Receiving international calls on a mobile – expensive?
here’s another link you can use. www.minttelecom.com . They provide very cheap international calling. It’s like using a phone card but easier and doesn’t require a pin numberThis works well if you’re going to be calling a few specific international numbers a lot. I haven’t used them yet but they look very good especially since I’m in need of such a service at the moment 😛 I think their rate to the UK is .30 cents a minute or less but I’m not 100% sure. I’m currently looking at calls to the .DO and they are about 7 cents a minute which is an awesome deal.
Just to add to things – I would suggest that you look into getting a pre-paid phone card beforehand. I’m not sure where the people stating 30-35 cents a minute are, or who they use for long distance, but I got charged ~$1/min for calls to Canada, and somewhere in the ballpark of $2/min to call the UK from our home phone. I bought a $10 Sprint pre-paid international phone card from a gas station, and that lasted for months of 20-30 minute calls to the UK on a weekly/bi-weekly basis. So, yeah, look into what your long distance carrier is going to charge you before you make any calls. Big phone bills that could have been avoided suck.
I work for a phone company, and worked for MCI in Europe. If you intend to call the UK at all regularly you need to shop around for a cheap international phone tariff. The absolute cheapest way to call is with a prepaid card from a dubious asian grocery store (insert your local cut price immigrant minority). I bought one labelled Hola Mexico in Las Vegas which was a couple of cents a minute. You friend in the UK should do the same and use the calling card from a payphone or friend’s/hotel’s landline, not the mobile. In both cases you will be able to talk for ages for peanuts. Expect well under the 20c a minute touted above, more like 3c to landlines. Use of the mobile while roaming is expensive, and a pound a minute sounds about right, but I concur with the recommendation to use SMS texting, along the lines of “text me the number of the landline where you are staying” or “call me when you get to a payphone”.
Yeah, if she’s in another country she will pay the leg from the UK–>country where she receives the call. This is likely to be expensive (generally international UK mobile calls are a massive rip-off and can be £1 per minute). As long as you’re both aware of the potential costs you (plural) can cut it short and get in touch a cheaper way if necessary.
