency and will often work in other countries. Such phones are fairly common. Both Cingular and T-Mobile work on GSM, so if you are already on either service, there is a good chance your phone will work overseas.

You can also call your service provider to ask about your phone -- if you don't mind the risk of spending your evening on hold.

Congratulations, Your Phone Works Overseas

If your phone will work at your destination, see if your carrier has a discounted international calling plan. For instance, Cingular offers a World Traveler Program that charges $5.99 a month to reduce roaming fees in more than 80 foreign countries. You can add or drop the service at any time. In some cases the reductions are significant -- calls from France and Germany that normally cost $1.29 a minute drop to 99 cents. In less-developed countries, not so much. Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Kenya, for example, are $3.99 a minute on both plans.

There's no charge to sign up for T-Mobile's international roaming. The roaming rates are a comparable 99 cents to $4.99.

You should also have a look at your international roaming charges. While they can be as high as $4.99 a minute, from some countries the rate can be as low as $1.29 a minute. If you are using the phone for emergencies only, that might be okay.

A problem with using your home cellphone overseas is that you'll pay the same roaming charges to call a boite across the boulevard as you would to call across the Atlantic.

In many countries, you can greatly reduce the cost of calls without buying a new phone, provided the country uses the GSM standard (most European countries do) and your phone is an "unlocked" GSM phone.

Unlocked means you can change the SIM card (it stands for subscriber identity module) that holds the phone's number and subscription information. You can replace your U.S. card with a prepaid SIM card that gives your phone a temporary local number with a foreign carrier.

Because you can buy SIM cards with prepaid minutes, no contract is needed. Costs range vastly, but SIMs generally start at about $6.50. How long those minutes last depends on where you call.

Uh-Oh, Your Phone Doesn't Work Overseas. So Buy One.

If your phone won't work overseas, you can always buy a cheapie for short-term use.

An inexpensive (and risky) way to do that is to buy a used phone on eBay in which you can install a SIM card. Make sure it's "unlocked" and can take a foreign SIM card, and works where you're going. Buying a used phone "as is" from a stranger can be dicey, but prices can run under $20, including shipping.

Less risky is to shop for a phone when you arrive at your destination. It's generally best to skip the kiosks in airports and head for a big-box store or even street kiosks, which sell inexpensive phones and SIM cards. For example, a prepaid-minutes phone from the U.K. carrier Orange, usable throughout Europe, costs 19.99 pounds, plus 10 pounds' worth of required minutes. That's about $60; prepaid minutes are charged at different rates, depending on where you call, but vary from 20 to 50 pence (about 40 cents to $1). There are 280 Orange shops in the United Kingdom; for a store locater, go to http://www.orange.co.uk/. Or you could buy one in advance online and have it waiting at your hotel when you arrive.

Another option in London is to buy a pay-as-you-go phone from a shop that represents several providers. The Carphone Warehouse ( http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/), which has stores throughout London, offers a Sony Ericsson J100i phone with 10 pounds' of minutes with Mobile World for about 25 pounds (about $50); calls to the United States are 5 pence (about 10 cents) per minute.

If you want to have the phone before you go, you can buy one from a service such as Mobal World Phones ( http://www.mobalrental.com/), which sells phones from $49, then charges by the minute. The rate may be no lower than your roaming charge. But roaming charges on your current phone can be cheaper than a common third option, a prepaid phone card, because you are charged only for the minutes used. Prepaid cards sell minutes very cheaply, typically in $5 to $10 increments, but unused minutes often aren't refunded.

Mobal puts in the SIM card, and it's good wherever you go. The company has an arrangement with overseas providers, and it marks up services that it sells to you as a single package. In the case of a phone you buy yourself online or overseas, change SIM cards in each country to get the best rate.

Uh-Oh, Your Phone Doesn't Work Overseas. So Rent One.

If your phone won't work where you are going and you don't want to buy, there are a lots of rental options. You may be able to rent from your carrier, which has one advantage -- your rental phone will have the same number as your regular phone, your voice- mailbox doesn't need to be changed and your preferences are preserved. Verizon will rent a GSM phone for $3.99 a day. The downside is that the per-minute call fee is roughly the same as roaming minutes, not the cheapest way to make a call.

You might find a better deal with a third-party rental. For example, Cellhire ( http://www.cellhire.com/) is renting phones for about $29 a week during its current promotion (there is almost always a special promotion).

Outgoing call rates aren't terribly low (about $2 to $6 a minute from the bulk of common tourist spots to the States), but they're possibly better than your own cellphone's and almost certainly better than a hotel phone. Cellhire also offers a premium Follow Me service, which transfers calls made to your home or office phone to your rental phone without callers being able to tell (in case you want to sneak out of the office and go to Spain without anyone knowing). That service raises the rate on incoming calls -- from $1.49 to $2.78 if you're in España, for instance.

A money-saving tip: If your company has rented from Cellhire, you can get the company discount. The government rate applies to anyone who works for a city or state (such as schoolteachers) and members of the military.

There are scores of other cellphone rental companies to choose from, including Cellular Abroad (800-287-3020, http://www.cellularabroad.com/), Rent-a- Cellular ( http://www.rent-a-cellular.com/), InTouch USA (703-222-7161, http://www.intouchusa.com/) and Telestial (858-274-2686, http://www.telestial.com/).

Calling Cards

Calling cards are often cheap and require no special equipment, but you practically need a legal degree and a PhD in number theory to understand the cost per call.

Although some cards will entice you with low per-minute rates, they may boost the ultimate cost by having a "maintenance fee," which tacks on a daily, weekly or monthly charge. All cards assess taxes on each call, but some cards will charge more than the actual tax rate. The same goes for a mandated fee for calls from a pay phone. Some cards also charge a connection fee, added at the initiation of each call.

Check what increments of time the card uses to calculate charges -- meaning, how does it round up your minutes? Some charge in 30-second increments, some in three minutes or more. When you do the math, a card that charges a higher rate, but every 30 seconds, might cost less in the long run than a card with a lower rate that charges in three-minute increments.

Cards often have an expiration date, so don't be tempted to buy more minutes than you can use on your trip. Check to see if you get money back for unused minutes.

Even a card from a relatively easy-to-use one-stop shop, such as CallingCards.com ( http://www.callingcards.com/), requires a close read. While its cards are good for calls to and from any of 55 countries, you still have to pick from a variety of cards. They have subtle differences, such as having local access numbers or a single national toll-free access number. (This matters because some hotel phones, pay phones and mobile providers will block calls to national toll-free numbers.)

If you like calling cards, the easiest thing to do is just check to make sure there are no onerous charges, and if you aren't making long business calls, don't sweat the slight differences in costs. It won't amount to more than a few bucks over a week-long trip. Just buy the cards in small denominations so you'll be aware of how fast you are spending.

The VOIP of Reason

Potentially the least expensive option is VOIP (voice over Internet protocol), which carries calls over the Internet.

If you have a fast computer and a broadband connection, you can use a service such as Skype ( http://www.skype.com/), which offers free calls between registered Skype users worldwide. (It's free to register, too.) Calls to people outside the Skype network cost 2.1 cents a minute from more than 30 nations and regions (there's a list on the Web site) and up to 1.86 cents from remote places.

The catch is that you might have to pay for the Internet connection, which in a hotel can be pricey. And you have to carry a computer and headset, or a special phone, to use Skype. Equipment ranges from a free promotional headset to a $200 WiFi phone that uses Skype without the need of a computer.

There are ways to make VOIP calls that are less computer-dependent. For instance, you could use a service such as Jajah, which, like Skype, allows free calls worldwide between registered users. With Jajah, available in 85 countries, go to the Web site ( http://www.jajah.com/) and type in the recipient's number and yours. Jajah makes the connection, ringing both phones. Calls can be scheduled up to a year in advance. So you could set up sequential phone calls to a land line, and they would be free.

As with Skype, there is a small fee to call people who aren't Jajah members, which starts at 2.9 cents a minute from most developed countries to the United States but can go as high as 86.2 cents a minute from Cuba to the U.S.

Skype, Jajah and a company called iSkoot all offer software that can be downloaded to some mobile phones, allowing them to make cheap VOIP calls. Each works only on certain phones, and you'll have to check the Web sites to get a list, which changes frequently. In some cases, you'll need to have a data service subscription. Most recent GSM mobile phones can use data service, which is essentially a channel devoted to transmitting data rather than voice, but it can be a costly add-on.

Then there are companies that have combined calling cards, VOIP and mobile service into one, such as Pingo. Pingo ( http://www.pingo.com/) sells a virtual calling card. It's an account that charges like a calling card, but it simply recognizes your phone when you call through an access number and charges calling card-type rates. Pingo works in 35 countries, and calling rates range from 1.8 cents a minute between most industrialized countries to $1.81 a minute from China to remote places such as the Solomon Islands and Tokelau.

Putting It All Together

Combining several cost-saving strategies can help you reach your optimum savings-vs.-ease point. For instance, buy a used cellphone, get a low-cost SIM card, then make a local call to a VOIP-access number.

Voila! International calling for pennies above local calling.

Or better yet, have someone call you from the United States using Futurephone, a gateway number in Iowa that forwards calls to more than 50 countries (the current list can be found at http://www.futurephone.com/). Here's how it works: A friend calls 712-945-1112, then enters the international number where you are. It requires no sign-up and places no limitations on calls. If you are at a land line, it's free to you. All you have to do is answer.

It can't get any easier or cheaper than that.

Roy Furchgott writes frequently about technology. Carol Sottili contributed to this story.