mobil phone call cheapest way to phone home
 

My daughter is spending 4 months in the philippines, as a voluntary helper,could anyone tell me of cheapest way of calling home from her mobil phone ,this is to England, she has a new Pay As You go triband phone

caroltwin, I'm not familiar with the Philippines as such, but I'm sure that by far the cheapest way would be a phone card, which she should be able to buy almost anywhere and would be sold with a certain amount of prepaid credit. We use a Chi-Tel card to phone from Australia to our daughters in China and the rates are ridiculously low (the equivalent of 1-2p per minute) - the same rates I think apply to calls to UK and US. There are many, many brands, some offering better rates to particular destinations than others. The call quality isn't on par with a standard phone company connection - no such thing as a free lunch - but it's acceptable, and at that price we can certainly live with any minor shortcomings.

The idea is that you dial a local access number and follow the voice prompts to enter a card number and PIN before dialling the wanted number. If your daughter calls from her mobile she'll also be paying for mobile time at whatever local rates apply. To use her mobile at all she'll need to also buy a local SIM card with prepaid call credits, which can be topped up.

The phone card can however be used from any fixed phone, eg a payphone, which might be cheaper than using a mobile and paying by the second. That assumes that the access number will be in her local call area - if she's outside of a major city it might entail a toll call.

If all else fails she can use the SIM she buys locally to phone home on her mobile, but that's likely to be much more expensive.

I hope that all makes sense.

If you use a UK based mobile phone with international roaming it will still be expensive to call back to England and to even call a number in the Philippines.

Use a prepaid sim card from a Philippine based company and you will save a bundle and your daughter will have a new phone number as well, a Philippine number. Here's a link to a company that sell international prepaid sim card:

http://www.telestial.com/products/philippines_sim.htm

I'm in the US at the moment and I use a T - Mobile prepaid sim in my Thai phone and it's saving me a lot of money.

Telestial is a good place to <b>do research</b> about local SIM cards, but don't buy there. You pay a significant markup for basically no reason - unless you need to know the mobile phone number in advance of your trip, or if you absolutely need to use the phone between the time the plane touched down and you got into a phone store at the airport, or in the city.

I'm not sure if you're correct there Bob. I purchased a $50.00 prepaid sim plus $100.00 extra time and ended up paying, with CA tax over $160 from the local T-Mobil phone shop in Beverly Hills. If you're a foreigner visiting the Philippines it might be worth the extra expenses and get it before you arrive. Might even save on the taxi or bus fare!

just have her get a new sim card int he philapines.. the whole proces is easy and fairly cheep.. sim shops are everywhere in the philapines (manila)

just be sure her phone is unlocked. Theen any SIM will do. Also be aware that ea. SIM card has its own mibile #.

thay'll unlock it for you in the philapines for $2-$3.

Hi, just back from a trip to the Philippines where we bought inexpensive tri-band phones for convenience and to have when we returned home. I'll take the other respondent's word for it that your daughter can have her phone &quot;unlocked&quot; in the Philippines if necessary; with that, she can replace her existing SIM card with one from a Filipino company for a few dollars (sorry, pounds) and reload it as often as necessary by buying refill cards or by using &quot;auto-load,&quot; a slightly more expensive option. She can buy phone credit just about anywhere--the tiniest snack shop in the most remote town, on the ferry, etc. We used Smart brand SIM cards, which had good coverage everywhere we traveled, but she might want to ask someone at a phone shop which plan would be most appropriate for the region in which she is staying. In a couple of weeks, she'll probably be text-messaging like everybody else in the country; that can be a much cheaper way to stay in touch. Hope that helps.