Advice for calling US Mobile Phone?

Just don't forget that she'll be paying part of the freight as US mobile system is charged for both incoming and outgoing calls. There is no penalty however for calling a mobile number. The rate to call is the same as a fixed line.

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That's nonsense that prepaid are not common in the US. Most every operator has some sort of prepaid. T-Mobile, cingular, 7-11, Virgin Mobile, Locus Mobile, Beyond Wireless, CallPlus and others. The only GSM prepaid in the "traditioal" sense is T-Mobile, cingular.

You can pick up a prepaid package from most any of the ones mentioned above. To get a prepaid SIM you're likely to get a better deal by going to eBay than you are going to a traditional store. With the non-GSM providers you'll likely have to buy a phone from them for their service unless you can find a used phone that was on their service previously. This is also true with 7-11 though it is a GSM MVNO you cannot buy just the SIM from them. It's definitely not as convenient as it is in Europe.

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Cheapest is Beyond Wireless.

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Hi, I live in the UK and my girlfriend is going to america as part of an exchange programme for the summer.

Does the cheapest/easiest way for us to keep in contact simply involve her buying any old USA pay as you go mobile phone and then me calling her via a voice over ip service? Can anyone recommend a decent one with not too much lag? Or is there a better method than this, ie: is it cheaper to register with one of those calling card companies in the UK and call using their number? This'd be great if I could use a UK mobile phone to call her and not pay through the roof?

Thanks for your help!

Mark.

Will there be broadband access where she'll be going..? If so she could take a VoIP ATA and you could both use something like Sipgate

which would mean totally free calls. Of course you'd have to buy the ATA's but alternatively you could use a softphone such as X-Lite if PC's are available.

If you want to go the mobile route, then if she gets a US PAYG phone you can call it using either inclusive minutes on an Orange or O2 mobile via Pre-Dial, or at relatively cheap rates from Sipgate (1.5p/min) or Telestunt/Telediscount etc. from a BT/Telewest line.

Hope this helps,

Ivor

Thanks for all your advice so far guys, everyone that replied to my questions.

I do have broadband, though she won't have internet access when she's over there I don't think.

I like the idea of something like the pre-dial service, that seems pretty cheap, and I could call their access number using the free landline minutes I get with my '3' mobile contract here in the UK.

You say that prepay telephones arent that common in the US, are they available anywhere at all? She doesn't have a triband phone... She'll be working in or around the ocean city area in maryland... can she pick up a prepay mobile there do you think?

Cheers.

Sorry by this do you mean that if someone from abroad calls any native US mobile phone, even if that phone is in the US, they have to pay to /receive/ the call? Or does that go for all calls?

Thanks. Mark.

using 18866 or the like could be cheaper, depending on rates offerred by the VoIP provider for calls out to US numbers.

Prepay is far less common in th eUSA and mobiles have standard area code numbers.

Phil

All calls with a few exceptions (e.g. certain mobile to mobile calls, some off peak calls, etc.). All the exceptions are plan specific.

Stu

That's mad. I can't find anything on the 7-Eleven Speak Out site about having to pay for incoming calls, it says incoming texts but doesn't say incoming calls, can you point me to where to find out about this?

Stuart Friedman wrote:

Mark wrote: \\> Sorry by this do you mean that if someone from abroad calls any native

In the U.S., the user of a mobile phone always pays airtime whether calling or receiving a call. For people on post-pay, they generally have a fairly large bucket of included peak-time minutes per month, and many such plans include unlimited free off-peak and weekend airtime. Also, it is very common for all calls to other users of the same provider to be free at all times. These free times do not apply to pre-pay users. Furthermore, since the mobile phone user pays for incoming airtime, there is no surcharge for the caller to call a mobile phone. Mobile phone numbers in the U.S. cannot be identified by the number, and in fact, a number can be moved between a landline and mobile provider.

I see. Hmm. Okay then, well, leading up to my final questions :).. Can anyone recommend what network the cheapest Pay-as-you go mobile she could pick up would be, that would charge the least amount to receive an incoming call from Britain? Just some pointers would be cool, I know so little about US mobile companies that I just need somewhere to start. Coverage would have to be good in the Ocean City area of Maryland.

Thanks again!!

I cannot point you to the specific provision on the website, but I can tell you that in the U.S. mobile numbers are on the same area codes as landlines, that calls to mobiles are not surcharged, and that we normally pay for incoming calls on our mobile plans. Even on contract plans, the exceptions are few and far between. We have free mobile to mobile calls on many contract plans (and on a small number of prepaid plans), we have free nights and weekends, but incoming calls are come out of our bucket of minutes.

Whether the U.S. system or the European system of caller pays is a better system has been debated extensively on various groups before. I go both ways on this point and have no definitive answer.

If you will be talking a fair bit, then she should get a post-paid plan that includes a fair-sized pail of minutes.

Anything that doesn't involve mobile phones will be a lot cheaper (pretty close to free if you do it right).

miguel

Thanks...

Hmm, it looks like most of these charge around 0.10c a minute to receive calls, looks like it's pretty much standard across the board, apart from Cricket which doesn't cover Maryland...

Beginning to think it might actually be a lot cheaper to swap the odd text and leave the onus on her to call me using a cheap calling card, since that'll be far cheaper than the 10c a minute to receive an incoming call, and then me do the same if she can get access to a landline..

Thanks for everyone's help :-)

mark.

Thus spaketh Mark:

In the USA the owner of the mobile you are calling has to pay to receive your call or it comes out of some of their inclusive minutes, some networks may allow for the first 30 seconds or so of an incoming call to be free. This also means it costs the same for you to call a USA mobile as it does a USA landline. Crazy system I know, and one I am glad never took off here in Europe and elsewhere. It might not mention about paying for incoming calls on some of the websites as in the USA it is common knowledge you have to pay.

If she doesn't have US credit it's unlikely she can get a postpaid monthly plan unless she ponies up several hundered dollars deposit (if then even.)

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That's quite recent - I discovered it by accident. I had just installed my Orange SIM, to check some phone numbers (I was in the US at the time) and within seconds, a text message from a cousin in the UK arrived! If I had to rely on the Orange website, though, I'd still think PAYG Orange was unavailable in the US.